…say our lives are in danger
Some university students, especially in the Northern part of the country, have appealed to the Federal Government to take urgent measures to check the increasing activities of herdsmen grazing their cattle on their school campuses.
The students said that the Federal Government should come to their aid now before the matter would get out of hand or take a dangerous dimension.
The students made the appeal as the activities of the herdsmen across the country take a frightening dimension, resulting in killings and wanton destruction of property.
A final year Economics student of the Plateau University, Bokkos, who pleaded anonymity, told our correspondent that there were still security challenges in the university because the institution had yet to be completely fenced, making it possible for the herdsmen and their cattle to have a free passage into the campus.
He said, “We have seen several strange persons within the university, who constitute threat to lives and property here. Our fear is this 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 us.
“Two people have died on our campus due to insecurity and the management is 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 parts of the country by suspected herdsmen and we don’t want that to happen to any of us.”
An Agricultural Science student of the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, who simply gave her name as Ramah, lamented that female students had also been harassed by suspected hoodlums, who jumped in through the fence at night with the intention of raping and causing untold hardship to students.
“Recently, the herdsmen poisoned the university’s dam with chemicals and this dam is what serves water to the entire campus, be it for domestic or practical use. They also destroyed the multi-million naira research and training farms by making their cattle to illegally graze on the campus, which made the management to give them notice to quit our campus,” she said.
She noted that the school’s multi-million naira project was being threatened because the herders had gone to the extent of uprooting tubers of cassava for their cattle to feed on, adding that the development had made it impossible for the school to conduct any research or training on the farm again because of the incessant destruction of the farm by the herdsmen and their cattle.
“They have set our teak plantation on fire, several times, and there are millions of naira invested in that place. Aside from illegal grazing of cattle by the herdsmen, they perpetrate other unauthorised activities as some of them take to logging of trees for charcoal, but last year, the management gave them a notice to move out. But up till now, they have not gone,” she said.
The student, therefore, expressed fears that if the menace of the herdsmen was not quickly checked, it might result in a more disastrous situation.
“We want our school authorities to stand their ground as regards the ultimatum given to these herdsmen so that they will know that we are serious with this issue or else, it may turn worse than what we are experiencing at the moment,” Ramah said.
Similarly, a 400 level student of Mass Communication at the Kogi State University, Anyingba, told our correspondent that during the six months the institution was closed down last year, the herdsmen took advantage of the absence of students on campus to engage in full time grazing of their cattle.
She, however, expressed regrets and fears that months after the school was reopened and the students resumed lectures, the herdsmen had yet to suspend their activities on the school campus.
She said, “If you recall, when our school was closed down for almost six months, last year, due to the faceoff between our state government and ASUU, the herdsmen turned our campus into a full grazing colony. Though when we finally resumed academic activities they left, but as I am speaking to you, they have come back to our campus.”
“Even though their activities are not frequent, they still pose a great danger to us because they may increase in number soon and that will be difficult to control. We are urging the government to step into this matter, because we don’t know who is who any longer on campus.”
