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Catholic Church protests activities of herdsmen in Enugu, raises alarm over grazing bill

By Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
03 July 2016   |   4:38 am
Catholic faithful in Enugu, yesterday, held a peaceful prayer procession over the repeated attacks by Fulani herdsmen on communities in the state, just as it raised the alarm that free grazing ...
Herdsmen

Herdsmen

Catholic faithful in Enugu, yesterday, held a peaceful prayer procession over the repeated attacks by Fulani herdsmen on communities in the state, just as it raised the alarm that free grazing of cattle had become a threat to security of lives and farmlands.

The peaceful procession, however, in which thousands of the church members carrying placards, condemning the activities of the marauding herdsmen in the state, billed to start from the church headquarters on Ogui Road and terminate at the Government House, Enugu could not hold, as the governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, his Deputy, Speaker of House of Assembly, his Cabinet members and Security Chiefs stormed the venue to placate protesters.

Their presence, notwithstanding, the Enugu Bishop of the church, Callistus Onaga led several priests and placard-carrying members in peaceful procession round the church premises, where they also prayed for over four hours for divine intervention in the activities of the herdsmen.

While the faithful in Enugu could not engage in street procession, economic and social activities at the Dioceses of Awgu and Nsukka Local Councils of the state were paralysed for several hours, as Catholic faithful engaged in protests march over the activities of herdsmen in the areas.

Catholic Bishops of Awgu Diocese John Okoye and his counterpart in Nsukka Geoffery Onah, led over five thousand members of the church in peaceful procession that took off at the headquarters of the church to their various council headquarters to register their displeasure over the menace of the herdsmen.

Tagged Inter-Diocesan Prayer procession for greater security in the state, in the wake of repeated attacks by herdsmen in various parts of the state, the Dioceses said there was need check the activities of the herdsmen before it degenerates into ethnic war.

Addressing the crowd of worshippers at the Holy Ghost Cathedral, Ogui, Bishop Onaga said that the Church had been praying about the mounting challenges posed by the activities of the herdsmen, especially in rural communities in the state, stressing that the church was interested in peace.

The clergyman stated that the most recent and widely reported incident at Nimbo, Uzo Uwani council in which several farmers and citizens were butchered to death in their homes, was a culmination of a growing culture of impunity, arrogance and dare-devilry among the herdsmen, saying that some of them had become increasingly lawless.

“The result is that an ominous cloud of fear, foreboding and insecurity now hangs thick over our people in their own home state. So far, the response of the various security agencies to these attacks and needless provocations have not been enough to give the people a sense of being protected by them,” he said

He regretted that government in the entire development should not be seen as turning a blind eye to life-threatening problems of any section of the citizenry, especially when such an attitude is at the same time perceived as unduly favouring another section.

He called on the federal government to drop, without further delay, the grazing bill, stressing that it was capable of tearing apart the fragile unity of the country.

“Nigerians are already suffering much on account of the economic hardships in the country at the moment. To add to this by abdicating its responsibility in the provision of security for the people would amount to insensitivity on the part of the government,” he said.

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