Southern States, Benue Kick Against Buhari’s Grazing Reserves

Fulani Herdsmen
Fulani Herdsmen

By Ebenezer Adurokiya

Ethnic nationality groups in Southern Nigeria on Friday said attempts by President Muhammadu Buhari and his government to create grazing reserves in their areas would fail. 

The Federal Government had on Thursday announced the decision of President Buhari to “retrieve” 368 cow grazing sites in 25 states. It was gathered that all the 19 Northern states are in the president’s plan, which means that the remaining seven are in the South. 

The Niger Delta apex socio-cultural group, Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, in separate statements, vowed that no inch of their lands would be allowed to be turned to “cow colonies.” 

Southern state governments are also insisting that the resolution to ban open grazing by September 1, 2021, stays, just as the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom on Friday accused President Muhammadu Buhari of turning Nigeria into a country for cows. 

The announcement by the presidency to create the 368 grazing reserves in 25 states was received with shock across states in the South and in the Middle Belt areas of the country where stakeholders insisted that the Federal Government under the law had no land anywhere which it could turn to grazing sites or reserves. 

“Southern states have collectively outlawed open grazing. In fact, Southern states have fixed September 1, this year, as the deadline for open grazing to stop. Besides, under the Land Use Act, all lands are under the control of state governors. 

President Buhari has no land anywhere in states to turn to cow grazing sites,” an aide to one of the state governors told Saturday Tribune on Friday but asked not to be named because he was not officially asked to comment on the matter. 

An aide to another state governor said both the Grazing Reserve Gazette of 1964 and the 1965 Grazing Reserve Law of Northern Nigeria are not applicable anywhere in the South, wondering where the president got the 25 states where his grazing reserves would be sited because the North has 19, not 25 states. 

Originally published at Nigerian Tribune