Taiwo Hassan 
The Minister of Live – stock Development, Dr. Idi Maiha, has disclosed that the farmers/herders clashes will soon be a thing of the past, with the creation of the Livestock Development Ministry in the country.
An end to the crisis, which has been fuelling insecurity around the country’s agriculture, is expected to save Nigeria’s economy a whopping $2.3 million and boost food security.
In addition, the entire $2.3 million lost to the farmersherders crisis represents 47 per cent of Nigeria’s internally generated revenue (IGR).
Maiha explained that his ministry was putting in strategy that will finally nail in the bud the insecurity from the crisis by improving their co-existence and the country’s food security.
He said: “There were times this crisis was not there in our history as a country. So it is a combination of scarce resources in the country.
You know animals have to eat; every human being has to eat too. Now, the issue here is, go and look for where you can graze your animals and water your animals, and in the process you encroach on someone’s farm in the move to graze your animals.
“There used to be a traditional conflict resolution mechanism in the olden days and that mechanism was that nobody had privilege to their homes.
If your areas have been encroached, your farm has been violated, or your crops have been eaten by animals, do not attack immediately.
“Whereas, try and report to the relevant authorities where you can lodge your complaints to get judgment. And this had worked for us as a country since the 60s and early 70s.
“So I witnessed this as a child, while growing up till this present day. Nobody dare took laws into their hands then.
That is one. “Number two, overtime, there have been issues of compromise here and there and that mechanism, traditional conflict resolution, has somehow dropped because of certain compromises here and there.
So people decided and said look, ‘if I go there to the authorities to report, I will not get justice.’ However, where sensibility can work, insensibility cannot bring solutions.
“What I mean here is this, by resorting to self help, you are just escalating the issue beyond proportion and that is what we have been witnessing in the country today.
“Everybody is now getting away with the law of impunity where the herder who grazes in the farmer’s land and the farmer will tell you, I will retaliate and there is reprisal attacks here and there and before you know it, it becomes a huge gunfire that consumes communities, destroys properties, lives and businesses.
“Otherwise, we have all lived and known the values of livestock in our entire lives. Animals need space, human beings need space so, there is no way you can run ranches without a given area.
Even if helicopter wants to land and take off, it needs a space too to land. “So, the farmer needs a space and the herder needs a space. So how do we come to agreement.
So we need that traditional conflict resolution mechanism through stakeholders’ engagements.” The Livestock Development Minister further said: “We have designed a radio programme, learning from past events, from other reports and then by different sectors of the societies.
And would you believe that by the time we mount a very intensive campaigns, sensitisation and we cannot do it by sitting in Abuja, we have to go through the state governments, local governments and the traditional system.
“We do know that and I do know that, every herder belongs to one association or the other. We have Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and others.
Through these institutionalised associations, we should be able to reach them and have stakeholder engagements with them.
“So it’s not a question of just embarking on a solution, but it’s a question of look, this is what is happening in the country, it is bringing a lot of havoc, it is bringing bad international image to us and it is something that we should be able to manage.
“So let’s understand it and build confidence. We may come out with system, but I don’t want to go into that, like compensation here and there. But I believe by the time they see empirical evidence of this being done by the Federal Government of Nigeria, people would say look, violence is not even the last resort.
“It’s not the last resort at all. The issue is that if there is a conflict, there is a conflict resolution mechanism, which ought to be ideal in the fields. With the local governments and the community leaders, we should be able to monitor this and say look, this is not the way to go about it.
This violence has led us to nowhere, rather than destruction of lives and property, loss of trust and confidence, stigmatisation, profiling e.t.c.
“We should stop that and begin to navigate. We need to have a farmer and we need to have a herder in livestock sector for prompt growth and development.
