Herdsmen/farmers clash: Catholic Church predicts food scarcity

The Catholic church in Nigeria has predicted that the country might experience food scarcity due to the continuous clashes between farmers and herders.

Parish priest St. Luke’s Catholic Church Kubwa, Abuja, Rev. Fr. Innocent Jooji stated that with the continuous clash, farmers are unable to go to farm for fear of AK 47 wielding herdsmen.

Rev. Fr. Jooji further lamented that the government is not being proactive enough in handling insecurity in the country which has continuously led to the loss of hundreds of lives.

Speaking at a round table discussion organized by the Catholic laity council of Nigeria, themed, ‘Nigeria, citizenship rights and responsibility’.

Fr. Jooji stated that it is unfortunate that the Nigerian military which had made a name for themselves through peace keeping all over Africa are unable to put a handle on Nigerian’s security crises.

His words, “It is a very unfortunate situation because for example the governor of Benue state said, that when this started he got the President and services chiefs informed but I think government is, was and is not proactive about it, is very casual about it. The herdsmen/farmers conflict has been there but not at this magnitude, they have become very violent and Mr President said of recent that the herdsmen that we grew up to know carrying matchets and sticks to cut down grasses for their cattle but now they carry AK 47, maybe it’s because our boarders are porous and people are smuggling in arms if they are not manned properly and this will continue.

“We talk about food security, we are going to face food insecurity because this is farming season and these crises have no end, farmers cannot go about their business freely and the herders cannot go freely either, government has the capacity to handle this because if the Nigerian military started participating in peace keeping before independence, post-independence and presently and the military is not able to cope with this, it means there are bigger people behind it because an ordinary hersdman or farmer will not be able to buy these weapons.

“It could be that they have their sponsors and it is within the capacity of government to identify this people, within or outside the country because the level of insecurity presently is very high. It was this week that a mosque in Mubi was bombed with a lot of fatalities, if you go to places of worship, offices, market you cannot go freely so if the government cannot put a lid on this, in my own conviction, I am not asking anyone to agree with me, it appears that the government is giving them a subtle blessing and they have politicized the herders/farmers conflict and this is an election year so it is not an usual occurrence, maybe they want to destabilize potential voters they feel may not vote a particular candidate, otherwise we are in recession but when it comes to the accusation of arms and violence, there is no recession, what a contradiction.”

Chief organizer of the program and President Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria, Sir AK Peters explained that the event was organized in furtherance to the discussion of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria 2017.

He said, “This is a round table discussion on the topic, ‘Nigeria, citizenship rights and responsibility’ organized by the Catholic laity council of Nigeria , Catholic arch diocese of Abuja, Saint Lukes parish, Kubwa.

“This is the national topic, given to us for discussion to see how we can advance the purpose of the topic in furtherance to the discussion of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria 2017.”

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