The National Assembly is about to pass a Bill that is set to
kill whatever is left of our so-called over-centralised federal System. The bill
if passed will be the greatest rape on our democracy and the biggest insult on
our collective sensitivity as a people and as a country.
“The Fulani National Grazing Reserve” is presently before
the National Assembly. The bill has successfully scaled through second reading
in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. For it to become law it is
to pass through the third reading.
The bill seeks to provide for the establishment of national
grazing reserves and stock routes. It is sponsored by Senator Zainab Kure.
The Bill proposes to establish a National Grazing Reserve
Commission (NGRC) for the country. The NGRC will be charged with the
responsibility of using funds received from the Federal Government to
forcefully acquire farmlands from Nigerians in all the 36 States of the
country, develop same at government expense through the provision of bore
holes, water reservoirs, etc; for the exclusive use of nomadic cattle rearers.
The issue here is very clear. Fulani herdsmen are cattle
farmers. They could as well keep their cattle in ranches. They could devise
whatever means like their counterparts in Argentina, Australiaand the rest of
the civilised world to do their animal husbandry. The men and boys roaming the
streets, roads and bushes driving cattle are not the owners of these animals.
They are just employees, labourers, attendants or whatever name they are
called.
The owners of these cows like Generals Obasanjo, Nyako,
Abdulsalami Abubakar and our president Buhari are big time farmers. They are
businessmen. It is immoral to ask tax payers to finance the operations of these
businesses. Cattle owners must provide capital through bank loans or whatever
means to create their grazing lands in their localities. The cows are not owned
by the Federal Government.
Just as the Federal Government is not creating farm lands
for cocoa and kolanut farmers in Sokoto or Katsina, or creating farm lands for
Agatu yam farmers in Enugu or Maiduguri, or creating special areas for fish
farming in Zungeru, it cannot for any reason ever consider creating special
lands for herdsmen for grazing. Let the herdsmen run their business without
encroaching on the lands of other people. Let the cattle owners buy into the
Fodder technology and other modern methods of providing feeds for their animals
without roaming the streets and plundering other people’s farms.
To ever dream of this perverted bill is to step on the toes
of other Nigerians and step on sore foot, and by so doing create a dangerous
precedent.
Nobody should play ethnic game here. This is not an issue
directed against any ethnic nationality in Nigeria. The simple matter is to let
those who trade in cattle fund their business like all other businesses,
including farming, in Nigeria.
The bill must not see the light of the day. The sponsors
want to create serious problem in the polity and their design must be nipped in
the bud.
The Nigeria Bar Association, the Coalition of Civil
Societies, and all those who care about the continued existence of this
troubled country must rise up to strongly oppose and kill this obnoxious and
self serving bill. It beats my imagination that members of the National
Assembly did not see the serious danger posed by this corrosive Bill.
In a reaction to the threats posed by this obnoxious Bill,
the National Co-ordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani
Adams, says: “Without any doubt, this is a very dangerous proposal for Nigeria.
We all have seen how the Fulani herdsmen kill and maim members of the community
where they graze their cattle without the backing of any law. I am sure that we
can only imagine what their attitudes would be if the supposed grazing reserves
are forcefully taken over by government and handed over to the herdsmen.”
Nigeria has enough problems on her hand right now; we should
not provoke new and potentially more dangerous ones.
•Chief Tola Adeniyi, a former Managing Director, Daily Times
of Nigeria, is Executive Chairman, TheKnowledge Plaza and Founder Global
Intelligentsia for Buhari. (adetolaadeniyi@hotmail.com)
