Group Backs Defence Chief On End To Open Grazing

National Security and Development Group has backed the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, successful his telephone for an extremity to unfastened grazing successful the country.

The radical warns that continued soundlessness connected the substance would worsen insecurity and nutrient scarcity.

Addressing a property league successful Abuja yesterday, the group’s secretary, Chuks Oyema, said the menace of unfastened grazing had caused untold losses to farmers, destroyed livelihoods, and triggered convulsive clashes that claimed thousands of lives crossed Nigeria.

“How agelong volition we shy distant from saying the evident truth?” Oyema asked. “History volition retrieve Gen. Musa for his sincerity connected this issue. As a seasoned and tested General, helium is champion positioned to proffer solutions to the crisis.”

The radical cited respective reports and statistic to backmost its case, noting that astatine slightest 2,800 lives had been mislaid to conflicts linked to unfastened grazing successful the past 5 years, contempt the enactment of anti-open grazing laws successful 19 states.

According to Nextier’s Violent Conflict Database, betwixt 2020 and 2024 alone, determination were 359 incidents tied to unfastened grazing, with 2,349 radical killed. In 2024, 61 specified incidents led to 467 casualties.

Similarly, the International Crisis Group reported that implicit 1,300 Nigerians died successful 2018 from unit connected to unfastened grazing.

The radical besides recalled that successful 2021, bluish governors described unfastened grazing arsenic obsolete and demanded its abolition, portion the Alliance connected Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB) warned that the state could lone tackle insecurity by adopting ranching.

Other stakeholders person precocious joined the call. Senator Mohammed Sani Musa, representing Niger East, and Governor Umaru Bago of Niger State, person some urged herders to clasp ranching. Likewise, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Olufemi Oluyede, asked the National Assembly to walk a instrumentality banning unfastened grazing, describing it arsenic a cardinal measurement successful addressing kidnappings and convulsive attacks attributed to herdsmen.

Oyema said the situation had besides gravely affected nutrient security, arsenic galore farmers abandoned their farms owed to repeated losses. This led to higher unemployment successful the agriculture assemblage and worsening hunger crossed the country.