Ref:
Intersociety/SBCHROs/002/04/016/NASS/ABJ/NG
(1)The Senate President
(Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki)
Office of the Senate
President, Red Chambers
The National Assembly
Complex, Three-Arms-Zone
Abuja, FCT, Nigeria
(2) The Speaker of House
of Reps (Hon Yakubu Adamu Dogara)
Office of the House
Speaker, Green Chambers
The National Assembly
Complex, Three-Arms-Zone
Abuja, FCT, Nigeria
Sirs,
Nationalization Of
Fulani Animal (Cattle) Husbandry In Nigeria By Way Of An Act For The
Establishment Of The National Grazing Reserves (Establishment &
Development) Commission: Dangers, Consequences & Solutions
The leadership of International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety); supported by the Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights
Organizations (SBCHROs),
comprising: Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO),
Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA), Human Rights Club (a
project of LRRDC)(HRC), Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights
(FJEDHR), Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW), Anambra Human Rights Forum
(AHRF), Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF),
International Solidarity for
Peace & Human Rights Initiative (ITERSOLIDARITY), Igbo Ekunie Initiative (pan
Igbo rights advocacy group) and Intersociety, have resolved, as a matter of
urgency and national importance, to write your two important legislative
offices concerning the subject matter captioned and underlined
above. This letter of ours also becomes necessary in view of the forthcoming
public hearing at the House of Reps concerning the controversial Bill under
reference.
As your two important
legislative offices are aware, two Bills concerning the above subject matter,
originally drawn from “the National Grazing Reserve (Establishment &
Development) Bill 2008”, introduced and sponsored by Senator Zainab Kure
of Niger South Senatorial District of Niger State during the 6th
National Assembly; are presently before the House of Reps. The two Bills are
aimed at creating grazing reserves, ranches and cattle reserves across the 36
states to be funded with public funds through the establishment of a National
Grazing Reserve Commission, an agency to be placed under the direct control of
President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also the national patron of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of
Nigeria (MACBAN), a
cattle rearing and trading association with membership in the civil service,
retired and serving top security personnel, politics and other nomadic Fulani
investors of sedentary backgrounds within and outside Nigeria (including Chad
and Niger Republics); who are ethnographically referred to as “sedentary
Fulanis”.
One of the two grazing
reserve Bills under reference was published in the official National Assembly
Gazette of February 1, 2016 and the other was published in the March 16, 2016
edition of the National Assembly Journal. The two Bills contain details of the
proposed law. The first Bill with number HB.16.02.388 is titled: “A Bill
for an Act to Establish the National Grazing Route and Reserve Commission, to
establish and control Grazing Routes and Reserves in all parts of Nigeria and
other incidental matters thereto…” It is sponsored by Honourable Sunday
Karimi from Kogi State while the second Bill, published on March 16, 2016 and
titled: “A Bill for an Act to Establish Grazing Reserve in each State of
the Federation of Nigeria to improve Agriculture yield from livestock farming
and curb incessant conflicts between Cattle farmers and crop farmers in Nigeria
and for Related Matters,” is marked HB.16.03.448 and sponsored by Hon
Sadiq Ibrahim of Fafure/Song Federal Constituency in Adamawa State. The Bill is
contained in pages 931 to 941 of the National Assembly Journal, Volume 13. The
two Bills are being consolidated, having passed the Second Reading at the House
of Reps (source: Nigerian Tribune Newspaper, April 20, 2016). The two Bills are
mostly a replication or repetition of the first National Grazing Reserve
Commission Bill of 2008, sponsored by Senator Zainab Kure. The following link
contains the original National Grazing Reserve Bill of 2008 under reference: http://nass.gov.ng/document/download/147.
As your two important legislative offices are further aware, for a
Bill to be passed as a law, legislatively, before presidential assent, it must
have originated from either of the two chambers of the National Assembly where
most of its passage works are done, after which, there will be a concurrent
passage of same by the other chamber; requiring lesser legislative work. This
means that irrespective of the particular chamber where the Bill under
reference is presently located or rooted, the two chambers (Senate and House of
Reps) must pass or reject it concurrently at the end of the day. That is to say
that the controversial Bill is presently before the National Assembly of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria under the watch of your two legislative offices.
