The Kayode Oladele-led Committee on Farmer/Herders Conflict in Ogun State has submitted its report to Governor Dapo Abiodun. The governor received the report in his office at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, on Thursday.
Oladele, who led other members of the committee to submit the report, noted that farmers/herders clashes were the major security challenges facing the State.
According to him, the crisis had negative impact on food security and brought hardship to the inhabitants of the affected areas.
With the clashes, which have claimed many lives, Oladele affirmed that people’s “sources of livelihood have been destroyed.”
The Chairman pointed out that the committee, in carrying out its assignment, adopted a participatory approach that involved traditional rulers, community leaders, victims and their relatives as well as other relevant stakeholders.
He stated that the report included implementable recommendations that would go a long way in finally settling the crisis once and for all.
In his reaction, Governor Abiodun confirmed that many sustained various degrees of wounds in the three affected local government areas – Imeko/Afon, Yewa North and Yewa South.
He said the committee was set up with a mandate to find out the immediate and remote cause of the crisis, quantify the loses from all sides and come up with recommendations on how government could pre-emptive similar occurrences in the future, saying now that we have resolved this “never again should such dastardly skirmishes be allowed.”
According to the governor, “this Committee was set up by government to basically look into what happened, quantify the losses from both sides and make recommendations to government on how to pre-empt similar conflict from occurring in the future.
“We realised that this axis has a communication problem which prevented our people from communicating especially in times of crisis. We are solving this problem because telecommunication companies have started erecting their masts and very soon communication will improve in these areas.”
