By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
A spate of protests by women of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State has continued.
The women are protesting over the incessant destruction of their crops and farmlands by the Fulani herdsmen and their cows.
They held the protest again on Wednesday after the one of last week, as the menacing herdsmen and their cows have continued to wreck havoc on their farmlands.
It was learnt that the herdsmen usually harass the women and sometimes rape some when they meet them in their farms, a development described by some Onelgans as insult upon injury.
“This is getting out of hand and we can’t condone it anymore. How can our women suddenly become slaves in their own land? They cultivate their farms, plant their crops and cows will go and destroy them and when they talk, the herdsmen will attack and rape them? What sort of insult upon injury is that, in our own land? I support the protest. They should continue until the local government and state government do something about it,” Victor Onwuajuru, who hails from Egbema, lamented on Wednesday in Port Harcourt.
TPCN gathered that the women chanted war songs as they marched through the streets of ONELGA.
They also told tales of woes suffered in the hands of Fulani herdsmen and their cows who they claim are deliberately destroying their means of livelihood.
Condemning the action of the herdsmen, a traditional ruler from the area
who pleaded not to be mentioned, accused some wealthy indigenes of ONELGA of being responsible for the mayhem being perpetrated by the Fulani herdsmen and their cows.
“Some of those cows are owned by some of our rich people. That’s why they will not do anything. Most times when you confront those herdsmen, they will tell you, ‘ehn, na your people now, tell your people now’. By that, what they’re indirectly telling you is that they’re working for your people who own the cows. For me, there’s nothing wrong in anybody doing cow business but they should tell their workers not to destroy our farms. There are plenty grasses for cows to feed on. God didn’t create cows to feed on people’s crops. God created cows and all livestock to feed on grasses and went ahead to provide a lot of these grasses and plants.”
The traditional ruler, who partly resides in Port Harcourt, advised the Rivers State Government to begin to implement the recently passed Anti-Open Grazing Law to check the activities of the Fulani herdsmen and their cows.
“That’s the only way to curtail their excesses. By the time you make one or two herdsmen face the law, others will learn from that,” he said.
