Your Excellency, Executive Governor of Edo State, Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, we thank you for your administration's conscious effort at inclusive governance, which has put Esan people forward like none of the immediate past administrations have done.

However, we write to bring to your notice an insidious evil that threatens the immediate survival of Esan people and, in the long run, ensure extinction of same. It is the activities of killer-herdsmen that have invaded Esanland.

We note, with nostalgia, that herdsmen and artisans or Northern extraction have lived among us for generations. This is why this new breed of marauding herders are not accidental. Their activities are deliberate and calculated.

They have taken over farmlands and forests, leaving the people, who are mainly agrarian, helpless and facing imminent famine. 

To compound the matter Your Excellency, they also invade homes and block roads to kidnap for ransom. In many cases, whether or not ransom is paid, the victims are killed, mutilated and abandoned after vital organs have been harvested. 

Esans living out side Esan land are scared to visit home for fear of being killed or kidnapped.

However, we are confident in your administration's systemic and people-oriented approach to governance and policy implementation. It is why we are drawing your attention to the menace in Esan land. We also suggest that, for immediate remedial action to commence, the following should be considered:

*The government should work with village heads of these communities 

*Train, equip and partner the local vigilante groups called "Atalakpa"

*Use drones and digital maps to track the activities of herders in the area

*Set up a task force to:

- investigate the involvement of local collaborators and sponsors

- bring everyone involved to book 

- find ways of ameliorate the sufferings of those displaced and or bereaved by the herders' destructive activities. 

Your Excellency, this issue needs the attention to detail your government is known for, otherwise the Esan people would be decimated and the survivors eternally displaced.

Petition raised by Mabel oboh, Ex governorship candidate, Edo 2020, Founder, Trustee, Mabel oboh centre for save our stars (MOCSOS), Chief Josephine Oboh MacLeod, Adolor of Emu Kingdom, Trustee, JOM Charity (SCIO) Scotland on behalf of the good people of ESANLAND.