The Mangrove People Leadership Initiative (MAPLI) has urged governors of the South-South to establish a joint security outfit to protect the people and tackle the activities of armed herdsmen, bandits and kidnappers in the region.
MAPLI also supported the ban on open grazing of cattle by the Southern Governors’ Forum, saying the practice posed a greater danger to the peace and socio-econonic activities in the area.
They stated that the insensitivity of President Muhammadu Buhari to the country’s insecurity crisis had made it even more imperative for the banning of open grazing.
In a communique issued at the end of a one-day South-South grassroots conference in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, with the theme, “The unity of South-South in the face of insecurity and threat”,said the people of the region were opposed to any attempts to annex any part of the area for grazing activities.
The national secretary of MAPLI, Mfawa Ofegobi, said:”We declare that the people of the South-South will be ready to pay any price to fight against any attempts for open grazing in any part of the land of the South-South.Consequently, we are appealing to the governors of the South-South to go back to their drawing board for the reactivation and restructuring of existing laws to come up with the long-awaited BRACED security outfit of the South-South as the time to launch our own security outfit is now.”
The group also warned that anti-open grazing protests would not be allowed and accepted in the region, and advised those planing to stage such protests to take it to Abuja.