Yobe State provides 2,500 hectares of land for Fulani herdsmen to address communal clashes problem

YOBE State government has provided the federal government with 2,500 hectares of land to establishment a grazing reserve as part of an initiative to address the ongoing menace of Fulani cattle herdsmen rampaging across the country.

Over recent years, Nigeria has been bedevilled with a huge security problem as Fulani herdsmen have repeatedly clashed with local farming communities over grazing land. Due to the fact that their livestock regularly destroy crops when grazing, this has led to bitter communal disputes, which have often left hundreds dead.

There have been repeated calls for the herdsmen to establish ranches and reserves where they graze their cattle away from farming communities. In what appears to be a heeding of this call, the Yobe State government has provi8ded land for the establishment of grazing reserves and the development of fodder banks for animal feed production.

Dr Mustapha Gaidam, the manager of the Yobe Livestock Development Programme (YSLDP), said that the land was provided in Nasari and Gumsa villages of Jakusko and Gaidam Local Government areas. He added that the YSLDP had demarcated 1,510 km of stock routes across the state in the last seven years to ease the movement of animals, thereby curbing conflicts between farmers and herdsmen.

According to Dr Gaidam, the programme has consistently engaged farmers and herdsmen in dialogue to ensure that there was no encroachment by farmers into the routes, as well as avoid grazing on farmlands. He added that the government provided boreholes with generators along the stock routes, which guaranteed the availability of water and encouraged grazers to move on the demarcated routes, thereby avoiding encroachment on farmlands.

Dr Gaidam said: “This process has yielded fruitful results across the state as we have not recorded a single conflict between farmers and herdsmen in the past seven years. Within the same period, we have also vaccinated over 5.6m herds of cattle, sheep, goat and dogs, against trans-boundary diseases."

He added that the programme would train local livestock farmers to cultivate their farms with a view to boosting the quantity of animal feed to enhance meat and dairy production. It is hoped that this development will be replicated across Nigeria as a long term solution to the incessant problem of armed clashes between herdsmen and local farming communities.