Different interest groups and individuals have taken exception to the approval by President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval of the recommendations of a committee to review 368 grazing reserves across 25 states in the country and to determine the levels of encroachment.
Presidential spokesman, Mr. Garba Shehu, had said in a statement on Thursday that the committee chaired by the chief of staff to the president, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari had recommended the collection of field data collection on 368 grazing reserves across 25 states to assess encroachment and encroachers, stakeholder engagements and sensitisation.
He said the committee also recommended production of maps and geo-mapping/tagging of sites, analysis of findings and report preparations as well as design appropriate communication on grazing reserves and operations.
Shehu quoted Buhari as directing that the assignment be undertaken with dispatch to bring more understanding on the grazing reserves, and implementation.
Reacting to the president’s directive, pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere said Buhari was wasting taxpayers’ scarce resources on a programme which conception lacks all conceivable growth capacity.
The secretary general of the group, Mr. Okusola Ebiseni, said in a statement in Akure, Ondo State that Afenifere was not shocked by the president’s response considering how he addresses issues and other matters in the country.
It said the present policy of the Buhari administration on grazing reserves was the implementation of the script by the Fulani intelligentsia.
“The approval by President Muhammadu Buhari to review, with dispatch, 368 Grazing Reserves across allegedly 25 states in the country to determine the levels of encroachment did not surprise Nigerians. It does not also matter that having felt the pulse of the nation in his interview with the Arise Television in June, the President is still wasting taxpayers’ scarce resources on a programme which conception lacks all conceivable growth capacity.
“It is instructive that the recommendation and implementation committee is headed by Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the chief of staff to the president who, in conjunction with Professor Attahiru Jega, during the first term of Buhari, presented a “Memorandum on pastoralist-farmers’ conflicts and the search for peaceful resolution” published in January 2018, which contained the same recommendations now being foisted on the nation.
“They have submitted, among other recommendations that “it is clear that Nigeria and indeed Africa have to plan towards the transformation of pastoralism into settled forms of animal husbandry. The establishment of grazing reserves provides the opportunity for practicing a more limited form of pastoralism and is therefore a pathway towards a more settled form of animal husbandry. Grazing reserves are areas of land demarcated, set aside and reserved for exclusive or semi-exclusive use by pastoralists. Currently, Nigeria has a total of 417 grazing reserves all over the country, out of which only about 113 have been gazetted.”
“The recommendations which pandered to deceptive national solutions to orchestrated farmers/herders clash nonetheless reek of odiferous stench of ethnic agenda for settlement of the Fulani in the ancestral lands of other ethnic nationalities.
“The non-Fulani Nigerians are not stupid, as the federal government, probably imagine, not to know that the concept of Grazing Reserve, by the Gambari and Jega definitions above, is a worse form of official dispossession of their ancestral lands for the inheritance and use of the Fulani than Cattle Colony, RUGA and Grazing Routes which they have roundly rejected.
“We recall and support the Resolutions of the Nigerian Governors, particularly from the South of the country, banning all forms of open grazing and it does not matter to us that some elected governors, in a federation, would condescend so low to functioning as members of a committee presided over by an appointed aide of the President, no matter the name in which his office is painted.
“The concept of grazing reserves, otherwise known as Hurumi, which was introduced during the colonial and immediately after independence failed in the north particularly in the Middle Belt provinces, notwithstanding a monolithic one north government and permissive land use regime.
“For the umpteenth time, let the President be told that the constitution which he reveres relentlessly and the Land Use Act which derives equal force there from, extol the majesty of the people over their land. Even the governor who holds the land in his state in trust for the people cannot dispossess any citizen thereof, except for proven overriding public interest through the due process of law.
“The current exercise is not only a waste of taxpayers’ money, it is a sweet pipe dream in a fool’s paradise. Every herder has a state of origin.
“Let the governments of the respective states make arrangements for settled life for them in the territory where the culture is fully appreciated,” Afenifere said
For the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), there is no land in the south-south for the purpose for grazing cattle.
Spokesman of PANDEF, Mr. Ken Robinson, said no inch of land would be ceded for the project.
“Our simple response to that is that there are no grazing reserves in the South-south. No grazing reserves at all to be reviewed.
