Tinubu Clarifies Position on Herdsmen Crisis

Emma Okonji

The media office of the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, has clarified his position on the two-day Conflict Resolution Summit, which ended last Tuesday in Abuja.

A statement from Tinubu’s media office, cautioned one of the Yoruba leaders, Yinka Odumakin, against his utterances over Tinubu’s position, stating that Odumakin misunderstood the whole concept of the party leader’s position concerning the conflict resolution summit.

According to the statement, “The only deserving response to Odumakin is that he needs a cure for his seeming selective comprehension.

“The range of short and long term options for an enduring peace in the incessant clashes between herders and farmers offered by Tinubu were suggestions for the consideration of the two-day Conflict Resolution Summit.

“Tinubu did not mention Southwest in particular and what he said had a context to it: ‘Unoccupied isolated land can quickly be turned into grazing areas in the affected states.”

According to the statement, “It is not only some states in the South-west region that are affected but several states across the country. Why Odumakin has suddenly got hot under the collar may not be far-fetched. The usual frenzy and self-righteous mentality he portrays is on full display. Perhaps next time, he should read through the whole submission and caution himself from self-righteousness and displaying in full glare anarchical emotions.

“And if Odumakin’s delusion still allows him to read, perhaps read though of the full chunk of what was said by Tinubu at the summit, he will educate him better.”

The statement further explained the position of Tinubu in the short term resolution to include that government must maintain reasonable and effective military and law enforcement presence in the affected areas. This presence should work with leaders of both the herder and farmer communities as well as traditional and religious leaders. “Government should also develop a comprehensive remedial/rehabilitation strategy for victims of the violent crisis and help herders gradually shifts from their traditional nomadic existence to a more static lifestyle. We have to face the reality that modernity is making the nomadic way counterproductive and inefficient,” it stated.