Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, has called on the federal government to leverage on the ECOWAS transhumance certificate protocol, to check influx of herdsmen from neighboring countries.
The call was contained in a statement, jointly signed by the president and secretary, Alhaji Muhammad Kiruwa, Alhaji Baba Ngelzarma, respectively.
Ngelzarma, who explained that the advice was part of resolutions reached at the end of a one-day national executive meeting of the association with its Chairman, Board of Trustees, Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, held in Abuja.
He said that the meeting was called to review the deteriorating security situation in the country, as it affected its members and the continued stereotyping, by the social and the mass media, that all herdsmen were criminals and bandits.
Ngelzarma also stated that the meeting called on the federal government to carry out sensitisation and re-orientation programmes for pastoralists, as well as revamp the nomadic education programme for their children.
Similarly, he urged the Federal Government to decisively deal with the issue of porous borders, which made it possible for the massive proliferation of arms.
He pledged the cooperation and support of the association to the federal and state governments, traditional rulers and security agencies, in the fight against banditry and kidnapping in all parts of the country, saying that such cooperation would bring peace, stability and harmonious co-existence.
