THE Southern Senators’ Forum has backed steps taken by state governors from the region to stem the rise in insecurity.
The forum made this known in a joint press statement yesterday by its Chairman, Secretary General, and Publicity Secretary, Senators Opeyemi Bamidele (APC-Ekiti), Matthew Uroghide (PDP-Edo) and Chukwuka Utazi (PDP-Enugu).
According to the lawmakers, the governors’ position on open grazing would check those hiding under cattle grazing to unleash the terror of kidnapping and killing on the residents of the region.
Recall that the governors at a meeting in Asaba, on Tuesday, unanimously passed a verdict prohibiting open grazing in the region among other positions.
The senators said the step would help secure the region and return it to the path of peace.
They lamented how farmers in the region were losing millions of naira to the plundering of food crops through encroachments on farmlands thereby exposing the region to famine and acute food scarcity.
“At this critical point of our national life when the economy is being bedevilled by galloping inflation, youth unemployment and insecurity, food security is very crucial to mitigate the effects of these diverse evils on the citizens.
“Available records have shown that attaining food security status would remain a mirage in the South owing to ravaging effect of outdated livestock grazing policy being unleashed on farmlands by some unscrupulous herders.
“Most appalling is the seemingly unabated kidnapping, raping and killing of our people by suspected herdsmen, who have become bandits heating up the system.
“With this uniform resolve by our governors to initiate no-open grazing policy, the region will return to its peaceful and agriculturally self -sufficient status it had assumed even long before Nigeria’s amalgamation in 1914,” they said.
