Stakeholders meet on solutions to farmers, herders crisis

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

The National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) has organized a two-day workshop in Zaria Kaduna State to find solutions to the lingering crisis between farmers and pastoralists in the country.
Speaking during the training yesterday, the Chairman of NCNE, Professor Tahir Gidado said the Commission as a critical stakeholder to the Federal Government’ s policy directives of finding a lasting solutions to the farmers pastoralists conflicts is working round the table to put an end to the menace.
According to him, the conflicts in Frontline states of Adamawa, Taraba,Benue, Plateau, Nasarrawa, Kaduna and Zamfara has continue to pose threat to the peace and Security of the country.
Speaking on the theme of training, ‘identification, mapping and clustering of pastoralists communities in eleven grazing reserve preparation for the implementation of ranching concepts in Nigeria’ Gidado said the training will provide practical and relevant approaches that would provide useful insight on the best way of ensuring that the ranching policy of the Federal government is successful.
“This initiative will equally ensure peace building and conflict management in order to abreast with the strategies that would enable them to effectively interface with the Pastoralists with view to broaden their understanding and accelerate the process of adaptation as well as facilitate increase access of quality and function basic education to the nomadic” he said.
In his speech, the Executive Secretary of NCNE Professor Bashir Usman said developing the grazing reserve into ranches is to provide state of the art grazing resources for livestock herders in the country He added that, the idea of having ranches is to curtail the unending Farmers Pastoralists conflicts that are posing threat to peace and Security.
“These conflicts have remained unabated and heightened of recent and have seriously impacted negatively on lives and livelihoods of the Pastoralists and farmers including the schools and other infrastructure put in place by the commission and other stakeholders in nomadic communities” he stressed