RingTrue with Yemi Adebowale
Aman elected President of the whole country persists as a sectional leader. This is the situation this country has found itself with President Muhammadu Buhari. The standard is that he should, in conformity with his oath, be president to all. Buhari is not interested in this. He is always struggling to rise above primordial sentiments and often pursuing parochial ethnic agenda. Buhari’s clannishness is legendary and Nigeria has never had it this bad. Often, he leaves me depressed. Our President’s latest weird move was the statement last week that he had approved the recommendations of a committee to review “with dispatch, 368 grazing sites across 25 states in the country and to determine the levels of encroachment.” Which grazing site is our President talking about? Which encroachment? Legally, there is nothing like grazing sites or routes in Nigeria again. This prickly move is simply part of Buhari’s contentious pledge to revive strange old-fashioned grazing routes for herders.
Today, the document that governs this country called Nigeria is the 1999 Constitution. The law on land matters is the Land Use Act and it is entrenched in the 1999 Constitution. The rule vests all powers on land issues, all over the country, in governors and not the federal government. Governors remain the custodians of land. The President’s power is limited to land in Abuja. Buhari knows this but has chosen to snub this fact for selfish reasons. Grazing sites and grazing routes are now invalid. This is the truth that must be told. No power over land is granted to Buhari in the 1999 Constitution. The Grazing Reserves Law of 1964 has been supplanted by the Land Use Act. Whatever law establishing grazing routes is now obsolete and completely nullified by the operational Land Use Act.
Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, remarked: “In respect of land and the use, federal government, can’t legislate on how land is controlled and distributed in any part of Nigeria. Even if we assume, without conceding that laws for grazing routes made under the Northern Region of Nigeria, covered everywhere, the Land Use Act has superseded both routes and the law establishing them. Also, it is one thing for the President, to direct, it is another thing for the Attorney General of the Federation, to implement a law which doesn’t exist. He can’t enforce a non-existing law.”
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State is apt to challenge Buhari in the Supreme Court on grazing routes and areas. Other governors should join him if Buhari refuses to back out. Ortom remarked: “The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria supersedes the Northern Nigeria Law that provided for grazing reserves. The truth is that if the entire country had accepted ranching; then, why is Mr. President insisting on open grazing when there is no land for such.”
Aside from Buhari’s drive for grazing sites and routes being unconstitutional, how can our President be talking about such measures, when he knows that open grazing had been banned in many states because of the delinquency and insecurity associated with it? The president must learn to show respect for the feelings of Nigerians outside his Fulani kingdom.
Anybody genuinely interested in ending the brutal clashes between farmers and migrant herders must not be talking about grazing sites and routes. Emphasis should be on promoting peace in our lovely country, not fueling our lines of division. Ranching should be on the front burner. Nomadic cattle rearing is an aberration in modern societies. Nigeria can’t be an exception. Buhari should be interested in ranching in the interest of everybody, not advocating the continuation of a Stone Age idea. His support for open grazing has divided this country. Our President is unperturbed by the fact that Nigeria is falling apart because of his clannishness. He has set brothers against brothers; sisters fighting war. Our diversity mismanaged. Our unity practically destroyed. This country has never been this mismanaged.
Herders must return to their bases and cuddle ranching. If it does not happen, rampaging criminal herders and Fulani militias will persist in their nefarious activities against crop farmers. These murderers are enjoying a free rein with the tacit support of the powerful leadership in Abuja that controls all the security agencies. That has always been my position on the unending killings and abductions by lawless herders across Nigeria.
President Buhari confirmed my conviction with his infamous remarks extolling grazing routes and areas. Our dear President supports this archaic and ruthless cattle rearing method in this modern era. Buhari is obsessed with this outdated animal husbandry practice and he is now looking for laws to enable him revive grazing areas and routes for herders.
Buhari wants herders to continue moving cattle from Sokoto to Lagos, and beyond, unhindered. No wonder security agents are always lethargic in their response to SOS messages from crop farmers and communities ravaged by criminal herders. This is why huge swathes of this country have become killing fields, as killer herders, claiming a right to unencumbered feeding ubiquitously, are cruelly destroying lives and farms. They are never apprehended.
In Benue State, the criminal herders control several local government areas. Attacks on crop lands and farmers by criminal herders have led to astronomical hike in prices of food across Nigeria. This is a fact. Daily, farmers are deserting large fields for fear of being killed. They have every reason to be afraid. Many have been slaughtered on their farms by killer herders and Fulani militias. Buhari should be worried if indeed, he loves everybody in this country. A President, in this modern era, must not be seen promoting abnormality.
My dear Buhari, open grazing is no longer practicable. Not with the killings, rape, crop destruction, kidnapping, and geographical hegemony that comes with it. The culture of nomadism can be eliminated. Lee Kuan Yew proved this in Singapore. Late Muammar Gaddafi proved this in Libya.
For those disheartened by Buhari’s incongruity, I have good news for them today: Nigeria will survive Buhari and return to that path of a peaceful, brotherly and loving country. We have less than two years to go.
Originally published at Thisday