By Laraba MUREY
Thirteen months after the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, vowed to end open grazing in Nigeria’s capital city, nothing has changed as cattle rearers are more brazen taking their cattle to the Three Arms Zone and other high profile areas of Abuja.
Wike on March 6, 2024 while receiving in audience the Belgian Ambassador to Nigeria, His Excellency, Daniel Bertrand, vowed that he would address the lingering issue that has left many a resident worried.
During the visit, he disclosed that plans were underway to put an end to the roaming of cattle within the city centre.
According to the minister, he had initiated multifaceted discussions with different relevant and critical stakeholders on the need to end the roaming of cattle in the city.
He noted that fighting insecurity in FCT demands multifaceted approaches, which the administration was already adopting to defeat criminalities.
However, on Sunday, April 20, pictures flooded microblogging platform, Facebook, with cattle in the city centre as usual obstructing traffic and unchallenged.
Abuja based journalist and bureau chief of a national newspaper, Dr. Leon Usigbe, posted the pictures on his Facebook page.
Reacting to the development, a Facebook user, Gregory Iragbonse, commented, “Why this lip service by successive governments? To which Benson Anayo Mbachu called to question the Ministry of Livestock and cattle management and adding sarcastically “the owners of Nigeria.”
Dare Adekanmbi in his comment noted that “it is commonplace in Abuja o…very disturbing.” A position that was concurred to by Kemi Yesufu, a publisher, “it’s every day in the FCT o!”
This is coming on the heels of threat by the Mayor of Kumasi, Ghana, Richard Boadi, that effective May 1, any stray cow in the city will be seized and slaughtered.
Boadi added that the slaughtered cows would be fed to inmates at the Kumasi Central Prison.
He made the disclosure in a press conference held in Kumasi on Friday.
According to the mayor, the decision was a response to the growing problem of cattle roaming freely and disrupting public life—an issue he described as unworthy of the city’s stature.
He urged all herders to keep their animals out of the metropolis to avoid severe consequences.
“There is another thing I will want you to help me look at. If you have cattle and if they stray in the vicinity of KMA, be assured that from May 1, they will be killed and given to Kumasi Central Prison for food. Especially the route from the airport through to Manhyia Palace.
“I cannot sit for visitors come to Kumasi [and] from the airport to Manhyia, and all they see are faecal matter from cattle.”
