Herdsmen destroy ex-naval chief’s farms and Taraba rejects cattle colony

A former Chief of Naval Staff, Vice- Admiral Samuel Afolayan, said on Wednesday that herdsmen had destroyed about 45 hectares of his 500- hectare farm .

Afolayan ’ s cry is coming on the heels of fresh attacks by herdsmen in Benue State during which five people reportedly died.

The former naval boss explained that the cattle rearers burnt about 20 hectares of orange farm , 20 hectares of cassava farm and five hectares of palm farm.

He lamented that he lost more than N 200 m .

He spoke to journalists at Ibbo - Ile , in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State .

He stated that his farmland had been under constant threat by the cattle rearers.

According to him , the herdsmen have been burning and destroying his farm for the past 10 years , adding that the losses were monumental.

Conducting journalists round the latest damage on the farm , he lamented that the destruction had been a setback to his quest to contribute to food security.

The ex- Naval boss said, “It ( the destruction ) has become an annual routine . This will be the first time of letting people know about what has been happening in the last 10 years. The cow rearers have been damaging my crops .

“We believed that it was not deliberate when it first started . When we arrested them, they went to the local chiefs and friends to beg for them.

“The people that are engaging in this act are people of low means; so when they beg I usually release them. But I discovered that these boys are being sponsored by people of means outside Kwara State .

“We recently apprehended one of them from Zamfara State . There is another one in court, who is from Niger State . So most of the damage is from the north .