Buhari To Host Ecowas Conference On Farmers/Herders Clashes

Herdsmen killings: Buhari convenes regional summit on border cattle movement

Herdsmen killings: Buhari Convenes Regional Summit On Border Cattle Movement

President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to declare open on April 26 a conference of the member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on farmers/herdsmen clashes across the country.

The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, disclosed this at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting yesterday.

Stressing that the meeting was initially planned for last February, he said that it was part of efforts by the ECOWAS and some other African countries towards finding permanent solutions to the persistent farmers-herdsmen clashes in Nigeria and beyond.

He said “This is why, for instance, we initiated the conference that is to come up between April 26 and 29 under the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Goods and Services, zeroing particularly on the protocol on the movement of trans-humans which was signed in 1978 but yet to be implemented.

“I had meetings with President, ECOWAS Commission, the one that left, and we agreed to have this conference sometime last month. But because they were leaving and new set of management was coming in it was shifted to toward the end of this month.

“So, the whole idea is to look at this issue of movements across borders. So, this month on April 26, God willing, we are going to have this conference and Mr President has graciously agreed to open the conference,’’ he said.

The conference which would also attract participants from the Central African Republic, Chad, Cameroon, Morocco and Mauritania, he said, would explore the relationship between the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, and trans-border criminal activities.