In a
statement, yesterday, the Rivers CAN Chairman, Rev Isaac Anyanasikike, said
that the herdsmen were already intimidating land owners in some rural
communities of the state and seizing land for grazing.
Clerics and
Christian groups in Rivers State have raised alarm over alleged infiltration of
some forests in the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen armed with dangerous
weapons with a view of launching attack on the state.
The
clergymen, from different platforms, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and
Directorate of Religious Freedom and Church Collaboration of Christian Lawyers
Fellowship of Nigeria, alleged that suspected herdsmen with arms had invaded
communities in the state.
Anyanasikike,
who read the statement on behalf of CAN and CLASFON, noted that tension was
already building in communities of the state following the alleged presence of
the armed herdsmen.
The
statement, therefore, called on residents of the state, especially farmers in
the rural communities, to be vigilant while on their daily businesses in the
forests.
He said: “It
has come to our knowledge that Fulani herdsmen or cattle rearers have
constituted themselves into an embarrassing nuisance in rural communities in
the various local government areas of the state where they graze their cattle
with impunity on lands and or farms belonging to the natives and accompanied by
their propensity for violence and other horrible forms of criminality whenever
they are challenged by the land owners.
“That the
Fulani herdsmen are still roaming the forests and farmlands in Rivers State
with dangerous weapons and other instruments of violence without the security
and law enforcement agents doing anything to check this pervasive use of
unauthorised or unlicensed arms thereby leaving the lives of the majority of
our rural community dwellers at avoidable risk in unacceptable”.
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