There is the need for Ghana to have a national policy in cattle rearing, just as other countries have done, in order to deal with the Fulani menace in the country, Member of Parliament for Asante Akyem North, Andy Appiah Kubi, has said.

According to him, this policy will ensure that crop farms and farmlands are protected from grazing cattle and at the same time while the rights of cattle rearers are respected.

His comments follow concerns raised by some Fulani herdsmen that their cattle are being killed in an alleged shoot-to-kill operation by Police.

Denying the killing of cattle in the area during an interview with Chef Jerry Forson on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM, Mr Kubi said: “At this time in our life we have said that whatever it takes to protect the farms and farmlands, we will do it, but of course in the full remit of the law. We cannot take the laws into our own hands and so that matter has been left in the hands of the police.

“I am preparing a statement to submit to parliament in respect of the Fulani issue on the various dimensions and the solutions. Generally, I think we have to have a national policy on cattle rearing as happens in other jurisdictions.”

He added the “peace-loving” people of Agogo do not intend taking the law into their own hands and harming the herdsmen, adding that they are relying on the security agencies to deal with the situation.

“…We want to make sure our farmers are safe, we are very peace-loving people, we are not armed in anyway, we are soliciting the help of the security agencies,” the lawmaker said.

According to him, “there’s an insurgency of Fulani herdsmen on our farms destroying our lands, armed to the teeth”, adding that 35 locals have so far been killed by the herdsmen without any of the alleged perpetrators being prosecuted even though “so many of our women have been raped, so many harmed, and we are saying that enough of those things …”

Asked if the locals have also not been retaliating by killing the Fulani and their cattle, Mr Appiah Kubi said: “No, I’m not privy to 40 Fulani men killed by citizens of Agogo, no single Fulani person has been prosecuted for killing Agogo citizens. It is only yesterday that I heard a Fulani man having been killed in Afram Plains. It is never true that 40 Fulani have been killed… I don’t know if any cattle too have been killed,” he said.

Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com