President of the Cattle Farmers Association and leader of Fulani communities in Ghana, Ahmed Mohammed, has denied reports that the Fulani herdsmen are raping women in farming communities.
Mohammed has also denied that the herdsmen are destroying farms belonging to the locals.
He told Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Monday, 29 January that the farmers have not been able to provide evidence to back their claim, hence they should be discarded.
His comments come on the heels of claims by Yaw Owusu Addo, Chairman of the Peasant Farmers Association, Kwahu East District that the activities of the Fulani threaten the survival of the Planting for Food & Jobs programme.
Mr Addo had told show host Forson that: “Complaints were received from 42,000 of our members in 2017 in connection with damages caused by cattle. An average farm size of our members is 1.8 acres, therefore, 75,600 acres of cultivated farms were destroyed by cattle in 2017.
“Crops that were destroyed include maize, cassava, tomatoes, groundnut and plantain. The average cost of production of these crops is GHS 1,200 per acre of land. This means our members lost GHS90,720,000 in the year 2017,” he said.
He added: “The Planting for Food & Jobs will fail if the government does not deal with the Fulani menace.”
In a press statement issued earlier, he noted that: “A total of 1,552 of our members had to desert their communities due to the activities of criminal herdsmen, which made nine communities turn into ghost towns in 2017. The Association, therefore, demands a compensation of GHS10,000 per each farmer for resettlement, and that makes the total cost GHS15, 520,000.
“A total of five women on record were raped by criminal herdsmen in 2017. The Association demands a compensation of GHS30, 000 for each of the women for the psychological trauma caused. We, therefore, demand a total of GHS150,000.”
But denying these claims, Ahmed Mohammed said: “It cannot be true that the Fulani are raping the women and also destroying the farms of the people.”
“There is no evidence of any Fulani herdsmen killing or raping people in the farming communities. We rather have evidence of how our cattle are being killed and we have published those evidence.
“If the farmers claim we are destroying their farms they should make the evidence in the form of pictures and videos available for all of us to see.”
