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Miyetti Allah Asks Buhari, Nass to Stop Anti Open Grazing Laws.
The Leader of Miyetti Allah, Kauta Hore has petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to prevent state governors (particularly those in the South) from enforcing different anti-grazing legislation.
During a press conference, the group’s National Secretary, Engr Saleh Alhassan, branded the anti-grazing laws as demonic and a ruse to harm pastoralists’ economic activity.
According to Miyetti Allah Kauta Hore, a Fulani socio-cultural organisation, Nigeria should develop ways to address the difficulties of climate change, which affects cattle output.
According to Engr Saleh, anti-grazing laws and regulations are nothing more than a populist and corrupt agenda aimed at destroying pastoralists’ means of subsistence.
“We want the National Assembly and Mr. President to intervene and stop current attempt by some states governors to criminalize our means of economic livelihood of cattle rearing through the enactment of satanic and obnoxious laws – ‘Anti-open Grazing Laws’ targeted at Fulani pastoralists.
“The Federal Government should create a Federal Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries as obtainable in many African countries.
“Government should take an inventory of all the existing grazing reserve, traditional grazing areas, transhumance corridors, major stock routes and fully develop at least one grazing reserve in each senatorial zone in line with the recommendation of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Livestock Development in Nigeria 2015, the report of Presidential Committee on Pastoralists and Insecurity 2014 and the National Livestock Transformation Program.”
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According to him, the regulations do not take into account the social, economic, production system, temperature fluctuations, and other push factors inherent in pastoralists’ travels between ecological zones.
Miyetti Allah went on to say that the regulations would damage livestock output and push millions of people into poverty who rely on the livestock value chain (butchers, transporters, livestock dealers and consumers who are used to affordable sources of be and milk).
“The laws will undermine the relative peace and stability currently enjoyed by the local communities and threaten the social order.
“The laws will exacerbate cattle rustling in the local communities as criminal gangs and state-sponsored vigilantes will use the opportunity to institutionalize their nefarious activities of cattle rustling.
“The laws will lead to serious humanitarian crisis as families will be destabilised and markets and economic livelihoods will be disrupted and the laws will lead to massive cross-border migrations that will create further security challenges,” they noted.
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As a result, the group urged the National Assembly to help pastoralists by resurrecting and passing the Grazing Reserves Commission Bill and other livestock management bills initiated by previous National Assembly sessions, as well as introducing livestock tracking using GPS technology and supporting community-based conflict resolution mechanisms.
“These dangerous and satanic laws must be nipped in the bud by the National Assembly to safeguard the constitution as the portend greater danger to the corporate existence of the country.
“These oppressive laws and hostile policies being enacted by state governors are fundamentally going against the Fulani pastoralists’ culture, economic interest and constitutional rights.
“It is important to note that inter-state movement of pastoralists is analogous to interstate commerce, which is an exclusive preserve of the legislative powers of the National Assembly under item 62 of the Exclusive Legislative List.
“To this effect, any action taken by any state assembly that is in conflict with the above section of the 1999 constitution as amended is null and void,” the pastoralists said.
The Group further called for the incorporation of pasture development in the implementation of the Great Green Wall Program in combating densification and the preservation of small water bodies, adding that they also want existing African Union and ECOWAS Protocols/Regulations on pastoralist and implementation strategies put in place in the country.
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“A review of the Land Use Act is long overdue to accommodate the interest of all land resources users particularly pastoralists.
“Ranching as envisaged by many requires massive capital investment and difficult to sustain, not economical and is not small livestock holder centred,” Alhassan added.
