The Presidency, on Tuesday, says the President, Muhammadu Buhari, will be a talkative if he speaks on every
matter including the herdsmen crisis.
Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to
the President, spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
Many Nigerians including Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka,
had urged the President to address Nigerians and make it known publicly that he
does not support the criminal activities of some herdsmen in parts of the
country.
Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, had also called for
the enactment of a law to abolish the movement of cattle by herdsmen from the
Northern part of the country to other parts in order to prevent the incessant
herdsmen-farmers clashes rocking parts of the country.
When asked about the reaction of the President on the idea
suggested by Ganduje, Adesina said, “When you have knotty issues like this,
many ideas will be proffered, many solutions will be canvassed. The President
does not have to speak on each and every one of them.
“He does not have to, it was just an idea being proffered.
It should be looked into and then if it is a consensus, it should be adopted.
But it is not as one idea comes the President speaks on it, another idea comes,
the President speaks on it, such must be a talkative President.”
The South-West region has been in the eye of the storm
lately over the activities of gun-wielding herdsmen who kidnap, kill, rape, and
destroy farmlands in Yorubaland with impunity.
Many Nigerians including Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue
State and a leader of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, Chief Ayo
Adebanjo, had spoken against the killer herdsmen who move about with AK-47
rifles while private citizens are denied of ammunition to protect themselves.
However, speaking on Tuesday, Adesina said the position of
Buhari has always been that anybody who bears arms unlawfully should be
arrested and tried.
“His (Buhari’s) position has always been that anybody that
bears arms unlawfully should be arrested and tried irrespective of where he
comes from,” the presidential aide said, adding that the country must explore
the option of ranching to solve the herdsmen crisis at hand.
Adesina also said contrary to claims by critics, “hundreds”
of criminal herders have been arrested and tried in the past.
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