THE DANGEROUS ACT OF THE FULANI HERDSMEN IN THE NORTH CENTRAL REGION OF NIGERIA, WEST AFRICA
Communal and ethnic dispute have been on the increase in recent time. And this have resulted into underdevelopment of most part of the region. This part of the country have been witnessing various attacks from the Fulani Herdsmen. North central part of Nigeria consist of Benue State, Niger State, Nasarawa State, Kogi State, Taraba State and Kwara State. The inhabitants of this region are mostly farmers and are one of the major producer of food consumed by the citizens of the country. Benue in particular are called the food basket of the nation due to the quantity of food the state produce.
On the other hand, the Fulani are one of the over Two Hundred and Fifty tribes in the country whose major occupation is cattle rearing. The genesis of this latest conflict is that in the process of their cattle grazing, they encroach into the farmland of the indigenes and in the process destroy their crops and in an attempt to caution them crisis do erupt which do eventually leads to killings of the farmers. And there have been cries from different angles on the needs to curb this act and bring to justice those behind these wicked act so as to bring sanity to the region especially Benue State the state to have suffer most in the hand of the Herdsmen but all to no avail.
But on January 30, 2018 another tribe from the region the Tiv militias who are from the neighbouring state of Nasarawa were said to have attacked the Fulani Heardsmen killing Seventy Three (73) Cows and kidnapped Two people.
I think the time is now for all stakeholders to come out and address this issue before it get out of hand and escalate to something similar to the case of the dreaded group Boko Haram.