We are saddened and dismayed over the referenced subject matter
and local, national and international controversies so generated. It is further
alarming and shocking that at this age of Nigeria’s statehood, its legislative,
judicial and executive actors still rigmarole in absurdities, primordialism and
clannishness by giving attention to issues that add no meaningful values to the
country’s growth and development; other than those constituting and entrenching
deepened structural violence, ethno-religious divisions, politico-economic
exclusion, national backwardness, mass poverty, collective and individual
security threats and other man-factored unsafe conditions. In the words of late
Dr. Julius Nyerere; “Nigeria has chronically chosen to be moving steadily
back to the cave, when its counterparts and peers of 60s and 70s are busy
finding their ways into the orbit or moon”.
Today, as shameless as
Nigerian political actors are and as intellectually and socially stunted as
they are, they spend the country’s lean resources going to countries like
China, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates either to beg for
loans or to look for elusive foreign investments when their country is on fire
and made risky and investment unfriendly. These actors also go in search of
elusive investments and modern enslavement in the hands of some rich countries
across borders. Yet back home, they plant seeds of discord and run oppressive
policies and governance actions, making it perpetually impossible for the country
and its teeming population to grow and develop.
What they call
“budgets” has conceptually and practically nothing to do with public budgets of
comparative reality, but a mere aggregation of “public office squandering
sheets” by public office holders and their subordinates; for the purpose of
legislative codification and stamping and at the expense of direly needed
capital growth and development of the country. A public budget is budget when
it is developmentally ambitious in multi-sectored directions and least
borrowing oriented; with capital expenditures doubling, if not tripling
recurrent or personnel and overheads costs.Till date, Nigerian “budgets” are
not only irreversibly and chronically negative with potentials of not taking
the country to anywhere in the next fifty years, not to talk of paring the
country with the likes of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Malaysia,
Indonesia and Hong Kong (ASEAN), Brazil and members of the Gulf Cooperation
Countries (i.e. Qatar, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iran). In
60s and 70s, Nigeria’s GDP and GNP were at par with these countries and even
far above those of some of them.
We had expected the 8th
National Assembly under the legislative watch of your two important offices; to
sponsor and lay before the two chambers such bills that have capacities to
radically move the country and its people away from the present socio-economic,
cultural(i.e. religious and ethnicity) and political doldrums and negativities.
One of such important bills in our mind is a bill for diversification and
decentralization of the country’s ailing power or electricity industry. For
instance, the major challenge facing Nigeria’s power sector is over reliance on
hydrogen and gas as its core sources of electricity and their over
centralization with a myriad of bureaucratic and graft bottlenecks.
As your two important
legislative offices are aware,
there are (globally) hydro-powered electricity, wind-powered electricity,
solar-powered electricity, biomass-powered electricity, nuclear-powered
electricity, coal-powered electricity and gas-powered electricity, among other
sources. As a lasting solution to the country’s age-long power
epilepsy, coal mineral found in industrial quantity in the Southeast, if
reactivated and mechanized; has the capacity of effectively powering the
Southeast Region. In the South-South Region, gas energy, if properly harnessed
and funded (PPP); can effectively power the Region electrically. Solar and wind
derived energy can take care of the Southwest, if properly developed via PPP.
In the North and its three sub regions, hydro source or water dams can be
industrially deployed through the expansion of existing dams and creation of
new ones. Gaddafi’s Libya, for instance, is still noted internationally for
constructing “the 8th Wonder of the World” (digging of
industrial and artificial river or dam from deserts) for the purpose of
addressing the age-long “water wars” with its neighbors (i.e. Egypt, Chad and
Sudan). The development and passage of this type of public interest bill will
be accompanied with attraction of core and external investors under PPP
arrangements.
