The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Tuesday ruled out the possibility that the rampaging herdsmen killing villagers and sacking communities across the country are Nigerians.
This is coming weeks after the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, disclosed that there is no evidence to prove that the herdsmen wrecking havoc and killing farmers and villagers across the country are foreigners.
The NIS Public Relations Officer, Ekpedeme King had last month explained that: “There is no evidence that the herdsmen are foreigners and the immigration service doesn’t profile immigrants based on their ethnicity. So, the NIS cannot say whether the herdsmen are Nigerians or not because nobody has produced them for us to profile them.”
But speaking at a Public Hearing organised at the National Assembly to look into the raids, the Minister of state for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri stated that the herdsmen labeled in the media as Nigerian Fulanis, are not, as none of the ones arrested was able to speak any of the Nigerian languages.
His words, “Available statistics to us in government show that contrary to media report that these violent herdsmen are the conventional Nigerian Fulanis, they are not, as none of those apprehended was able to speak any of the Nigerian languages, giving strong credence to the possibility of the violent herdsmen to be another form of terrorists in the mode of Boko Haram.
“The problem is not Nigerian but regional, more so when the Nigerian Fulani man has always been known to be a peace loving person.”
The minister, who spoke at a joint Public Hearing organized by the National Assembly committees on Agriculture, Rural Development and National Security and Intelligence on incessant violent clashes between Herdsmen and farming communities, also disclosed that the government has settled for creation of ranches as against grazing reserves across the country as a means to solve the violence against communities.
He stated that no fewer than 9 states across the federation had given 5,000 hectares of land each, to the federal government for the establishment of the ranches, assuring that the ranches when created by the federal government across the country would end the incessant clashes between the modern day herdsmen and farming communities.
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