Abia Will Enforce Open Grazing Ban, We Now Have Bandits Among Us – Gov. Ikpeazu

• “We now have in our mist bandits that have infiltrated from the rest of West Africa”

Okezie Ikpeazu, governor of Abia, says the state will not dilly dally in following through with the consensus reached by governors of southern states regarding the prohibition of open grazing.

Recall that On Tuesday, governors of the southern region had, in a resolution, during a meeting in Asaba, ban open grazing and the movement of cattle by foot in the region.

Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers state, had also said there was not going back on implementing and enforcing the southern governors’ resolution on open grazing.

The governors had said the move became exceeding necessary to address the security challenges that ravaged the region.

Addressing journalists during a zoom meeting, on Saturday, Ikpeazu said that plans were underway to legislate against open grazing in the state, noting that enforcement of the ban was imperative.

He disclosed that a bill was already in place to enforce the ban and to check the activities of criminal elements posing as pastoralists.

“We are now at the point of making sure that we enforce and implement it and even in doing that I must also share what I see as a challenge to the enforcement of that law,” Ikpeazu said.

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“The law is in place and we are taking steps to enforce it.

“It has become imperative that we enforce that law strictly because we just noticed that we have big-time trouble in our hands.

He averred that the criminal herdsmen are different from the regular and peaceful ones with whom people of the state had shared habitats with.

He said rampaging bandits, whose goals were to maim, rape and plunder, had made incursion into state

“We have those that we refer to as criminal herdsmen; they are different from the ordinary herdsmen that we have been living with all these years.

“We now have in our mist bandits that have infiltrated from the rest of West Africa and other parts of Africa and their assignment is to come here rape, kill and kidnap people for money.

“It is now very imperative that we enforce that law.”