A presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, said this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, monitored by our reporter.

He was reacting to reports that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s silence on the farmers-herders crisis parts of the country was bolstering and shielding crimes allegedly committed by herders.

Shehu challenged the Nigeria Police Force to publish names of herders undergoing trials.

He also said the president was not complicit in the herdsmen crisis.

“The president is more than concerned of the ongoing situation, he is fully conscious of the fact that it is the responsibility of his government to work with Nigerians to secure lives and stop the ongoing crisis whether they are kidnappings or the new line of ethnic violence. He condemns it and he does not support it.

“Having spoken against it, it follows that all security agencies must take their line of action from the president’s remark and do that which is necessary which is to stop the escalation of the violent attacks being witnessed in some parts of the country and ensure that it does not go beyond where it has been recorded.”

Shehu described comments made against the president as “uncharitable”, stating that the rise in criminal activities was because the military was overstretched as “they are active in at least 34 of the 36 states of the federation.”