Herdsmen Invade Plateau University, Destroy Unilorin’s Farms, Poison Dam

LAGOS FEBRUARY 13TH (NEWSRANGERS)-The criminal activities of Fulani herdsmen seems to know no bound as th cattle rears have taking their evil acts to Nigerian citadel of learning.
Report reaching NewsRangers Online revealed that Vice Chancellor of Plateau State University in Bokkos, Prof. Docknan Decent Sheni, has cried out over the invasion of the school premises by Fulani herdsmen.
Sheni who made the revelation while addressing journalists yesterday during at the University in Bokkos said despite the arrest of Fulani herdsmen who carry out aggressive grazing in the university premises, the menace had continued unabated.
“There are security challenges in the university because the institution has not been completely fenced, we have seen several strange persons within the university who constitute threat to lives and properties.
“Our greatest challenge is the aggressive grazing carried out by herdsmen within the premises of the University. Lectures will be going on and cattle will be roaming around, up to the administrative block and this is not pleasant to the system,” he said.
Sheni revealed that the institution had lost two persons due to insecurity and that they were working hard to stop grazing in the University.
“We cannot allow that to continue because we don’t know the motive behind that, we have seen how people have been butchered in different part of the country by suspect herdsmen and we don’t want that to happen to any of us”, he added.
In another development, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Sulyman Abdulkareem, has decried the destruction of the University’s multi-million naira research and training farms by cattle illegally grazing on the campus and poisoning the dam with chemicals.
According to the University weekly Bulletin issued on Monday, the management of the institution last Thursday held a security meeting with the leaders of the 11 Fulani settlements on the University land.

The publication quoted the vice-chancellor as saying that sundry economic trees’ plantations were destroyed by cattle illegally grazing on the vast land of the institution.

The meeting was attended by representatives of law enforcement agencies comprising of the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Security Services (DSS) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

At the meeting held at the institution’s Auditorium Basement, Prof. Abdulkareem disclosed that the University management would no longer tolerate illegal grazing of cows on its land.

He, therefore, told the illegal settlers, who have started building permanent structures to vacate the University land in the interest of peace.

According to him, this was coming almost a year after the University authority first issued a quit notice to the illegal settlers.

The management recalls that the University management had on April 26, 2017 handed down a seven-day ultimatum to the Fulani herdsmen encroaching on the University land to quit the campus, but the quit notice was never complied with.

The institution also noted that on May 11, 2017, 28 persons, comprising Fulani herdsmen, Yoruba and Hausa farmers, were dragged to an Ilorin Chief Magistrate’s Court for allegedly trespassing into the University land, destroying the school’s plantation and perpetrating other unauthorized activities on the University campus.

The management explained that the accused persons were alleged to have resorted to poisoning the institution’s dam with chemicals, while also engaging in illegal felling of economic trees from which they made charcoal.
The Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Usman Adamu, told the University management that the herdsmen destroying the University farm land were not living in the community.
He said that there were other ethnic groups embarking on illegal activities like logging, and were not differentiated from the Fulanis.

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