By Ochuko Akuopha
OLEH—THE people of Ossissa, Ndokwa East Local Government Area, Delta State, yesterday, kicked against the Nomadic Cattle Rearing Control Bill, now before the state House of Assembly, saying that the community would not give out any portion of its land as a designated area for cattle grazing.

Speaking on telephone with Vanguard on the community’s position on the bill, a leader in the area, Chief, E. Olisenekwu, warned that the bill, if passed into law, would be abused by the herdsmen as they had done to the Control of Movement of Animals Law, 2002.

Claiming that herdsmen do not respect the law, he said:  “It is on record that both the customary and magistrate courts in their separate judgments of May 2 and 16, 2014, ordered them to leave Ossissaland based on terms of settlements signed and filed in the courts over the cases there.

“It is also a fact that they signed another agreement on May 18, 2016, to leave on May 28, 2016 at a peace meeting organised by Delta State Conflict Management Alliance. Instead of leaving, they boasted that they would chase us out of our land.”

Emphasizing that herdsmen have been destroying their farmlands and perpetrating atrocities in the community since 2008, he said: “Our position on the matter is that the herdsmen should leave our land.

“We do not have land to give out to them for grazing. The lands that we have are purely for our farming. Now, they have discovered that eating cassava leaves is better than grasses, so let them go back to their states and prepare ranches for their cattle.

“In the past 10 years, Ossissa people have been going from office to office and also sent many petitions with the hope that government and police would prevail on the herdsmen to leave peacefully without crisis but all we got are empty promises and advice of ‘don’t take the law into your hands’ but the herdsmen continued to attack us.”