By Adeola Ogunlade
The Accountability, Candour and Transparency (ACT) Network, a civil society group, has advised the federal government to adopt creative strategy to end open grazing through wide ranging consultations and engagements across the key stakeholders in the country
This was stated in a statement issued yesterday by Rules and Ethics Director Of ACT Network, Ositheame Agiode in Lagos said that there is a need to adopt creative solutions to the issue of nomadic livestock breeding, craft policies and regulations to guide the establishment of commercial ranches across the country and also enact state laws prohibiting open grazing with a one-year moratorium
Agiode said after the moratorium, open grazing must be totally eradicated across the country. This solution requires will power as well as wide ranging consultations and engagements across the key stakeholders but may be the only way to go.
He group said Nigeria is facing an unprecedented national security crisis as a result of the herder-farmer crisis, which requires urgent solutions before it escalates further.
He said the abduction of over 1,157 students; 19,000 killed in herder/farmers clashes and Boko Haram terrorists claiming 36,000 lives in two decades”.
“To add to this hydra-headed problem, the government has seemed powerless to rein in influential religious leaders who provide a veneer of legitimacy to bandits.”
Agiode added “down below in the Gulf of Guinea, an unspoken war is waged by pirates. Meanwhile, the intercity roads across the nation have become a nest for kidnappers to the extent that only the brave or the suicidal dares them.
“There is a need for a renewed focus on the problems of global warming and desertification and education be given the attention it requires, unlike the current “charade that exposes students to kidnappings while government officials’ children school abroad”;
“Beyond the internal, there is a need to pay attention to our immediate international neighborhood and the happenings there for our security. It is not enough to maintain an external affairs ministry and intelligence services whilst paying no attention to the criminality in the Gulf of Guinea or the disorder and anarchy around us particularly to the North of our border.
Agiode continued: over and above all of this, this crisis draws attention to the importance of good governance and our failures over the years to master its proper art. We strongly urge our governments at all levels to URGENTLY look at these proposed solutions and take the actions needed to save the country from avoidable calamity.”