Herdsmen, farmers’ Crisis: Ekweremadu Seeks Mutual Cooperation

The Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has called for a better understanding between herdsmen and farmers.

He said such would ensure adequate protection of lives and properties of both.

According to him, an engagement between both sides was necessary to ensure that neither side became a threat to the other in the course of carrying out their activities.

‎Senator Ekweremadu spoke on Sunday while inspecting construction work on the Imuno bridge in Amakofa community in Aninri LG, Enugu State. ‎

This was in response to complaints by farmers over the destruction of their farms by cows.

“I also want to appeal to our herdsmen to ensure that in the process of grazing their cows, they avoid peoples farms because as you can see here, there are cows there and you can also see peoples farms and the tendency is that these cows will now feed on the farmers crops and that is one of the things that trigger crisis.

“It is important that they are made to understand that just as they are entitled to their cows, the farmers are also entitled to their farms and the products therein and so none should be a threat to the other.

“I hope that what we are seeing here will not be a source of concern within this community. There should be a way of engaging the herdsmen to ensure that they don’t graze on peoples farms and then for the villagers to also ensure that the herdsmen are not harassed unduly.

“There is need for everybody to live peacefully with one another if we must progress as a nation,” he said.

Senator Ekweremadu, who is on an inspection tour of projects he had attracted to as well as those he was personally doing in Enugu west senatorial zone, underlined the importance of rural access roads which he said would facilitate the agricultrural expansion scheme of both the state and federal governments.

“The federal government and indeed, the state government are minded to begin to improve our revenue base and expand our economy and one of the areas of the expansion is the agricultural sector.

“Our contribution to this is to open up the hinter land for access to our farms and this bridge will open up access to the vast farmland around here for our farmers to do more expansive farming on a commercial level.

“We have a host of such other projects including rural access roads nearing completion that will help to open up new economic corridors for our people and this will only be possible in an atmosphere of peace as we currently enjoy in the state,” he said.