Masari seeks assistance on education, agric, others from Norway

Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, has requested for technical assistance from the Norwegian government in the area of environmental degradation control, social investment, education, agriculture as well as animal husbandry.

A statement by the Director General, Media, Abdu Labaran, said the governor made the request yesterday when he visited the Norwegian Ambassador, Mr. Jens-Petter Kjemprud, at his Abuja residence.

The statement said the governor appreciated the expertise of the Scandinavian nation in environmental control, education, agriculture, science and technology as well as entrepreneurship which he would want his state to benefit from.It stated that Masari informed his host that one of the problems faced by Katsina and others in the northern part of Nigeria was the “perennial conflict between Hausa farmers and Fulani herdsmen as a result of lack of sufficient land to simultaneously accommodate farming and grazing by the respective groups.”

According to the governor, “desert encroachment, land erosion and other ecological factors, as well as the exponential population increase, have made competition for land even more acute, and the search for a solution very urgent.” The media aide said his principal lamented that the conflict had “transformed the farmers and herdsmen into mortal opponents living in mutual suspicion and animosity, often leading to deadly confrontations as witnessed in recurring banditry, kidnapping and reprisals by the herdsmen.”

The statement said the governor warned that “the situation might even assume a religious dimension despite the fact that we are (more or less) one and same people in culture, religion and outlook.”Masari stated that his administration had been up and doing in “seeking solutions to the restive situation,” stating that the government had built primary schools, clinics and demarcated grazing routes in most of the places prone to the conflict.”Responding, the envoy pledged his country’s cooperation.