Another area that
requires such public interest bill is intra and inter-communal and religious
violence and victimization in Nigeria. There is urgent need to create “intra
and inter communal and religious crimes or offenses and victims commission”;
with designation of criminal court sections within the country’s existing
judicial system to prosecute the offenders and award compensations to the
victims. Other areas of extreme public and legislative importance are the
age-long geo-political imbalance (i.e. State & LGA lopsidedness per
geopolitical zone), geo-legislative imbalance, non-justiciablity of chapter two
of the Constitution, threats to the secularity of Nigeria, criminal justice and
crime victim welfare reforms, non domestication of numerous international
rights and humanitarian treaties ratified by Nigeria, etc.
Rather than dwelling
and dissipating energies, with tax payers’ wealth of Nigerians over genocide
friendly and useless efforts like Fulani Animal (cattle)
Husbandry Nationalization Bill (2016), the 8th National
Assembly of Nigeria should concern itself with such critical areas that have
made it very difficult for Nigeria to develop and grow with capacities to
compete with its peers of 60s and 70s. The 8th National
Assembly under the legislative watch of your two offices should
investigate why the country’s unharnessed 33 solid mineral deposits in industrial
quantities cannot be developed and mechanized.
Your two important
offices should also tell Nigerians via your requisite legislative competence
and capacities whether the 33 solid minerals under reference still belong to
Nigerians or whether they have been couriered and cornered privately through
illicit and subsistent mining and trading. What about the country’s mental or
creative wealth? Have they been effectively developed and harnessed? What about
cross-fertilization of scientific and technological resources with other rising
economies like “Asian & Gulf Tigers” (i.e. trading what
Nigeria knows and creates best to get what it lacks most)? It is a truism that
Nigeria and Nigerians suffer till date on account of short-sightedness, crude
individualism and intellectually daftness of its political, judicial and
legislative actors. Most, if not all the country’s woes till date, are
man-made; chiefly from its public office holders.
Fulani Animal (cattle)
Husbandry Nationalization Bill: “Why is it that when the North American and European (and
Asian) leaders are busy finding their countries’ ways into the moon; African
leaders are busy taking their peoples back to the cave?” (Late Dr. Julius
Nyerere:1994). A lot has been said and written concerning the bill above.
We hold that the bill is not only controversial but also highly divisive,
primordial, incoherent, unconstitutional, un-secular, ethno-religiously
blood-soaking, structurally violent and unquenchably genocidal if passed and
enforced as a law in Nigeria.
Originally and
legislatively referred to as “An Act To Provide For The Establishment Of
The National Grazing Reserve (Establishment & Development) Commission For
The Preservation & Control Of National Grazing Reserves & Stock Routes
& Other Matters Connected Therewith 2008 (now 2016)”; the bill
expressly provides for nationalization or State funding, control, preservation
and protection of the Fulani Animal (Cattle) Husbandry in Nigeria; a purely
private affair run by a group of individuals known as the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of
Nigeria (MACBAN), a
cattle rearing and trading association with membership in the civil service,
retired and serving top security personnel, politics and other nomadic Fulani
investors of sedentary backgrounds within and outside Nigeria (including Chad
and Niger Republics); who are ethnographically referred to as “sedentary
Fulanis”.
Those recruited and
employed as their cattle herders are called “pastoral Fulanis”; drawn
from the Fulani and Hausa poorest/lowest/youth class. The
activities of the latter and their well trained and armed military wing; fully
backed by the former with their government links; have undermined and
continue to undermine the national security and corporate existence and
well-being of Nigeria, leading to massacre of at least 1000-2000 innocent lives
every year. The latest of such butcheries by the Fulani Janjaweed
was the killing of at least 40 defenseless natives of Ukpabi-Nimbo Community in
Uzo Uwani LGA of Enugu State in the early hours of Monday, 25th of
April 2016 (Sources: This Day & Vanguard Newspapers, 26th of
April 2016). Over sixty others sustained various degrees of injury and more
communities in the State including Umuchigbo are currently under the siege of
the Fulani Janjaweed. In all these, the reactions of the
country’s security chiefs including the Inspector General of Police and local
army and police chiefs have remained complicit and omission to act. They
deliberately refuse to act to stop or de-escalate the massacre, but embark on
“casualty and property destruction assessment” tours or visits, well after the
butchers have struck and concluded their murderous missions.