“No inch of South-south land would go for grazing reserve. Cattle rearing is a business. If anybody wants to go into cattle rearing, the person should see it as a business. Do they reserve fishing reserve for us in the north? There is no grazing reserve in the South-south. That is our position,” Afenifere said.
Similarly, the Igbo socio-political group, Öhanaeze Ndigbo said the Igbo do not have land for what the president was talking about.
“Ohanaeze’s position is that Igboland does not have land for grazing. Every land in the Southeast is owned by God, people and shrines. I don’t understand what you mean by grazing reserve. Ohanaeze’s position on this is no.
“Nigeria runs a federal system of government. Many houses of assembly have passed bills against open grazing and some of them have been signed into law. I am sure that in some states where the open grazing law has been signed is in operation.
“Even in the northern region there are some states that have banned open grazing. If the federal government wants to impose its will on the states that is where constitutionalism comes in. I am sure some states will resist,” said spokesman for the group Alex Ogbonnia in a statement.
Another Igbo group, Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), said the president took the action not in the best of Nigeria and the majority of Nigerians.
“Approving grazing reserves is not the solution to the attacks on farmers by herdsmen. The federal government knows the problem.
“Herders have been grazing their cattle for decades without any confrontation with the farmers. The question is why did they start attacking farmers and villages with guns and machetes?
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s no problem between herders and farmers. Rather, it is hegemonists and their blood-letting herdsmen that are killing innocent people in their farms, raping hapless women and using their cattle to graze in those areas without any form of control.
“There’s nothing like herdsmen/farmers crisis. When they say it like that, they just give impression that farmers are also causing trouble.
“The farmers are in their various localities and these people come and visit them with war and terror.
“We’re saying that the federal government is not doing anything about it.
“We don’t trust the president because most of his actions have been in favour of his ethnic group. Our suspicion is that the President is not doing this for the interest of the entire country. Let him discuss this in the 12 core northern states,” spokesman for the group, Mr. Abia Onyike said in a statement.
The governor of Benue State, Dr Samuel Ortom whose state has borne the brunt of herdsmen brutality did not spare the president saying Buhari was manifestly protecting the interest of the Fulani who are mostly pastoralists.
The governor, in a statement through his special adviser on media, Mr. Terver Akase, said Buhari had refused to prove wrong those who accuse him of being a Fulani president adding that the latest move could plunge the country into crisis.
He said the government had earlier introduced cattle colonies, Ruga and National Water Resources Bill which were all rejected by Nigerians.
“The latest push for grazing reserves and cattle routes is surely the final onslaught against majority of Nigerians who must be deprived of their God-given lands to accommodate foreign herdsmen moving into the country for the occupation agenda,” said.
He wondered the presidency “is only bothered about animals and their safety and is deploying all machinery…of government to impose grazing reserves and cattle routes on Nigerians” at this time when “insecurity has reached an all-time high with hundreds being killed by armed herdsmen, bandits and other terrorists.”
Continuing, he said: “The Buhari administration has turned a blind eye to the unimaginable levels of encroachment on lands belonging to Nigerians by cattle. Mr. President has never come out even once to condemn the activities of herdsmen and the attacks they visit on innocent people.
“The only time the President is heard speaking about atrocities of the herders is when he defends them.
“It is now clear that the Presidency wants to plunge the country into avoidable crisis. Otherwise, what is the justification for President Buhari’s insistence that grazing reserves be established across the country when Nigerians have openly kicked against the policy and have embraced ranching in place of open grazing?
“Millions of Nigerians have been displaced following attacks by armed herders and are currently suffering in IDP camps” with Benue State alone, according to him, having “over 1.5 million displaced people with thousands living in camps and many more forced to flee their ancestral lands to stay under dehumanizing conditions in open fields.
“The Buhari administration does not seem to be worried about the food crisis already ravaging the country. Farmers have been chased into IDP camps by herders and children are dying of starvation in addition to being denied education, yet what is more important to their President is the wellbeing of cows.
“We expected the pitiable condition of the displaced people to be the preoccupation of the President whom they voted in 2015 and 2019. It is unfortunate that the people’s genuine show of love, trust and votes for Mr. President are being rewarded with hate, cruelty and dictatorial policies aimed at grabbing their lands to donate to herders and cows.
