Open grazing threat to food security, southern govs right in banning it -ACF
Anthony Iwuoma
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) said open grazing of cattle has resulted in high cost of food and, therefore, threw its weight behind it’s ban by the southern governors.
Former Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, who is also the chairman of ACF said in a statement on Monday that: “The ACF does not see any reason to object to a decision taken in the best interest of all.
“The fact of the matter is that, the crisis emanates from the belief by most herdsmen that they are free to enter any farm, eat up the crops and rape or kill any one raising objections. Nobody or society can accept that.
“The current high price of garri is one obvious reason of this behaviour. Few cassava farms cannot grow to maturity before it is harvested by the farmers. So, food security is already being threatened.”
However, the former Minister said simply banning open grazing will not solve the crisis. He recommended the approach adopted by the Kano State government and insisted that transborder herdsmen entering the country must be stopped.
“The bulk of the violent herders are the ones marching in from neighbouring African countries in large numbers, thousands at a time and showing no regards to boundaries whether state or regional. They have to be stopped.
“Therefore the Umar Abdullahi Ganduje formula must be adopted to stop the entry into Nigeria of cattle from West Africa. The solution is for Nigeria to seek an amendment to Article 3 of the ECOWAS protocol especially as regards the free movement of cattle and other livestock without special permits.
“If this is done, we have over 5 million hectares of land in old grazing reserves left, enough to accommodate over 40 million cows if well grassed and watered,” Ogbe said.