According to Comrade
James Pam; a leading critic of the Bill, “the Bill has successfully
scaled through the second reading in the House of Representatives and all that
is left in the legislative process to make it a law is the Third Reading, that
is, a clause by clause debate, voting (concurrent passage by the Senate) and
then assent by the President. The Bill deserves very close scrutiny by all
Nigerians and the international community should also be interested in this
Bill because of the magnitude of the internal crises that the Bill could create
with attendant spill-over effects if passed.
As explained below,
the proposed piece of legislation is full of unconstitutionalities, ethnic
discriminations, fundamental human rights violations, religious tenets
violations, conspicuous criminal omissions and unforgiveable legislative
indiscretions. The Bill should therefore be killed immediately and not
presented for the last reading” (Comrade James Pam: April 2016; an activist for the
protection of the ethnic minorities of the Jos Plateau. He also runs a blog
called Jos Plateau Affairs).
According to Comrade
James Pam in his well researched piece on the foregoing, the Bill is a proxy
bill (executive engineered) originally introduced or sponsored by Senator
Zainab Kure from Niger South Senatorial District of Niger State, who had
earlier in 2008 during the 6th National Assembly introduced or
sponsored the same Bill. Senator Zainab Kure is the current Senate
Committee Chairman on Marine Transport. Following the emergence of Gen
Muhammadu Buhari (a core partaker in the Fulani Animal (cattle) Husbandry in
Nigeria), as sixth elected President of Nigeria in late May 2015; the Bill was
dusted up and resurrected in the House of Reps reportedly by the Presidency
using the duo of Hon Sunday Karimi and Hon Sadiq Ibrahim representing their
federal constituencies in Kogi and Adamawa States respectively.
The Comrade James
Pam’s informed piece further noted that the Bill’s concluding Explanatory
Memorandum says that the Bill seeks to provide for, among other things, the
establishment of the National Grazing Reserves Commission of Nigeria, for the
preservation and control of national grazing reserves and stock routes in the
country. He highlighted the Bill’s key provisions and high points to include
the following:
1. To establish a National Grazing
Reserve Commission (NGRC), a body corporate.
2. The NGRC may acquire, hold, lease or
dispose of any property, moveable or immovable for the purpose of carrying out
its function.
3. The NGRC shall have a governing
Council headed by a Chairman appointed by the President and confirmed by the
Senate with members representing the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Rural
Development and Water Resources, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment,
Housing and Urban Development, the National Commission for Nomadic Education
and shall also have a Director General.
4. To raise monies by way of grants,
loans, borrowing, subsidies and donations.
5. The following lands may be subject to
the provisions of the Act to be constituted as National Grazing Reserves and
Stock Routes:
(a) Lands at the disposal of the
Federal Government of Nigeria.
(b) Any lands in respect of which it
appears to the Commission that grazing in such land should be practiced.
(c) Any land acquired by the
Commission through purchase, assignment, gift or otherwise howsoever.
- State Governments shall be given notice first before land acquisition and gazetting.
- The Commission shall pay compensation to persons affected by any land acquisition.
- There shall be no improvements, encroachment, bush burning, hunting, use of chemicals and felling of trees by anyone inside lands acquired and demarcated as National Grazing Reserves or Stock Routes.
- Contravention of any of the provisions in (8) above shall be punishable by a fine of N50,000 or 5 years imprisonment or both.
- No Court of law shall carry out execution of its judgment or attachment of court process issued against the Commission in any action or suit without obtaining the prior consent of the Attorney General of the Federation.
- For the time being, the Commission shall report to the Honorable Minster for Agriculture and Water Resources.
- Native communities referred to in the Bill shall be any group of persons occupying any lands in accordance with, and subject to native law and custom.
- Stock Routes shall mean tertiary or secondary or inter-state stock routes linking two or more States together or leading from grazing reserve to grazing reserve.
- When passed into law, the Act shall be cited as The National Grazing Reserve Commission (Establishment and Development) Bill 2016.
