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The Committee For The Defence For Human Rights Slams Presidency Over Unconstitutional Grazing Routes

On The Open Grazing Controversy 

Perhaps nothing captures the attitude of the Buhari Presidency to governance in Nigeria today more than
its position on the issue of grazing reserves and grazing routes. The position symptomizes a mindset, the
anchor of which is insistence on a line of action, irrespective of public opinion and the law. One would
have expected that in view of the various articulations on the issue, particularly the illegality of it, Mr.
President and his team would proffer arguments in rebuttal of what has been argued to be a frontal
challenge to the provisions of the Land Use Act, a piece of legislation that enjoys Constitutional status. Is
Mr. President by his silence arguing that the Constitution does not confer powers of management of land
use on the State Governors with the exception of the Federal Capital Territory?
In the latest rare direct public statement on the issue, Mr. President informed the nation that he has
charged the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice to, in his words, “dig up and fish
out Gazettes on the subject matter, dating back to 1963”. Till date, neither the Attorney General of the
Federation nor the Presidency has formally presented the Gazettes and their contents to the nation.
Rather, what Mr. Garuba Shehu the Presidential Spokesman has as recently as 19th August 2021, said
through a Press Statement to the nation, is that the President has “approved the review of 368 Grazing
Reserves in 25 States across the Country”. Up till this moment the gazettes are not a matter of public
knowledge and the location of the reserves, and the States where they are, remain a matter of mystery.
As of Friday August 27th 2021, Officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture pointedly refused to disclose
the States.

