Armed Fulani herdsmen planning to attack Rivers communities – Clerics

Religious leaders in Rivers State on Wednesday claimed they have uncovered plot by armed Fulani herdsmen to launch an attack in the state. Speaking in Port Harcourt, the state capital, Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Rev. Isaac Anyanasikike said the herdsmen were already intimidating land owners in some rural communities of the state and acquiring land for grazing.
The clergy men from different platforms, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Directorate of Religious Freedom and Church Collaboration of Christian Lawyers Fellowship of Nigeria alleged that the herdsmen had invaded several communities in the state.

Urging farmer to be vigilante of their neighbourhood, Anyanasikike stressed that tension was already rising in communities in the state following the presence of the herdsmen. He said, “It has come to our knowledge that Fulani herdsmen or cattle rearers have constituted themselves into an embarrassing nuisance in rural communities in the various local government areas of the state where they graze their cattle with impunity on lands and or farms belonging to the natives and accompanied by their propensity for violence and other horrible forms of criminality whenever they are challenged by the landowners.
“That the Fulani herdsmen are still roaming the forests and farmlands in Rivers State with dangerous weapons and other instruments of violence without the security and law enforcement agents doing anything to check this pervasive use of unauthorised or unlicensed arms thereby leaving the lives of the majority of our rural community dwellers at avoidable risk in unacceptable.”