Community Dialogue panacea for Farmers, Harders Conflicts – CS-CRIN

By Abdullahi Kano

Advocating for Community dialogue has been identified as a major tool for  addressing farmers Herders Conflicts 

The executive director of a non Governmental Organization named the Civil Society organization for Conflict Resolution in Nigeria (CS-CRIN) Mr. Adeniyi Aremu stated this during a  Media Briefing it Organized with the support of the EU- British Council held in Kano.

He said in recent times Nigeria was facing a lot of conflicts which resulted in the Deaths of over 39,000 people while many others were displaced.

Adeniyi Aremu noted that some of the issues that contributed to the high death rate and insecurity challenges in Nigeria include hate speech, Armed Banditry, Kidnapping, Human Rights Abuse, and brutality of uniform men which lead to extrajudicial killings, saying there was an urgent need for coordinated efforts to address the Challenge.
“In views of the challenges above CR-CRIN is implementing a project titled strengthening community engagement towards peacebuilding and conflicts management in Kano Nigeria with the support from the European Union, aimed at contributing to conflict mitigation and reconciliation by focusing  on initiatives that restore community engagement”

He noted that the NGO had conducted community dialogue between farmers and herders in Rogo and Sumaila local government Areas of the state, stressing that the dialogue meeting was yielding positive results.

Adeniyi Aremu explained that some of the major causes of farmer/herders conflicts include encroachment of cattle routes by farmers, lack of adequate grazing lands for herders among others.

He noted that the rivalry activities have negative impacts on the standard of living especially high rise in commodity price, loss of crops and animals, among other reasons.

” Some of the ways of addressing these challenges include, provisions of functional schools for herders, good leadership mechanism in the Society, regular orientation on the community doe the need to support farmer and herders to live in Harmony”