The Federal Government and the Nigeria Army have been commended for halting the age-long farmers-herders crisis ravaging parts of the country.
The commendation was contained in a report by the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CASJET) released on Wednesday.
The well-documented report detailed how President Muhammadu Buhari and the Army restored peace to warring communities to end the perennial clashes.
It noted that barely a month after being sworn-in, Buhari, in June 2015, constituted a Strategic Action Committee to look into herders-farmers crisis and make recommendations that would address it.
Without this intervention, the centre maintained that the nation might have slid into chaos along religious and ethnic lines, which would have had a toll on the economy.
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According to the report, from all available indices, no Nigerian community had been under occupation by herdsmen even though the herders-farmers conflict had become more significant in recent times.
“Although the government had in the past taken some measures to address this phenomenon, the increasing desertification and the effects of climate change have further increased the drive for the herdsmen to move further south in search of grazing land and pasture for their livestock,” the report said.
The report, however, urged the Federal Government to deploy more security personnel in the affected areas, ensure they are better equipped, improve local ties to gather better intelligence, and respond speedily to early warnings and distress calls.
It further called for the freezing of enforcement and reform of state anti-grazing legislation as well as heightened herder-farmer dialogues.
