Honourable Ebrima Manneh, the National Assembly Member for Niani constituency in the Central River Region, has raised concerns over the frequency of invasion of rice fields by hippos, in his region, stressing the need for an end to the "inexcusable behaviour" of the animals.

He stressed that the issue calls for urgent and pragmatic actions to avert further damages.
The Niani parliamentarian raised this concern on Monday, during the adjournment debate of the third meeting of the National Assembly in the 2008 legislative session.

"This trend in the area is very serious because hippos were attacking women in their rice fields,'' he said, while revealing that the hippos have not spared the rice field in Barajally dedicated to President Jammeh.

According to the Niani parliamentarian, the benefits of President Jammeh's brilliant clarion call for the people to go back to the land may end up being fruitless in his constituency as what was grown by the "poor" farmers continues to be invaded by the uncontrolled hippos.

"When we go back to our constituency, the question that is normally posed to us is whether we have talked about the destructive hippos and what solutions were being put in place to end the menace,'' he narrated, while raising his people's concern, noting that they are predominantly farmers.

NAM Ebrima Manneh then appealed to the relevant authorities to speed up their effort to  salvage the poor farmers.