The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu says herdsmen must be stopped from roaming around freely and destroying crops across the country.
Shehu Stated this when he appeared on Channels Television‘s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, while reacting to the frequent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in the country.
“We have to stop these herders from roaming and eating up crops all over the country. They drive their cattle into farmlands and they eat up crops and the farmers fight back and the killings follow. This country cannot continue in this way,” he said.
The presidential aide blamed the roaming of the herdsmen on the drying up of grazing lands in the northern-most parts of Nigeria.
“The encroachment by desert leading to the drying up of a lot of grazing lands in the northern-most parts of the country have put pressure on the herders who are looking southwards for green grass so that their cattle will eat and also have water to drink.
“It’s a global climate change situation which is unfortunate, considering what has happened around Lake Chad basin itself drying to up about only ten per cent of its original size,” he said.
Shehu commended governors in the north-central states and said they have done well by coming together to solve the problem of grazing.
KanyiDaily recalls that a former SGF, Chief Olu Falae, says that an average herdsman ignorantly believes he owns everything in Nigeria because President Buhari is a Fulani.
