Herdsmen menace: Enugu monarch seeks ban on grazing

Igwe Ude who was testifying before the Commission of Inquiry set up to find out the immediate and remote causes of the mayhem at Uzo-Uwani and other communities in the state, opined that asking for compensation will not work but for the herdsmen to stop their activities forthwith in the state.

In the alternative, the royal father suggested that the herdsmen, who have been causing havoc in communities in the state, should relocate to their home states.

“In view of the devastation by the herdsmen in different parts of Enugu State including loss of lives and property, kidnapping, raping, damage to farm crops, fear and insecurity, the Enugu State Government should ban with immediate effect the movement and grazing of cattle in any part of the state,” he points adding that cattle like other livestock should be conveyed in vehicles and not to be allowed to move about.

Also testifying at the panel, the traditional ruler of Alum Inyi, Oji River Local Government Area, Igwe Cletus Umezurumba lamented that the herdsmen have forced his people who are predominantly farmers from going to their farms.

According to him, “Our people for the past six years had almost stopped going to farm Agu Alum arising from their experience of the seemingly deliberate destruction of their crops by the cattle of the Fulani herdsmen,” he laments.

Owing to the devastating effect of the activities of the herdsmen, Igwe Umezurumba suggested that the Fulani herdsmen should hence be purchasing grazing land from willing communities where they will confine their cattle to a particular location.

He also suggested that a law should be enacted to prohibit herdsmen from carrying dangerous weapons such as firearms and pointed out that movement of cattle at night should be prohibited.

In his own submission, the traditional ruler of Ekwegbe Community in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area, His Royal Highness Igwe Nathaniel Ezeani, suggested that security agencies in the state should be mobilised to disarm the herdsmen to curtail the incessant shootings going on in his community at night.

Ezeani said that the herdsmen have turned his community to a shooting range and a kidnapping haven and suggested that government should set up a school or a company in the area to preclude the activities of the herdsmen who are no longer welcome sojourners.

“As Ekwegbe Community has become a save haven for the Fulani herdsmen because of the vast arable land, may your Commission find favour on our land and direct government into it for the purposes of either establishing a school of Agriculture or an industry of high repute to reduce the attractiveness of the vast grazing field,” the Igwe pleads.

Igwe Cletus Okwor of Eha-Azuabor, suggested that the solution to Fulani herdsmen menace is to provide ranches and not grazing reserves because his community does not have enough land to accommodate farming and grazing at the same time.

He pointed out that his people are now living in fear and the best alternative is for the herdsmen to relocate from their land.