“We challenge the Presidency to name what it has done to alleviate the plight of those displaced by herdsmen in Benue and other states since 2018.
“What is the difference between the Buhari administration’s approach to insecurity and the Taliban agenda in Afghanistan? It is now evident that the government at the centre prioritises the welfare of cattle over human beings and is bent on taking Nigeria back to the pre-colonial era with some snippets of a society where in the words of Thomas Hobbes, life has become ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.
“The country has been turned into a cow republic by the present administration and the basic principles of equality, justice, fairness and equity which engender peace and suppress anarchy are non-existent.
“President Buhari has refused to prove wrong those who accuse him of being a Fulani President. He has instead proven that he indeed belongs to somebody.
“But Buhari is not the first Fulani man to be President of this country. Nigeria had Presidents Shehu Shagari and Umaru Yar’Adua who were also of Fulani ethnicity but were Presidents for all Nigerians and treated citizens of this country fairly and equitably.
“Our country has never been more divided on ethnic lines and sentiments as it is under President Buhari who was thought to be the most prepared to lead the country at this time. Under President Shagari and President Yar’Adua, Nigerians were not chided by a horde of presidential spokesmen and social media hirelings for simply expressing their views on government policies.
“Perhaps Mr. President is not aware that most of the northern states, including his home state Katsina and the entire southern states have unanimously rejected open grazing of livestock and approved ranching.
“The presidency is therefore whipping a dead horse on the issue of grazing reserves. It is hypocritical for the presidency to support and fund ranching in Katsina State and turn round to impose grazing reserves on other states.”
For the senate spokesman, Mr. Ajibola Basiru, Buhari was yet to get the right legal advice on the issue.
He said in an interview with The Nation that the issue of grazing reserves is not within the purview of the federal government since land is vested in state governors.
He called on the president to seek proper advice from his legal advisers on how to address issue of animal husbandry in the country.
“You know I have raised this issue several times. I don’t believe the President is receiving proper advice on this grazing reserve matter.
“The issue of grazing reserve is not within the competence of the federal government. If he wants to do anything at all about grazing or animal husbandry, he should work with the state governments, because by the Land Use Act, the land comprising the entirety of each state is vested in the governor and the use and management of the land is also vested in the state.
“So, I believe the President is not being properly advised and therefore, he should get his legal team to properly advise him accordingly.
“There is no law on grazing reserves in Nigeria. Even the Northern Nigeria law which used to operate as a state law does not even define what is a grazing route and it is not grazing reserves.
“So, I don’t know where the President is getting his advice from and why his legal advisers are not properly advising him.
“The operating law on management of land in Nigeria is the Land Use Act and beyond the fact that the President even needs to apply for land for the purpose of development by the Federal Government, he does not have the business to say he wants to reserve any land for grazing, because the land comprising the entirety of each state is vested in the governor by Section 1 of the Land Use Act.
“So, I think it would be proper that the legal advisers of the President should properly advise him accordingly on how to address issue of animal husbandry.”
However, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) greeted the president’s move saying it would douse tension between farmers and herders.
National Secretary of the association, Mr. Baba Othman Ngelzarma, said in an interview that the association was not averse to any form of settlement that will bring peace between farmers and herders in the country, considering the growing population and the climate change effect in the country.
He said the move was an indication that the government has given attention to the livestock subsector just like the attention given to the agronomy subsector.
Ngelzarma said Nigerian pastoralists were still practising the primitive system of animal husbandry because no attempt was made by the past administration to modernise animal husbandry.
“This is a welcome development, considering the direction the crisis has taken. This means attention has been given to the livestock sector like is given to the agronomy sector of the country.
“There is no state that is not complaining about farmers/herders crisis and the encroachment at those reserves are too much.
“Not only the encroachment, you find some farmers blocking cattle roads linking to those grazing reserves and watering points of cows and the pastoralists are finding it difficult to move freely from one grazing reserves to watering points of cattle.
“We are not opposed to any form of settlement that will bring peace considering the growing population and the climate change effect in the country,” he said.
