OBIARUKU/Nigeria: The Chairman of Ukwuani Local Government Area (LGA) of Delta State, Honourable (Barr) Solomon Ajede, has said that plans were afoot to bring lasting solutions to the destructive grazing and menace of herders in the locality.
The chairman made this disclosure during a meeting with the representatives of the herders/cattle rearers, led by Nikitta and Musa Mustapha in his office at Obiaruku.
The council chairman frowned at the activities of the cattle rearers who allegedly engaged in the uprooting of cassava and other crops to feed their cattle, destruction of farmlands, raping, kidnapping and maiming of farmers in the area.
The chairman, while lamenting the fear instilled in the farmers in the area and the destruction of their crops by the herders, added that the council was working out plans to possibly relocate the cattle traders from Landforce to Obiaruku Community to continue their business in the town and not in an isolated location.
Barr Ajede also stated that he had severally appealed to the leadership of the herders/cattle traders led by Nikitta in the area to ensure that his boys were under close monitoring and control, but wondered why they had continued to do otherwise and giving frivolous excuses over the mindless acts of the cattle rearers.
According to him, “immediately I resumed office as the chairman of the council, I met with you and I gave you people simple but strict orders – ‘don’t move your cattle around town and stop indiscriminate grazing’; the reason was that our people are afraid of the untold things these herders have done and when they see you around their farms, you create undue fear in them.”
“I told you, people, to keep your cattle in a particular designated location and care for them there but no, you would not listen; instead, you even go as far as flouting the visible ‘NO GRAZING’ order of the Ebu of Umuebu, HRM (Amb) Donald Ekeruche, on his subjects’ farmlands; your cattle have been causing lots of unrest in the area and other parts of the state and you know it,” he said.
Honourable Ajede warned representatives of the herders to call their people to order to allow everybody to go about their lawful businesses without fear of harassment and assaults anywhere in the locality.
In another development, the chairman has called on Ukwuani people to always choose dialogue over protest and violence, just as he stressed that his administration was in the interest of peace and the greater good of the people of the area.
He declared that no individual or group would be allowed to act arbitrarily under any guise.
Honourable Ajede appealed to the residents of the area to desist from any planned protest to enable the council to carry out some investigations and resolve whatever issues were among the people.