Mr. President is said to have based his Order on the recommendation of a Committee the existence of
which before now has not been formally declared, but said to be chaired by Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, the
Chief of Staff to the President. This so called approval of the Committee‟s recommendation clearly
signifies a commitment to self service and disdain for popular opinion and no room for public input. What
the Committee‟s Main Report looks like, based on which it made recommendations now said to have
been accepted by Mr. President, rather than being in the public realm is all shrouded in mystery.
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This leaves the entire Country to continue to wonder whether indeed there are gazettes
that provide for grazing routes and reserves. Is it not true that those gazettes if they
exist are subsidiary instruments to regional laws which are clearly inferior to the
Constitution and by implication overtaken by the Land Use Act? Curiously, among the
terms of reference of this select Committee, is for the Committee “to gazette grazing
routes and reserves that have not been gazette”. One has to wonder what the
authority and legal basis is for a Presidential Committee to gazette grazing reserves
and routes that before now had not been in existence. Can a Presidential directive be
sufficient authority for this? Interestingly, the same Committee has been saddled with
the task of creating a „data base of national cattle herders, a census of a sort of cow
owners in Nigeria. This connotes preparation for the allocation, presumably by Mr.
President, of the grazing routes and reserves, once identified by the Committee.
The question is why does Mr. President feel he can present the Country with a fait
accompli on this matter and get away with it. Furthermore, what is the altruistic interest
of the Federal Government and in particular the Presidency, in the issue?
Cattle rearing has been recognized to be a private business, just like fish farming,
poultry, snailery or piggery. As a profitable venture, there are business expenses that
go with cattle rearing, like for the others; and these expenses include feeding of the
cows, and attending to their medical needs. It has also come out clearly in the debates,
that generally, the herders do not own the cows; the millionaires who do, live in the
comfort of their air-conditioned opulent homes with their children, who are given the
opportunities to feed and clothe well and receive the best education and healthcare.
Thus, the herders are no more than workers whose entire lives are tied to tending the
cows from birth to sale, as a product. There are no work hours and no defined periodic
pay cheques. They are denied of the right to found a family for the most part, and
therefore do not enjoy the consort of a marriage partner. Little wonder the
pervasiveness of rape of farmers wives and daughters as they roam with their herds of
cattle for months and years without female companions. Only this also explains pictures
and videos showing some of them mating with the cows.
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The question that remains is, whose interest in the final analysis is the Presidency
seeking to protect, that of the impoverished herdsmen or those of the millionaires who
own the cows? How does Mr. President extricate himself from the charge of a conflict
of interest in this matter, given his widely known status as an owner of a large herd of
cattle.
The President has been accused of encouraging the belief on the part of Fulanis not
only in Nigeria, but in the West and Central African regions, that Nigeria belongs to
them; that the time to take Nigeria over irrespective of all opposition, even through
military might, is now, that President Buhari, one of their own, is the President of
Nigeria.
One would have expected General Buhari to have frontally addressed this issue, dispel
the misconceptions of his fellow Fulanis and allay the fears of those who are nonFulanis, who are targeted and who in fact have suffered uncountable loss of lives and
property for years now, under the Buhari Presidency. It will be recalled that the RUGA
proposal as championed by the Federal Government under President Buhari, was
roundly rejected as a pretext for planting Fulani settlements in all Local Governments of
Nigeria particularly in the South where these have not been. Those who argue that the
Fulanis enjoy the Constitutional right to live and carry out their business in any part of
the Country, choose not to respond to the counter argument that freedom of movement
and right of residence does not justify exclusive usurpation of land holdings for
exclusive occupation by a group, effected by Presidential fiat and at public expense.
It is generally known that the National Livestock Transformation Plan is one that
virtually all the State Governors of the Federation have bought into, whereby in a 10
year period (2019-2028) through the instrumentality of ranching, the mode of cattle
rearing in particular, would have been changed. Mr. President has failed to address the
Nation on how his insistence on grazing routes relates to the Transformation Plan, or is
it that the Presidency has jettisoned the Livestock Transformation Plan? If as it is
reported that Mr. President has released the sum of N6.5 billion to Katsina State, which
by the way is not one of the pilot States for the purpose of ranching, one would have
thought that the focus of the Presidency now should be on how to treat all other States
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equally and allow the implementation of the plan following due appropriation and
budgeting instead of propping up the ghost of grazing routes.
Routes are known to originate from one point and destined for another. This suggests
that the movement of the cows to different parts of the Country is for a purpose, which
is, supply of cow meat to the intended markets. In the light of reports in the past of
people out of protest organizing to boycott cow meat, does this not envisage the need
for existence of a mutually beneficial relationship based on concord? Can Mr. President
use his fiat to compel the people of Nigeria to patronize and live in peace with sellers of
cow meat who have ruined their livelihoods?
It seems to me that Mr. President hopes to ride roughshod over public opinion and
opposition by his insistence on grazing routes, without the use of sound reasoning,
logic and the tool of persuasion. This only fuels the suspicion of an ulterior motive and a
hidden agenda. Mr. President needs to appreciate that by his reliance on Presidential
powers to foster sectional interests, which are subject to legal and political challenges,
he is damaging inter ethnic relations in Nigeria and creating problems that will outlive
his government and himself. He needs to know now, that the wounds already inflicted
which he unfortunately proposes to continue to inflict, by conferring unearned and
undeserved privileges on the foundation of nepotism, will leave scars that will define the
relationship between the Fulani and the rest of Nigerians for a long time to come
Successive governments after him would have to contend with this.
The Presidency needs to appreciate that those telling General Buhari to have a rethink,
are patriots concerned about the present and future of Nigeria.
The Buhari regime is touted to have done very well in the development of the railway
network in Nigeria. One has to wonder whether Mr. President has given a thought to
movement of cows by rail? Whether of live cows or slaughtered cows in refrigerated
coaches.
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Obviously many Fulanis believe that their time is now, to maximize what they can get
out Nigeria, and that they are getting desperate that time is running out.
Nobody else bears the task more than President Buhari himself to let the Fulanis know
that he is the President not just for Fulanis, but for all persons in Nigeria. He needs to
reassure the Fulanis and all Nigerians that the new Nigeria in the process of being born
is one in which no persons irrespective of ethnicity and religious belief will have any
special favours or privileges which all the People will not enjoy. Failure to publicly
discharge this duty will be the ultimate failure that President Buhari fears would mark
his years as President.

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President Buhari and his supporters need to appreciate that Article 3 of the ECOWAS
Protocols On Free Movement of Persons and Goods is not intended to provide a free
passage for armed robbers, kidnappers and bandits from the West African and Central
African sub-region, as their heinous crimes in pursuit of a doomed misadventure of
Fulani Zionism, does grave injustice to the lofty ideals of ECOWAS and the Africans
Union, for the oneness of African People and the urgent need for social and economic
integration.
Dated this day of 28th 2021

DR. OSAGIE OBAYUWANA
NATIONAL PRESIDENT
CDHR

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