Following efforts of the federal and state governments to diversify the economy in the face of the prevailing economic recession, university lecturer, Dr. Steve Wordu, has said that the conflict between Fulani cattle herdsmen and farmers has negatively affected the economy of the country.
Wordu, who is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Port Harcourt, in a telephone interview with The Tide last Monday explained that pasturalism, which is the espect of agriculture that has to do with the movement of cattle in Nigeria plays a big role in the nation’s economy.
According to him, the practice has now led to conflict between farmers and herdsmen due to the destruction of crops by cattle.
“In Nigeria, it is leading to what we call pasturial conflict arising from the clash between farmers whose crops are destroyed by herdsmen”, he said.
He disclosed that the relationship between herdsmen and farmers had existed in the north long ago and it has been part of their agric economy.
He, however, explained that unfortunately, the criminal element of cattle rearing and the inability to manage the movement of cattle to the extent that crops are destroyed has gone out of hand.
“It is not actually the real cause of violence, except that terrorists have used these migrant herdsmen to perpetrate the evil of terrorism”, he said.
The university don called on the federal government to find a way of managing the situation, even as he proposed legislation in the National Assembly on grazing land is underway.
He emphasised that every developed country the world over now confines its animal rearing through different forms of improved agriculture.
“The animals are confined in a place and the grasses are brought to these places, and Nigeria has an abundance of grasses across the country”, he said.
Wordu advocated the setting up of grazing grounds in the north, explaining that there is abundance of land there while the south should provide the grass for their cattle instead of importing from Brazil.
“The North has enough land space so let the crazing fields be limited to the north, while the grasses can be fetched from the south and sent to them, after all, some northerners are proposing that they will import grass that is wasting in Nigeria from Brazil”, he said.
He added that a good number of Nigerians would be self employed just by fetching grasses and moving them to the north.
“Given the volatile nature of the Nigerians society for now, you cannot tell a community in Rivers State to bring out a large portion of their land for cattle to be kept while the north has enough land space”, he said.