The Southern Senators Forum (SSF) has endorsed the resolutions of the Southern Governors’ Forum on insecurity and restructuring, urging them to work with the national assembly for optimal results.
The forum also commended the governors for taking a firm position on open grazing and other pressing national issues.
Southern Governors Forum (SGF), had, on Tuesday in Asaba, Delta State capital, unanimously prohibited open grazing in the region to checkmate herders-farmers clashes, kidnapping and killing of southerners.
In a statement jointly signed by the Chairman, Secretary General and Publicity Secretary, Senators Opeyemi Bamidele (Ekiti), Mathew Uroghide (Edo) and Chukwuka Utazi (Enugu), SSF applauded the governors for the decisive measures, saying the latest resolutions would tackle wanton destruction of farmlands, kidnappings and carnages.
While lamenting the loss of millions of naira to encroachment on farmlands which could lead to famine, the senators said kidnapping and other crimes have gone on for too long.
“At this critical point of our national life when the economy was being bedeviled by galloping inflation, youth unemployment and insecurity, food security is very crucial to mitigate the effects of these diverse evils on the citizens.
“Available records have shown that attaining food security status would remain a mirage in the south owing to ravaging effect of outdated livestock grazing policy being unleashed on farmlands by some unscrupulous herders.
“Most appalling were the seemingly unabated kidnapping, raping and killing of our people by suspected herdsmen, who have become bandits heating up the system.
“With this uniform resolve by our Governors to initiate no-open grazing policy, the region will return to its peaceful and agriculturally self -sufficient status it had assumed even long before Nigeria’s amalgamation in 1914,” the forum said.
Bamidele, Uroghide and Utazi further lauds the call for restructuring by the governors, noting that it would “help to remove the venom that had permeated the land on account of alleged neglect of certain sections of the country”.
The senators therefore urged equality, equity and justice to wipe out ethnic tension and agitations for secession, adding that the governors must swiftly follow up by approaching the leadership of the National Assembly for speedy constitutional reviews on restructuring, state policing and abolishment of archaic traditional grazing methods.