Fulani herdsmen blow hot: Reject grazing law

FULANI herders nationwide have said that the various laws proposed to ban open grazing in states across the country will not work. Rather it would breed conflict in the country, they said. Chairman Miyetti’ Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, Alhaji Haruna Usman who

revealed this in an exclusive interview with Nigerian Pilot Weekend in Kaduna, noted that it was an impossible law which the proponents enacted to benefit their people alone. Usman queried the rationale behind such laws, which had to do with a tribe and their only source of livelihood. He said it was wrong for such a law to be proposed against the generality of an ethnic group and in the case of Benue state which is more or else the epicenter of most Fulanis’/farmers’ crisis, a law that was made overnight. “You can’t bring up a law overnight that affects some tribes and everybody say you should comply to it. You can’t keep cows without food. And this law will not bring anything good in Benue state except conflict” he reiterated. He stated that Miyetti Allah Cattle breeders have lost almost 76,000 cows in three months and buried more than 58 persons through cattle rustlers in Kaduna and environs alone and noted that the decision against them was wrong even though the often Fulani/communal crisis has assumed a national dimension. According to him, “Its a wrong decision. I’ll not go deep because it’s a national issue. It is unfortunate; Buhari is
keeping quiet about it instead of calling on the Governors to order. Let’s wait and see. It will not work we are all in Nigeria. Is not going to be easy, my advice is that Benue governor should gazette the grazing reserve for indigenous herdsmen as dividends of democracy by building primary schools, healthcare for herdsmen to bring peace”. “But that, any Fulani who graze openly and caught will pay N1million won’t work. No policeman will like to go to the bush to arrest Fulani man. And no Farmer will go to farm for fear because government is creating law to favor only its people, the leader of the herdsmen said further. He explained that one way to demilitarize the Fulani was to liaise with Miyyeti Allah group and make them to surrender their arms.
“We have advised government on what to do about it; we use our organization to advice government because there are so many ways to tackle that issue, by collecting all their Guns. The system of collecting the guns from those in possession of illegal arms should be accepted by the government, we sit down with them here in Government house, more than ten times with the officers on how to negotiate to collect all the guns, those that will not agree to return their guns, we will force them to collect the guns. When we collect all their guns, they will not carry stick to go and block road. So, for illiterate people to carry guns is dangerous to the country, we have being calling attention of the government, write to them give them advise, not verbally”, he added.