About 50 armed herdsmen have been arrested for kidnapping, banditry and cattle rustling by the Nigeria Security and Civi Defence Corps (NSCDC) in the last one week in different states.
The Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Dr Ahmed Audi, revealed this in Abuja at the presentation of licences to 17 private security companies, adding that the suspects were arrested in Ekiti, Borno, Cross River and other states.
He said: “The nation is being bedevilled with a very serious security crisis, and that is the asymmetric warfare. If you want to deal decisively with this, you must synergise with all stakeholders, in terms of credible intelligence.
“We arrested 50 illegally armed herdsmen, and we realised that some of them are into rustling of cattle, and also kidnapping. The armed herdsmen were arrested throughout the federation – some in Ekiti, Borno, Cross River states.
“You know it is part of our mandate to settle disputes between herdsmen and farmers, and to also give some security protection to our agro-allied investments in the country.’’