A former Chief of Naval Staff, Samuel Afolayan has claimed that the Police in Kwara State have admitted that they cannot arrest the employers of troublesome herdsmen.

Afolayan told journalists on Monday that he was told this when he visited a police station to report the destruction of his farmland by herdsmen.

The man who headed the Nigerian Navy from 2001- 2005 under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had suffered untold and monumental losses in the hands of the herdsmen for over ten years.

 

“My experience has been extremely bad. Two hectares out of the hectares of cocoa that I experimented with, at the confluence of the river at each edge of my farm, was completely burnt when the trees had grown fruits on them.

“At the time of harvesting the cocoa, they burnt the farm. That was sometime in 2009. The case stretched for three years. I still have the pictures of the cocoa trees when they were full of fruits. Cashew trees and palm trees that were just growing were also burnt.”

He explained that he chose to keep mum over the issue of the attacks to avoid an escalation of the tension in the country, preferring to seize some of the herders’ cows to stall the attacks but they were forcefully reclaimed.

He added that throughout the period of the attacks, he had carried the Divisional Police Officer in his area, Mr. Aliu Umar along. It was Umar who told him it would be difficult to bring the owners of the cows for questioning.

 

“I said that is injustice. How do you remand a boy that is of no consequence when the boy had already told you that the owner of the cow is in Zamfara State? He gave the number of his employer and I said the police should invite the man who owns the cows and they were telling me that it would, be difficult. What is difficult in that?,” he queried.

“The police can arrest anybody wherever he or she lives,” he added.

Afolayan maintained that the Federal Government was not doing enough to curtail he menace and called on the concerned authorities to take drastic action to urgently address the situation.