Some communities in the Kwara South senatorial district of Kwara State have raised the alarm over influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) into their communities.
A sociocultural organization of indigenes of seven local government areas in the district, the Kwara South Advancement Agenda (KSAA) called the attention of government to the development while speaking to journalists in Ilorin.
The chairman of the group, Mr. Opeyemi Olabanji, said that displaced persons always trooped to their communities each time there was a crisis in the adjoining states of Ekiti, Benue, Osun etc.
The organization, which proposed the conversion of some of the existing national Parks and Game Reserves to Livestock Parks, said that about three per cent of the entire Nigerian land mass is currently utilized as either National Parks or reserves, a luxury he felt Nigeria could no longer afford to retain especially in the face of the current threats to peace and tranquility.
“The present peace we are enjoying in the Kwara South Communities is not by accident but due to the ingenuity of our traditional rulers.
“The situation is such that if people who had fought in a place suddenly meet themselves in another place, the tendency to re-new their hostilities is very high. This is what we don’t want to happen that is making us to look inward and proffer the needed solution to it”, he said.
Olabanji said his people have designed a frame work that could serve as a permanent solution to the frequent clashes between the farmers and the herdsmen.
According to him, since many states are refusing the Federal Government’s propositions of establishment of cattle colonies, the Federal Government should convert at least one or two of the nation’s National Parks into livestock park.
Already, a proposal has been packaged for submission in the coming days to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Mr Boss Mustapha.
He said, the development should start with the amendments of the National Park Service Acts to suit the proposition and make same acceptable to majority of Nigerians.
He added that Nigeria needs both the herdsmen and farmers for economic growth.