Paul Osuyi, Asaba
As part of interim measures to check the frequent clashes between herdsmen and crop farmers across communities in Delta State, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, on Tuesday, charged council chairmen to set up security task force in their respective councils.
Such task force, according to Okowa, will comprise representatives of the traditional institution, security agencies, religious bodies, farmers, youth groups and the Miyetti Allah.
The governor, who handed down the charge, in Asaba, during a stakeholders’ meeting, told the state’s chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON), Mr. Malik Ikpokpo, to give him positive feedback within one week.
In the words of the governor, “In the next one week, we need to have an interventionist committee on security in all the local government areas of the state while we await a definite policy direction from the Federal Government.
“Chairmen of the local government areas must ensure that names of members of the committee gets to the office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) who is the Chairman of the Central Coordinating Committee and ensure that minutes of their inaugural meetings are also, sent to the SSG,” the governor said.
Noting that it was wrong for anybody to hide under the guise of herdsmen to perpetuate crime in the state, he used the the occasion to insist that the state has no land for cattle colonies, lamenting that some farmers in the state are now going to neighbouring Edo State because of lack of land in Delta.
He decried what he described as the inability of the federal government to disarm armed herdsmen who perpetuate crimes and other vices, and called on the Federal Government to come up with a clear cut policy direction on this issue.