Kwara state governor , Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, on Sunday attributed the current attacks being perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen in some parts of the country to the non-inclusion of livestock agriculture in the nation’s agricultural policy by the federal government
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on Sunday to commemorate Democracy Day, the governor explained that the reported incessant herdsmen/farmers clashes should not have arisen if successive federal governments had made deliberate effort to include livestock agriculture as a revenue generator.
“To truly have solution to this issue of herdsmen/farmers’ attack, we should take retrospective view on where we are coming from. Why are people who had hitherto lived together happily now take up arms against each other? The first issue is that of economic factor.
“Man is always in a race for control of power, resource and income. That drive propels one to key into opportunities.
“The clash should not arise at all but because agriculture has never been streamlined to be driven as a major focus of revenue generation, otherwise we would have put a lot of regulatory systems in place.
“For example such platforms as farmers protection, produce protection, land management issues, strong research institutions. All these would create a situation where cattle farmers can practice their trade in a given environment where grass is grown and harvested for the cattle without moving around.
“Their children can go to school and contribute their quota to nation’s economy. These are doable things. But it has to be when right policies and orientation are in place. There should be right support and strong organisation in the sector”, he said
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