Apart from the above 14-point executive, judicial
and legislative protective measures and incentives inherent in the Bill, it is
further stated in the Bill that additional incentives and facilities such as
functional Earth Dams, Water Points, Dairy Processing Centers, Schools,
functional Barns and Livestock Service Centers, etc shall be provided in each
of the acquired or possessed Grazing Reserves in Nigeria by the Federal
Government through public funds, grants or borrowings. In other words, the
Federal Government of Nigeria plans to fund these through the oil wealth of the
South-south and the Southeast Nigeria, which constitute 90% of the country’s
annual earnings as well as income, import, company, VAT and indirect taxes or
non-oil earnings of the Federal Government, concentrated in the Southern
Nigeria and a part of the North-central Nigeria. The proposed establishment of
the National Grazing Commission is for the purpose of enforcing Grazing Reserve
Laws for overall protection of the Fulani Animal (cattle) Husbandry in Nigeria
as well as perceived protection by State of the atrocities of the Fulani armed
wing or Fulani Janjaweed.
Dangers & Consequences: The Bill is not only politically motivated
and ill-conceived, but also ethno-religiously antagonistic and war drumming. It
is mischievously cloaked in the layers of “animal husbandry”, but with Islamist
conquest intents. Our in-depth research clearly shows that the Bill has no
reason whatsoever to be introduced or sponsored at the first place. Firstly,
Federal Government of Nigeria has no business doing with Fulani Animal (cattle)
Husbandry in Nigeria, except regulating the conducts of its owners and herders
and the business of animal husbandry itself to ensure that they do not
undermine the country’s physical, personal, communal, health, food, environmental
and economic security. Secondly, to forcefully deprive peoples, citizens and
communities of their ancestral lands all in the name of “Fulani Animal (cattle)
Husbandry or Grazing Reserves”, is a total declaration of war by Federal
Government against the people of Nigeria. Other social dangers and consequences
include abduction and raping of married and unmarried women as well as
under-age girls of the host communities by the Fulani Janjaweed and cattle
herders; abduction and forceful conversion to Islam of defenseless citizens and
vulnerable population; guest-host hostilities, hostile neighborhood
relationships, frequent guest-host communal violence and incessancy of
guest-rooted sundry criminalities (crimes against persons and properties).
Thirdly, by making the Bill a country-wide and
compulsory affair, it clearly means that the Federal Government has been
hijacked by some ethno-religious radicals and brigandage activists. We say this
because out of the country’s 923,000 plus square kilometers of landmass, 70% is
located in the Northern part. Also Niger and Chad Republics where the Fulanis
and their cattle herders dwell, too; each of the two countries has over one
million square kilometers of landmass. Where, for instance, will highly
urbanized Lagos with a small landmass of 4,211 square kilometers get acres of
land to give out for the so called “National Nomadic Grazing Reserves”? Where
will Anambra State with high level of urbanization and a small landmass of
4,611 square kilometers get acres of land for such useless national project;
likewise Bayelsa and Ebonyi States?
Fourthly and most importantly, the Bill is
totally lopsided and negative justice oriented. The issue of Fulani
Animal (cattle) Husbandry in Nigeria cannot be addressed leaving out
the age-long hostilities and violence directed at the rural farmers of Southern
Nigeria and old Middle Belt; who have been at the receiving end of the age-long
atrocities of the Fulani Cattle herders, their armed wing and sponsors. The
farmers of Nigeria’s rain forests, who are mainly Christians, have been killed
in their thousands by the Fulani Janjaweed in recent times with
the Federal Government keeping sealed lips till date. If Federal Government
plans to mechanize, protect, secure and preserve the Fulani Animal Husbandry in
Nigeria, leaving behind the Root Crops Farmers of the Rain Forests, made
up of farmers of the South-south, Southwest, Southeast and the old Middle Belt
of Nigeria, who are the victims of the age-long hostilities of the Fulani herders;
then the Government is lending credence to one-way traffic justice, which is a
recipe for genocide and unquenchable ethno-religious violence.
