Ekiti inaugurates anti-grazing marshals over herdsmen menace

Ekiti State government has reiterated its commitment to confiscating cattle found grazing after 6pm in any part of the state in accordance with the state’s anti-grazing law.

Ayo Fayose

The governor said the law passed early in the year to check the menace of rampaging herdsmen was in the interest of cattle rearers too, as their operations would be streamlined. He spoke in Ado- Ekiti Thursday while inaugurating the Ekiti Grazing Enforcement Marshals, a body charged with the responsibility of collaborating with the police and other security agencies to tackle recalcitrant armed herdsmen.

The governor, who lamented that some herdsmen still flouted the provision of the law by grazing in the night when farmers were no longer in their farms, said: “Any cattle found grazing after the time stipulated by the law will be confiscated by the government.
Such cattle will be sold or killed on the spot and shared to people as part of our Stomach Infrastructure programme.”

According to him, the marshals are not to carry arms and therefore would rely on the security agencies empowered by law to carry arms to tackle armed cattle rearers.

The governor, who demanded a stop to the menace of killing innocent people and taking away farmers’ livelihood, noted that 10,000 cattle could not compensate for the life of a human being lost to conflict between herdsmen and farmers.

It would be recalled that the governor on August 30 signed into law the Anti-Grazing Bill passed by the House of Assembly on August 29.

The governor, who said phone numbers of the marshals would be made public, cautioned them against going beyond their mandate, saying: “This is not an opportunity to intimidate innocent people.

You are to enforce the law, not to break it. ‘‘Anybody found going beyond his bounds would be dealt with accordingly.”

Secretary to the State Government, Dr Modupe Alade, said the law had helped curb incessant attacks by herdsmen on local farmers and their crops. Chairman, Hunters Association, Ikole Local Government, Mr Osasona Olukayode, who praised the initiative, recalled that it was the prompt intervention of the governor in Oke Ako-Ekiti early in the year when 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 jeopardise the lives and means of livelihood of others because he wants to rear cattle.

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