Herdsmen: Lai Mohammed speaks on how Buhari has reduced killings

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the
President Muhammadu Buhari's government has "drastically" reduced
killings resulting from farmers and herdsmen crisis, across the
country.

Mohammed made the assertion during a Special Town Hall meeting on
security in Gusau, Zamfara State, on Monday.

Mohammed said the, "drastic fall in the killings resulted from
concerted and committed actions by the Federal Government to curtail
the farmers-herders clashes, cattle rustling and other acts of
banditry.

"Let me say straight away that the killings, resulting from
farmers-herders clashes, cattle rustling, trans-border crimes and
banditry, among others, have fallen drastically. Unfortunately, this
has not received the kind of media coverage that was given to the
killings. I appeal to the media to correct this."

The Minister listed such actions as including the, "deployment of a
Joint Military Intervention Force (JMIF), comprising Regular and
Special Forces personnel from the Army, Air Force and Navy, and
working in collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force, Department of
State Security (DSS), and Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps
(NSCDC)."

He said the measures also include the establishment of the Army's 2
Battalion Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Kanfanin Doka Village,
Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna State; the establishment of a new Area Command
and two additional Divisional Police Headquarters in the Birnin Gwari
Local Government Area of Kaduna State; and the establishment by
Nigerian Air Force of Quick Response Wings (QRW) in Benue, Nasarawa
and Taraba States.

Others are the deployment of Special Forces to these Quick Response
Wings; the inauguration, by the Nigeria Police Force, of a new Mobile
Squadron in Takum, Taraba State and Operation, 'Whirl Stroke',
operating in Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba and Zamfara states, to tackle the
menace of armed herdsmen, cattle rustlers, communal militias,
kidnappers and other bandits.

Mohammed assured Nigerians that the situation will continue to improve
until violence was completely eradicated in the country.

"I have no doubt that the good people of Zamfara can testify to the
drastic reduction in the activities of cattle rustlers and other
bandits in the state since the Federal Government deployed a
1000-strong military force, comprising the army, air force, police and
the civil defence, to launch fierce attacks on the bandits terrorising
the villages and towns of Zamfara State," he said.

The Minister also insisted that the killings have nothing to do with
ethnicity or religion.

"Those who are bent on exploiting our national fault lines have
distorted the narrative to give the killings ethnic and religious
colouration, and this has aggravated the killings. We must repudiate
them, even as the Federal Government continues to consolidate on the
successful efforts to end the killings."