If the Fulani Animal Husbandry is being given
Federal Government attention, for “mechanization”, “securitization”,
“protection” and “preservation” purposes; then the same should simultaneously
be extended to the Root Crops Farmers of Southern and old Middle Belt Nigeria.
They need such incentives more than the Fulani herders. The root crops farmers
of the rain forests are the traditional growers and harvesters of root crops
like yam and its species, cocoyam and its species, cassava, banana, cashew,
cocoa, palm nuts and oil, pears, maize, rubber, bread fruit, oil bean, udala
fruits, mangoes, etc. Most of these root crops cannot traditionally be grown
and harvested in the core north. Till date, they are still grown and harvested
traditionally in the rain forests areas of Nigeria, with little or no
government mechanized incentives to grow and harvest them in commercial or
industrial quantities.
By the way, why has the Fulani Animal
(cattle) Husbandry remained subsistent, unscientific, un-industrialized and
un-mechanized warranting their use, till date, of crude pasturing and grazing
methods with their attendant unsolicited antagonism and violence against their
host communities? Why must Federal Government lend extended support to such
crude and hostile pasturing and grazing methods by way of seeking for the
expansion and codification of National Grazing Reserves across the country? Why
won’t Federal Government hands off and restrict the Fulani Animal Husbandry to
the North where large expanse of lands abounds? Why should the Fulani Animal
Husbandry not be handled privately or regionally by the governors of core northern
States, who may provide it with scientific, technological and mechanized
incentives such as Earth Dams, Water Points, Dairy Processing Centers, Schools,
functional Barns, Livestock Service Centers, electricity, etc? Why making it a
mandatory country-wide affair with tax payers funds of all Nigerians and
southern oil wealth?
Solutions: We are of the firm view that two key
solutions abound in resolving the controversies and national security threats
associated with the Bill under discussion. In addition to the solutions under
recommendation, the introducers of the controversial Bill and its variants:
Senator Zainab Kure, Hon Sunday Karimi and Hon Sadiq Ibrahim should be
suspended from the Senate and House of Reps for introducing a Bill with
capacity not only to undermine national security, but also to plunge the entire
country into anarchy, chaos and widespread bloodshed. As matter of fact, they
should be recalled by their constituents and constituencies. In our main
solutions under recommendation, there are two-justice solutions: negative
justice solution and positive justice solution. While the former is zero-sum
oriented, the latter is win-win or problem solving
oriented. We preferentially recommend the latter (positive
justice solution).
Negative Justice Solution: It is a truism that passing into law the Nationalization
of Fulani Animal (cattle) Husbandry or National Grazing Reserves Commission
Bill, leaving behind the Root Crops Farmers of the Nigerian Rain
Forests, who are victims of age-long hostilities and violence of the
Fulani herders; is not only unacceptable and a recipe for anarchy; but also a
fundamental injustice and gross affront to the sacred doctrine of audi
altarem partem (always hear the other side). It is therefore our
recommendation that there shall be introduced immediately and concurrently too;
under the prompt legislative directive of your two offices, of a fresh
Bill for “An Act to Establish the National Root Crops Farming Reserves
& Protection Commission 2016”, with replication of all the features
contained in the National Grazing
Reserve (Establishment & Development) Commission for the Preservation &
Control of National Grazing Reserves & Stock Routes & Other Matters
Connected Therewith 2016 including making the Bill under recommendation a country-wide
affair with provision of all the incentives contained in the Grazing Reserve
Bill including mechanized agro technologies, security and protection. The two
Bills must be passed concurrently or be rejected concurrently.
Alternatively, the present National Grazing
Reserve Bill can be expanded for the purpose of integrating or incorporating
the Root Crops Farming Reserve and Protection segment. This may be cited as “the
National Cattle Grazing & Root Crops Farming Reserves Commission Bill 2016”;
a sort of two-in-one Bill; providing for 50-50 Federal Government
nationalization and provision of industrial or mechanized incentives, legal and
executive frameworks for the Fulani Cattle herders and the Root Crops Farmers
of the Rain Forests concurrently. For instance, if Federal Government possesses
or acquires two acres of land for National Grazing Reserve in Zamfara State,
two acres of land will concurrently and at the same time be possessed or
acquired for the National Root Crops Farming Reserve. Such must be applied
uniformly in all the States in the South-south, Southeast, Southwest,
North-central, Northeast and Northwest geopolitical regions of Nigeria and the
Federal Capital Territory (Abuja); in other words, a quota system
methodology. The same set of rules, industrial incentives, policies,
public funding or budgetary allocations, permissible socio-cultural practices
and security measures should be applied evenly to the two Farming and Grazing
Reserves in all parts of the country; whether they are created by one or two
set of Bills.
