The Nigeria Police Forcem NPF, has given reasons it cannot arrest herdsmen, who allow their cattle to stray onto and graze on airport runways.
The Commissioner of Police, Airport Command, Mustapha Dandaura, said herdsmen could only be arrested in states where the anti- open grazing law was effective.
He told Punch that, “It ’s only in states where the anti-open grazing law is in place that herdsmen can be arrested for allowing their cattle to graze on airport runways.
“Apart from those states , we have not been told to start arresting herdsmen.
“But we have already alerted our men at the airports to ensure such incident does not occur again. The state police commands have also been carried along and everyone is on the alert.
“We can’t have a situation whereby cows would be straying onto and grazing on airport runways because it is embarrassing . Everyone is now on the alert and it ’s going to be prevented.”
Recall that an Air Peace flight from Lagos had been prevented from landing at the Akure Airport , Ondo State as cows took over the runway.
It had taken the efforts of airport security and other aviation workers to clear the runway before the airplane landed.
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