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Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose, has inaugurated the Ekiti Grazing Enforcement Marshals with a warning that cattle found being grazed after 6pm would be confiscated and such cattle sold or killed on the spot and shared to people as part of the Stomach Infrastructure programme of the government.
He also said the state government would collaborate with the police and other security agencies to tackle recalcitrant armed herdsmen, saying since marshals are not to carry arms and therefore would rely on agencies empowered by law to carry arms to tackle armed cattle rearers.
The governor, who said there must be a stop to the killing of innocent people and destruction of their means of livelihood, noted that 10,000 cattle could not compensate for the life of human being lost to conflict between herdsmen and local farmers.
While frowning at cattle rustling by some people, Fayose added that the law was in the interest of cattle rearers too, as their operations would be streamlined.
”We have a right to life and to survive and holding things for our survival especially peasant farmers, whose means of livelihood are taken away by cattle feeding on their crops. If the gains of peasant farmers are taken away in a jiffy, that is condemnable. We will bring to permanent end, the situation whereby some people take away the means of livelihood of others.
The Anti-Grazing Bill was passed by the House of Assembly on August 29, 2016 while the bill was signed into law by the governor on August 30.
Fayose said, “This is not an opportunity to harass or intimidate innocent people. You are to enforce the law and not to break it. Anybody found going beyond his bounds would be dealt with accordingly,” he stressed.
In her opening remarks, the Secretary to the State Government, Dr Mrs Modupe Alade, said the law had helped in curbing incessant attacks on local farmers by herdsmen and feasting on crops by cattle.
The Chairman, Hunters Association, Ikole Local Government, Mr Osasona Joseph Olukayode, commended Fayose for the initiative.
He recalled that it was the prompt intervention of the governor in Oke Ako-Ekiti early in the year when some armed herdsmen attacked the people that sent a strong signal to lawbreakers to stay away from the state.
He noted that it was inhuman for anybody to jeopardize the lives and means of livelihood of others because he wants to rear cattle.