To regulate incessant cases of farmer-herder conflicts and the attendant loss of lives and properties in the country, there is need for the enactment of appropriate states and federal legislative frameworks and strategies.
This is the position of the Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
He also stressed the need for effective and strategic communications of government policies on this and other national issues in order to ensure that the right messaging reach the citizenry and safe the country from avoidable crises.
Delivering a paper titled “Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Nigeria: Implications for National Security” at the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) Executive Management Course in Abuja on Thursday, Governor Fayemi stated that the scale of the challenge required that government moved to unpack what had become a major threat to peaceful coexistence and food security in the country.
He noted that fatalities recorded from the farmer-herder clashes outnumbered those of the devastating insurgency in the North East and had led to the loss of more lives in Nigeria than in the rest of West Africa.
Fayemi who advocated for state and federal laws that would foster peaceful coexistence in spite of the nation’s diversity stated that such legislations on regulating the conduct of farmers and herders must have a human face and must help in harnessing the country’s economic and socio-cultural potentials.
That, he said, was also in addition to ensuring that law breakers did not escape punishment.
He added that political leaders must ensure that socio-cultural and political sensitivities were borne in mind while communicating policies with the citizenry in order to avoid the risk of leaving those policies to faulty interpretations and susceptible to politicization.
Dr. Fayemi at the lecture which was attended by participants drawn from the security and para-military agencies attending the Executive Intelligence Management Course at the institute, posited that beyond Nigeria, farmers-herders conflict had become a threat to sub-regional and continental peace and stability, in terms of devastating effects including loss of lives, livelihoods and impact on the economy.
Other devastating effects, according to him included banditry, cattle rustling, proliferation of small arms and light weapons as well as extreme violence.
He however said political leaders and policy makers had not done well in putting across the right messaging on the herder-farmer crisis.
He said: “As political and policymakers, we must be humble enough to admit that the messaging around the farmer-herder crisis, in terms of being mindful of sensitivities and the use of polarizing terminologies and concepts leaves room for improvement.
“From the evolution of the discourse on major issues such as the Anti-grazing laws which have been passed into law in Ekiti, Benue and Taraba states, to colonies, the Ruga settlement phenomenon, the ranhing options, we have not done enough to properly manage the various narratives or interpretations that emerged from this problem. Had government at all levels accorded due priority to the right messaging and perceptions in these sensitive issues, the often useful ideas proposed to resolve the problems would not have been subjected to blatant misinterpretation and politicization.”
