As issues bordering on farmers/herders clashes and insecurity continue to dominate national discourse, Dr Muhtari Aminu-Kano, the Director-General of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), on Monday blamed the situation in the country on lack of forest governance.
Aminu-Kano told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on the sidelines of the World Population Day that the nation’s environmental security system had been broken, resulting in recent security crisis.
The director-general explained that the nation’s population was growing but natural resources were shrinking due to human activities.
He said the absence of rangers and other farm settlement officials had reduced forests surveillance thereby increasing risk of criminal habitation in the bushes.
He noted that the situation was leaving a vacuum for criminals to operate as bandits, terrorists and fueling farmers/herders clashes using unpoliced forest areas as hide outs.
“The root cause of our current insecurity is the environment, whether it is Boko Haram, bandits or herdsmen/farmers clashes. It is the environment and our lack of attention to it over the years.
“The drying of Lake Chad is a popular thing that people mention but desert encroachment and deforestation are other problems that have made people poor and make them easily recruited into any of these bad groups.
“There is no more government staff that knows every inch of the forest and knows when bandits or people use the forests as hideout.
“Those ones are gone now, the governments are no longer recruiting people and they are not paying salaries to some of the staff they have recruited. So these ungoverned places have been taken over by bandits and other criminals,’’ Aminu-Kano told NAN.
He explained that though certain controversial policies to end farmers/herders clashes were difficult to implement, livestock production through ranching was the best option.
Aminu-Kano said that there were more than two million herds of cattle, goats and other animals in the nation such that ranching cannot be achieved overnight but should be a long term solution.
“So, we have to have a proper plan and graduate to how to implement this livestock ranching option,’’ he said.
He said that farmers/herders clashes had existed even in America when the Cowboys clashed with farmers before the country introduced ranching. (NAN)
