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The association’s secretary said two million cows have also been lost to criminals who have not been brought to justice.
The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore has claimed that an estimated 5,000 cattle herders have been killed in several states in Nigeria in an ongoing crisis of conflicts between nomadic herders and local farming communities.
Open grazing has been publicly condemned and blamed as the reason why cattle herders clash with local farming communities over the control of lands, with such clashes leading to the death of hundreds over many years, most of them blamed on killer herdsmen.
While speaking during an interview with Nigerian Tribune, Kautal Hore’s Secretary-General, Saleh Alhassan , lamented that enough has not been reported about the murder of herdsmen.
According to him, cattle herders have been brutally killed, with at least two million cows lost without any consequences for the perpetrators.
He said, “We have lost estimated two million cows since this crisis started in Plateau and Taraba states, in Southern Kaduna and in parts of Kogi and Niger states. We have equally been victims in Zamfara and a few other states in the North.
“For instance, 800 of our people were killed by a militia group in Mambilla Plateau. We also suffered the killing of 97 of our people by Bachama militias in Numan, Adamawa State. In Southern Kaduna, to be specific, in Kajuru, we lost 103 members.
“So far, 5,000 of our people have lost their lives in the last 10 years, since this crisis erupted. The most painful thing is that nobody has been put on trial. Nobody has been charged.
“In Southern Kaduna, for instance, in 2011, 400 of our people were murdered and nothing was done to the people who perpetrated this dastardly act. Today, the killers are walking on the streets as free citizens. Nobody was arrested or prosecuted.”
Speaking on the federal government’s National Livestock Transformation Plan, a N179 billion 10-year initiative targeted at putting an end to the agelong herders-farmers crisis, Alhassan said the association supports “any policy that will bring succour to our people.” He further urged the government to revive the 131 grazing reserves as promised.
-Sunnews
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