Herdsmen Destroy Ex-Naval chief’s Farms Worth N200m

A Fulani herdsman

Following the fresh attack launched by herdsmen in Benue State where five people died, a former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Samuel Afolayan, said on Wednesday that herdsmen had destroyed about 45 hectares of his 500-hectare farm.

The former naval chief lamented that the herdsmen burnt about 20 hectares of orange farm, 20 hectares of cassava farm and five hectares of palm farm, leaving him with a loss of over N200m.

Afolayan, who disclosed this to journalists at Obbo-Ile, in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State, said that the herdsmen have been wrecking havoc on his farm for the past 10 years.

He said, “It (the destruction) has become an annual routine. This will be the first time of letting people know about what has been happening in the last 10 years. The cow rearers have been damaging my crops.

“We believed that it was not deliberate when it first started. When we arrested them, they went to the local chiefs and friends to beg for them.

“The people that are engaging in this act are people of low means; so when they beg I usually release them. But I discovered that these boys are being sponsored by people of means outside Kwara State.

“We recently apprehended one of them from Zamfara State. There is another one in court, who is from Niger State. So most of the damage is from the north.

“No fewer than 20 hectares of orange farm, five hectares of palm trees farm and 20 hectares of cassava farm had been destroyed this year. I am not an expert, but by my estimation, the current loss is over N200m.”

“The destruction of farmland by herdsmen shows lip service of the agricultural policy of the government. Many of the local farmers around me do not come to farm again because the herdsmen, with impunity, will cut their cassava and other crops for their cows.”