In a deft move to check the excesses of the rampaging Fulani herdsmen in AnambraState, Governor Willie Obianohas deployed a helicopter forthe aerial surveillance of the rural communities.The exercise was kicked off in Awka, the state capital, as part of activities to mark the Workers’ Day celebration.The governor assured the people that his administration would do everything within the limit of the law to protect them and ward off any attack by the herders, violent groups and criminally-minded individuals.Obiano noted that before thedawn of the latest brigandage of the herders around the country, he had set up a special committee to foster peace between farmers and the cattle grazers in the state.He said members of the committee included the leaders of the Hausa-Fulani community in the state, government officials, security agents and representatives of the agrarian communities.
He said: “This committee has made the herdsmen pay compensations to communities whose crops were destroyed by their cattle in the past. And we have also paid compensation to the herdsmen when one community breached the peace against them. That
is the nature of our engagement with them in Anambra State.”According to him, “there is routine helicopter surveillance across the borders of the state to ensure that any suspicious gathering of people (herdsmen) or curious movements across the borders are quickly picked up and analysed by security experts...”The governor warned the cattle rearers to avoid any form of hostility with their host communities as they would not be allowed to use their businesses to destroy that of others.
