Roaming Around‘ll Not Help Herdsmen – Nomadic Secretary
The Executive Secretary of National Commission for Nomadic Education, NCNE, Prof Bashir Usman Wednesday argued that herdsmen should stay in one place and breed their cattle than roam about in bushes.
Usman also said that nomadic education would not produce its desired result unless there was peace among the community of herders and the farmers and other host communities.
Speaking in Enugu, Wednesday, at a training workshop on capacity development of Nomadic school based management committees, Usman said that it was only when the pastoralists leave in peaceful coexistence with the rest of the community, that there will be children for to train.
“Once there is no peace, they will not be in one place for you to train them. There should be peaceful coexistence. The other thing is that some people claim indigeneship of areas, that they were born and have leaved for a certain number of years and they are not going to move. So we are going to continue with education of these pastoralists, whether they move or stay.
“The farmers/herders crises will definitely fissile out as time goes. We are one Nigeria and we continue to be one Nigeria irrespective of whatever is happening now. These things will go away and we will continue to be one.
Usman stated that as a committee member of the National Livestock Transformation Plan, NLTP, he was aware that education was one of the five pillars of NLTP.
“You educate and mobilize for peaceful coexistence. You educate both the young and old on the value chain within the livestock industry so that they can understand that roaming around will not help them in any way.
“It is staying in one place that will help them produce the milk that they will require; to get the best cattle they can get as well as infuse technology into it and improve the breeds so that they can make their money,” Usman said.
