Women from Evekwu Community in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State have staged a protest to demand urgent intervention over the activities of herdsmen in the area.
The women carried placards with different inscriptions as they marched to the Rumuji Police Station before going to the palace of the paramount ruler to complain.
They lamented that cows have destroyed their crops leaving them and their families with “hunger”.
The community’s woman leader, Joy Obisike called on the local government chairman, Governor Nyesom Wike and President Muhammadu Buhari, as well as security agencies, to prevail on the herdsmen to “steer clear” from their farmland.
Obisike said: “I led this protest to the police station this morning to inform them that herdsmen have been coming to our farmland to destroy our crops.
“For now, there is no means to feed because we completely rely on our farm produce. So, we want them (police) to tell the herdsmen not to enter our farmlands again.”
The women threatened to deploy other means that will ensure their safety and that of their crops.
Another woman leader in Evekwu community, Salome Amakanwo alleged that their lives were being threatened on a daily basis by the herdsmen who “use guns and dangerous weapons” and that their woman were being “raped at gunpoint”.
Salome said: “Now, we are saying our problem because cows have eaten all the crops we planted. The solution now is to tell them to stop coming into our community.
“Even, sometimes we go to the farm and the next thing we see are herdsmen. They have raped some of our women. They threaten to shoot or dagger us, if we talk.”
The protesters called for urgent intervention by the government at all levels and security agencies to save them from looming hunger and crisis.
A police personnel at the Rumuji Police Station, who addressed the protesters, advised them to take their complaints to the local government council secretariat for urgent intervention.
