Not all herders are killers – Edo governor

 

  Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki has urged residents and farmers not to allow the activities of the bad eggs among herders to deter their farming activities as not all herders are killers.

The governor, represented by the Special Adviser on Food Security and Agriculture, Mr. Joe Okoje, said this yesterday at a symposium titled: “Sustainable Agriculture as a Panacea to Herdsmen Attack on Arable Crop Farmers in Nigeria.”
    The event was organised by the Edo State chapter of the Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Benin. “Not all herdsmen are killers. Some of them are doing genuine business. We should not allow the bad herdsmen activities scare us from our farms. In every society, you have the good, bad and ugly; and there have always been Fulani herdsmen since we were kids,” he said.

   He said his administration has stepped up plans to address the menace of herdsmen/farmers clash, adding that part of it is the banning of night grazing and carrying of arms by herdsmen in the state.
Also speaking, the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Babatunde Johson Kokumo, said there is no single case of reported illegal activities of suspected herdsmen that were not being handled by the command.

   In his presentation, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture, Ambrose Ali University Dr. Agharese Osifo, advised the federal government to establish Livestock Development Centre in place of the proposed “Cattle Colony.”