BREAKING: President Tinubu Urged To Declare Armed Herders Terrorists

President Tinubu has been urged to declare armed herders terrorists.

 

NewsOnline Nigeria reports that President Ahmed Bola Tinubu has been charged to declare armed herders as terrorists to enable the application of full force by relevant authorities in combating them.

 

The call was made by the Chairman of Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State, Dr Eric Odo, on Monday. He spoke at a two-day Institutional Strengthening and Agenda Setting Meeting with Enugu LGA chairmen organised by Actionaid Nigeria in collaboration with the South-Saharan Social Development Organisation (SSDO).

 

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He urged President Tinubu to summon “the political courage and declare them terrorists the same way the federal government did to other violent groups”.

 

Quoting him, “Everybody talks about food insufficiency and unavailability. All these things stem from the security that we are witnessing around our places.

 

“I want to use this opportunity to call on the service chiefs, the National Security Adviser (NSA), and those advising Mr President that the time has come for him to declare the armed herders in this country a terrorist organisation.

 

“We talk about herders who roam about the streets and bushes, terrorising people, destroying property, cutting people’s farms, and the rest of them. We felt that if this category of people can be properly classified and given a name that they truly deserve, the whole security comes after them.”

He said their categorisation as a terrorist group would reduce the problems of insecurity in the country “because that is the only time the police, the army, the civil defence and the custom will all fight them the way terrorists should be fought”.

 

According to the council boss, the time had come for politicians to fight against the armed herders and other criminal elements in the country.

 

A security expert, Mr Uche Okanume, at the event, urged the council chairmen to work closely with the Neighbourhood Watch and Forest Guards to provide adequate security to the people.

 

He said the inability of the police and the military to respond to emergency security situations had made it essential for Neighbourhood Watch and Forest Guards to bridge the gap.

 

He lamented that many markets in Isi-Uzo, Uzo-Uwani, and some parts of Udenu LGAs in Enugu State had shut down because of insecurity, and called on the state government to halt the ugly the trend.