The Benue State Security Council has handed a 14-day ultimatum to herders violating the state’s anti-open grazing law to stop rearing their animals outside ranches or have themselves to be blamed.
Our correspondent reports that the security council meeting which was chaired by Governor Hyacinth Alia resolved that herders must comply with the state’s Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Law (2017), insisting that the law is still in force.
Addressing journalists at the Government House in Makurdi on Tuesday night, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Sir Tersoo Kula, said the council also constituted a seven-man committee to ensure the enforcement of the ultimatum given to the violators which began on Wednesday, February 21st, 2024.
The council further called on herders who recently flooded the state with their cattle grazing openly to immediately leave the state and return to where they came from, warning those who invited them to immediately desist from the act.
Meanwhile, the council urged people of the state to remain calm and be security conscious as the state government is making efforts to secure the lives and property of all citizens.
The security council, therefore, tasked security agencies, traditional rulers and the general public to report for prosecution any person in the habit of collaborating and inviting the armed herders into the state.
The council added that the hardship and looming food insecurity across the nation was being looked into and urged the people of Benue State to remain calm as efforts are being put in place by the government to address the challenge.
Benue State is one of the north central states in Nigeria that has been ravaged by herders/farmers crisis for over a decade now, with the promulgation and implementation of the anti-open grazing law exacerbating the crisis.
