By Bola
Bolawole
Governor of Ekiti
State , Ayodele Fayose,
has trod where angels would fear to tread: he has banned the medieval practice
of grazing cattle all over the place in the state. He has promised to send
draft legislation to this effect to the state House of Assembly to be passed
into law. When this is done, both cattle and herdsmen caught on the wrong side
of the law will be sanctioned. The beasts will be confiscated while the
herdsmen will cool their heels in goal.
*Gov Ayodele Fayose |
Not only is the
practice of itinerant rearing of cattle archaic, it also negates the giant
strides that Mankind has made from the Stone Age. Grazing cattle in an unruly
and unorganised manner over farmlands, destroying the means of livelihood of
law-abiding citizens and trampling their inalienable rights is an affront to
the legal order and an unwarranted assault on those at the receiving end of the
bestiality of both beast and herdsman.
All over the
country are strident cries against the callousness of the herdsmen who not only
feed their cattle on, and as a result destroy, farmlands, thereby complicating
the problem of skyrocketing prices of foodstuffs in the land; they also main,
rape, and kill innocent indigenes of the communities they traduce to the
bargain. They kidnap and torture, they demand and collect ransoms before
releasing their victims. Most times, the victims still get killed even after
ransoms have been paid.
Cattles have been
known to cause fatal accidents on the highways. The increasing wave of armed
robbery attacks in many of the rural communities has also been traced to
herdsmen who wield AK-47 in
broad daylight in flagrant violation of the laws of the land, which frown at
the proliferation of small arms. The authorities look the other way while these
atrocities are perpetrated across the country.
The latest bus stop
of the audacious bestiality of the herdsmen was Ekiti State ,
at a community called Oke-Ako in Ikole Local Government. Not less than two
residents lost their lives instantly while scores of others suffered varying
degrees of injuries and the community as a whole was sacked. Reports said it
was a reprisal or vengeance mission by the herdsmen, in that earlier; the
community had repelled a similar attack and got some of the assailants arrested
by law-enforcement agents; even though they were reportedly left to go
scot-free soon after.
As if they expected
the community to simply fold its arms and do nothing, the herdsmen returned
penultimate week to teach the Oke-Ako people “a lesson”. The community got wind
of it and alerted the security agencies but for reasons, which bother on
complicity, duplicity, and dereliction of duty, the appropriate authorities failed
to act.