By Alex Enumah in Abuja
Stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called on the federal government to begin to treat killer herdsmen like Boko Haram insurgents if the current efforts aimed at achieving food security in the country must be realised.
The stakeholders also advised the federal government to set up a committee that would study and proffer permanent solution to the now frequent clashes between farmers and herdsmen which they say is not only threatening the country’s ability to meet the food demand of its citizenry but having adverse effect on efforts to reposition agriculture as a major revenue generation and alternative to oil.
The stakeholders drawn from representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, National Assembly, Seed Entrepreneurs Development Association of Nigeria SEEDAN, Fertilizer Producers Association of Nigeria FEPSAN, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa AGRA and others made the call at a media briefing and public sensitisation on agriculture-related bills and allied instrument held in Abuja.
According to Professor Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN) of the Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George and Partners, co-convener of the meeting, it is high time the federal government takes seriously the menace of killer headsmen and keeps hope alive in the agricultural sector.
“We call on the federal government to urgently address this issue of farmers and herdsmen clashes. The government should investigate to know if there are criminal elements that have infiltrated the herdsmen and deal with them the same way it did to Boko Haram insurgents.
“Government should also set up a committee to study the situation; find out if the killers are genuine herdsmen and come out with effective mechanism of resolving the issue,†he said.
George added that government must first make genuine effort in tackling issues of insecurity occasioned by Boko Haram insurgency and that of the farmers/herdsmen clashes in order to provide food security for the populace.
While commending the federal government and stakeholders in the sector for current efforts at making agriculture an alternative to oil, Akinseye-George however harped on the imperative of an effective regulatory framework to tackle various irregularities that may hinder the growth and development of agriculture in Nigeria.
To this end, he called on the National Assembly to expedite action on various bills on enhancing the sector which he said are currently at different stages in the National Assembly. The bills according to him are; the National Fertilizer Quality Control Bill, the National Agricultural Seed Council Bill and the National Agricultural Inputs Monitoring Committee.
“We are moving from oil to other areas and agriculture seems to be the major shift now, so we should do everything to ensure it succeedsâ€, he said.
He said when the laws are passed, it would eradicate sharp practices responsible for low quality as well as poor harvest usually experienced by majority of Nigerian farmers.
Akinseye-George also called for the support of an institutional framework for the stabilisation of price for commodity markets, lamenting that since the disbanding of the various marketing Boards by the federal government in the seventies, nothing has been done to replace them.
“We urge all Nigerians to show interest and support the passage of this bills and the development of stable pricing for commodity markets as a way of boosting agricultural productivity. They will go a long way in repositioning the agricultural sector as the most reliable engine of diversified Nigerian economy post oilâ€, he said.