Also if Fulani Herders are allowed to carry
arms “in self defense”, the Root Crops Farmers of the Rain Forests
must also be allowed to carry theirs “in self defense”. If the arms are for
“offensive purposes” and the Federal Government allows and condones such on the
part of the Fulani Cattle Herders and their armed wing; then the Federal
Government does not have moral authority to block and query any retaliatory
measures of the attacked party (i.e. root crops farmers) until it effectively
curbs the atrocities of the former and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Socio-culturally speaking, if the Fulani
Cattle Herders and Owners are allowed to build Mosques and install emirs or sarki
in the National Grazing Reserves across the country, the Root Crops Farmers of
the Rain Forests must be allowed, too, to build churches or other places of
worship and install their trado-religious heads. If Fulani Herders are
empowered to vote or be voted for or allocated with demographic constituencies
in their host communities where the Grazing Reserves are located, the Root
Crops Farmers of the Rain Forests must inexcusably be treated in a like manner
and concurrently too. The recommendation above can best be described as “power
balance solution” with its mutual deterrence effects. This informs the
title of “negative justice solution”, given above.
Positive Justice Solution: On the other hand, it is our strong
recommendation in the context of Positive Justice Solution that
the Bill and its variants should be torn to shreds and trashed into the dustbin
of your two legislative houses to be dusted or resurrected no more. The
sponsors of the Bill should be severely punished as well. We further recommend
for total and perpetual banning of the north to south movement of herds of
Fulani Cattle and their herders; other than their trading. The exercise should
also be totally restricted to core northern States, Niger and Chad Republics.
It is about time age-long crude methods of
animal husbandry got upgraded and mechanized. The north to south crude grazing
and pasturing movements should be banned and prohibited particularly in the
Southern parts and the old Middle Belt. The Fulani Animal (cattle) Husbandry
must go scientific and embrace modern “sedentary and industrial” grazing and
pasturing methods. Members of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders
Association of Nigeria should also introduce far reaching innovations
into their animal grazing and trading by expanding the business to attract core
investors with industrial capital capacities to industrialize the venture. They
can also partner with the governments of the core northern States and
investment moguls like Dangote, Dantata, etc.
Rather than seeking to create a law of
“national bloodshed and dismemberment of Nigeria through butcheries and
anarchy”, the 8th National Assembly under the legislative watch of
your two important offices should channel their efforts at strengthening
legislatively the existing criminal justice laws for the purpose of curbing the
rising cases of the hostilities and atrocities of the Fulani Janjaweed, hiding
under the pretext of cattle rearing to perpetuate and perpetrate crimes against
humanity against thousands of unarmed and innocent citizens of Nigeria
particularly the rural Christian farmers of the Rain Forests Region. To be
addressed legislatively, too, is high incidence of intra and inter communal and
religious violence as well as ceaseless political killings and assassinations
in Nigeria.
It is our hope that this controversial issue
of Grazing Reserve Bill will be dealt a decisive blow by your two important
offices as a matter of extreme urgency, otherwise we shall be left with no
other option than to agree with some popular social quarters within and outside
Nigeria that “the Nationalization of the Fulani Animal (cattle) Husbandry
or National Grazing Right and Route Reserve Bill of 2016”, is an Islamic
conquest policy by other means”.
Yours Faithfully,
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
(Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
Chinwe Umeche, Esq., Head, Democracy & Good
Governance Program
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq., Head, Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law Program
CC:
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike
Ekweremadu
Attorney General of the Federation, Mr.
Abubakar Malami, SAN
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