By Nkem Nwaeke
As part of plans to
displace the rife drift of nomadic cattle herdsmen insurgence that currently
tops national discourse and Delta State economic boundary by extension, the
Delta State House of Assembly, yesterday reaffirmed its commitment of securing
lives and properties through making viable laws.
The lawmakers revealed
that one of such placebo to secure the lives and properties of Deltans was
through the initiation of the bill to provide for the Control of Nomadic Cattle
Rearing in Delta State, to establish the Delta State Advisory Council on Grazing,
to repeal the Control of Movement of Animals Law 2000 and other matters
connected thereto.
The members of the
House Committee on Agriculture, led by the Chairman, Hon. Evance Ivwurie,
during a public hearing for the bill at the Labour House, Asaba, hinted that
the business of cattle herdsmen had become a nationally sensitive issue in most
contemporary times.
According to him, it
was no longer news that the issue had been a major security challenge to both
lives and property hence the State Assembly took the bull by the horn to
marshal out the robust bill to curtail the excesses.
Other members of the
committee including, Hon Rueben Izeze, Hon. Daniel Mayuku, Hon. Samuel Mariere
and Hon Emeka Nwaobi, explained that the bill does not only seek to regulate
the activities of nomadic herdsmen, but to protect the genuine herdsmen in
Delta State.
They said that the
philosophy behind the bill was basically of the doctrine of necessity,
following the wanton disregard for the lives and properties of Deltans by some
unscrupulous members of the society.
“The bill seeks to
protect host communities against the excess of vice and to cushion society
against the virus of neo-terrorism in the guise of nomadic cattle rearing,”
they added.
The public hearing
which attracted delegations from the various quarters of the state had in
attendance, a retinue of traditional rulers including, the Ovie of Oghara, HRM
Noble Eshemitan Ovie of Umiaghwa-Abraka, HRM Lucky Ararile among others.
Also in attendance were
representatives of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Muslim Lawyers
Association of Nigeria, Urhobo Progressive Union.
While many of the
delegates decried the hardship and terror unleashed on their people by herdsmen
and called on the government to effective quench the heat, others protested
that land should not be given to the herdsmen at all but should be expelled
from the state instead.
0 comments: