The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), senatorial candidate for Taraba North, Jeremiah Jacob Kane, has promised to study the controversial Waterways Bill before the National Assembly with a view to ending the farmer/herder clashes in his constituency and in the nation in general.
Taraba has the longest stretch of the River Benue which runs through Taraba North Senatorial district.
Kane while speaking during the Media Parley of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Taraba State Council on Tuesday, said he would engage farmers and herders as well as look into the Bill with a view to settling the dispute between the warring parties.
“In regard to the dispute between the Fulani and locals, I will stress it more to uniting them that they must live together. The Fulani are herders, and the rest of the locals are farmers. Both of them are productive to their communities and offer service to humanity. So, we would work hard in uniting them, forming them into clusters of understanding. We need one another to survive,” he stated.
According to him, politicians have bewitched the people “with the evil intention of segregating them to divide and rule to gain their simple interest by emerging into the political scene”.
He therefore offered himself as the one to salvage the situation.
“So, if we have an honest person like me, I will use that and I will also engage in a proper orientation on peaceful coexistence among citizens of Taraba and the nation at large. If it means putting up a strategic bill to engage stakeholders in taking responsibility by law, I think I will do it,” he added.
He said he would look into the controversial Waterways Bill when elected.
“On the issue of the Waterways Bill, I will study the bill. I have a knowledge which I would not like to preempt in proffering solution to that. I think Nigeria has overtaken time to find solution to this problem. What we need to do is engage in a proper way in putting up dams that would curtail this large disaster that we have been experiencing,” he concluded.
