{"id":68361,"date":"2025-06-18T11:27:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=68361"},"modified":"2025-06-18T11:27:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:27:29","slug":"no-such-thing-as-farmers-herders-clash-says-cds-musa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/18\/no-such-thing-as-farmers-herders-clash-says-cds-musa\/","title":{"rendered":"No Such Thing as Farmers-Herders Clash, Says CDS Musa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Huldah Shado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, has asserted that what is often described as a \u201cfarmers-herders clash\u201d is a mischaracterisation of the actual situation, insisting the real issue stems from animals encroaching on farmland.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, General Musa identified three key drivers behind the persistent violence in Benue State and other parts of the country: land disputes between indigenes and non-indigenes, the movement of animals, and animal rustling.<\/p>\n<p>He emphasized that the term \u201cclash\u201d is misleading, as it suggests mutual aggression. \u201cWhen people say farmer-herder clash, clash means two things are moving,\u201d he explained. \u201cBut if a farm is stationary and an animal enters it, that is not a clash. It is someone encroaching on another person\u2019s property.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musa noted that resolving the movement of animals could significantly reduce tensions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the animals don\u2019t move, we won\u2019t have these issues,\u201d he said. \u201cAnimal movement also leads to rustling, and without that, rustling would reduce significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that the military\u2019s role is to prevent violence but reiterated that the root causes require political action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe issue of land between indigenes and non-indigenes is a political one and must be addressed politically,\u201d Musa said. \u201cThe military cannot resolve these underlying problems. What we can do is try to prevent people from attacking each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>General Musa called on relevant authorities to provide political solutions to the longstanding issues fueling unrest, particularly in the Middle Belt region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Huldah Shado &nbsp; The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, has asserted that what is often described as a \u201cfarmers-herders clash\u201d is a mischaracterisation of the actual situation, insisting the real issue stems from animals encroaching on farmland. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, General Musa identified three key drivers behind the persistent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1724,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insecurity","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68363,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68361\/revisions\/68363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}