Two groups, Ekitiparapo Lagos and Ekitipanupo Forum have cautioned Governor Kayode Fayemi over the adoption of the Federal Government’s livestock transformation programme.
The groups expressed worries that the governor could contemplate donating lands to herdsmen for grazing and further increase the spate of killing and insecurity in the state.
In a statement by President Ekitiparapo Lagos Dare Ojo and Leader, Ekitipanupo Roundtable Initiative, Akinyemi Gabriel said “there are no security measures that can ever be adequately put in place to stop the killing of our people with this proposed plan.”
“It is not the absence of grazing reserve that is encouraging the menace of Fulani herdsmen; it is the allure of ransom from kidnapping which can never be realised from the sales of cattle. Let the truth be told, by making Ekiti State a grazing destination, the government has inadvertently plunged the whole of Ekiti into future crisis and insecurity. We hope that the state government will not by this act expose our people to endless and wanton destruction of lives and properties by the herdsmen.
“While we are not out to profile a particular ethnic group, the increase in the rate of killings across the state bears the same pattern since the influx of these herdsmen into Ekiti State. We must learn from the experiences of the people of Southern Kaduna. It is not too late to pull back from a future disaster by rejecting the federal government’s Livestock Transformation Programme as some states have already done. A stitch in time saves nine.”
