Pan-Yoruba sociopolitical group, Afenifere, has rejected the Grazing Commission Bill proposed by the National Assembly to address the burning issue of farmers and Fulani herdsmen clashes erupting in different parts of the country.
Afenifere described the bill as “anti-people.”
The bill proposes the establishment of the National Grazing Commission which will preserve and control the national grazing reserves and livestock routes and other matters related to it.
The group’s leader, Reuben Fasoranti, while addressing journalists in Akure, said the bill, which empowered the commission to acquire any land anywhere in the country, would violate the subsisting Land Use Act and traditional means of land holding if enacted.
He noted that the bill was being proposed allegedly to favour the business of the Fulani herdsmen at the expense of the farmers whose farms were always destroyed by the Fulani’s cows in some other parts of the country .
” We reject any law that would rob the citizens of their possessions and award to another set of citizens as this offensive bill attempts to do. That is against the principle of natural justice, ” Mr. Fasoranti declared.
“It is also against federal principle for the government of the federation to therefore want to violate the rights of other sections of the country to please a group from an ethnic unit over and above the interest of other over 400 ethnic groups. ”
He called on all federal lawmakers from the south and Nigerians in general to join Afenifere in rejecting the bill.
He also said the group would not keep quiet until true federalism was in entrenched in the country
“We stand with the decision of the of the 2014 National Conference which recommended the scrapping of grazing route for the establishment of ranches,” the octogenarian said.
He said the system of roaming animals all over the country was no more in vogue.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to embrace the ranching system in order to put an end to the incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in many parts of the country.
