The leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi has today disclosed that on resumption tomorrow, the lawmakers will begin by discussing the menace of the marauding Fulani herders.
The lawmaker stated this today while speaking with journalists in his office, saying his deputy leader who is from Ondo North Senatorial District, Prof. Ajayi Boroffice, is set to throw motion concerning the menace into the floor of the hollow chamber.
He said the primary objective of every government is the provision of security to the citizenry, but that does not exclude the local politicians from finding a way out when there is a security problem.
Recall last week there was uproar when Governor Akeredolu allegedly issued a directive that Fulani herdsmen should vacate his state forest, his directive that was countered by the presidency.
President Buhari through the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, stated that the presidency was wondering why the state governor, who is a legal practitioner could unilaterally issue a quit order to a certain group of people without considering the constitution that guarantees the free movement of citizen and their right to be in any part of the country.
However, the lawmaker revealed that instead of involving themselves in the saga, the presidency should have given more free hands to traditional and political leaders to forge peace between the aggrieved parties.
In his statement it partly reads, “This is a kind of crisis that is tending towards governance trajectory where some political actors and ethnic entrepreneurs are coming into the process and spoiling the waters.
According to him, the herder/farmer crises is perennial issues that have been handled amicably prior to the communities coming on each other’s throat for political reason.
He added “These are issues that should be resolved at the local level either through dialogue or give and take.
The lawmaker explained that “They are people that had lived together; they should come together and engage in a dialogue.
“The Federal Government is too distant to resolve every communal dispute everywhere. The inter-communal dispute should be resolved by the people in the area.
“They should be resolved by political leaders at the level of the National Assembly, at the level of the governors, local government councilors to sit down with their people so that a lot of these issues can be articulated and addressed by the local population.
“This is what the governors at their levels should do not to always run to the presidency, to solve one dispute here and there how many arms does the Federal Government have?
“This is a federation and we are all politically responsible leaders. At the various levels where they are they should sit down and talk to one another on this dispute.
“I can assure you that in no distant time these inter-communal conflagrations would be resolved. I think the way it may be resolved is in the interest of this country’s unity and integrity.
“There would be hopefully tomorrow (Tuesday) or Wednesday a general motion will be sponsored by the Deputy Senate Leader Ajayi Boroffice; he will come with a motion on the issue on the floor of the Senate tomorrow.”