Former President urges collaboration to end farmers/herdsmen clashes

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called on leaders to work closely together to tackle the incessant violent clashes between farmers and herdsmen across the country.

Obasanjo made the call in Makurdi on Saturday when he visited the graves and laid wreath at the graveyard of the 73 victims of herdsmen attack.

He said the continued violence and insurgency required collaboration and collective urgent attention, stressing that tackling security challenges must begin from the roots to secure permanently solution.

According to him, until the issue is addressed from the roots more and more people will be buried as victims.

”If the issue is tackled right from the roots there will be no room for assumptions. We must collectively find solutions,” he said.

Obasanjo said that he laid the wreath to sufficiently express his sorrow, empathy and sympathy to the families that lost their loved ones, the governor and people of the state and Nigerians.

He disclosed that he had attended the Zero Hunger meeting which Gov. Samuel Ortom could not attend because of the incessant attacks on his subjects by herdsmen.

The former president said that he was shocked to hear that after the mass burial of 73 persons, 83 more persons were killed.

He regretted that the investment and development cannot take place in a chaotic atmosphere because investors would be unwilling to invest in such places.

He emphatically sued for peace among the people.

Obasanjo called for an end to the incessant attacks on farmers by the herdsmen, while appealing the governor not to give up because “there would surely be light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.