The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, is acting on wrong advice with the law banning open grazing of cattle in the state, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association has said.
Usman Ngelzerma, the Secretary General of the group, which is the umbrella body of cattle breeders in the country, made this known in a Monday interview, The Punch reported.
Ngelzerma said it was wrong for the governor to try to stop a way of life the nomadic cattle breeders had practised for generations just to please farmers in the state.
“I like the Benue State governor. He is a peace – loving person but is working on wrong advice. The approach he took is wrong. You cannot change the way of life of a people like the way you turn off a light switch.
“We don’t wish for the crisis to continue but let us give it (the law) another look. We don’t like the killings; we will never condone the killing of people. Give the farmers their rights but consider the pastoralists too,” he said.
However, he distanced the group from the recent attacks that have left scores dead in Benue, blaming a splinter group, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, for issuing threats before the January 1 attack in the state.
He also accused the livestock guards employed by the state to enforce the anti-grazing ban of extortion and highhandedness.
Ngelzerma said fighting between the livestock guards and herdsmen led to the January 1 attack on Guma and Logo communities that left no fewer than 20 people dead.
He also called on the National Assembly to quickly pass the Grazing Reserve Bill into law to help address the issues of herdsmen encroaching on farmlands.
The enactment of the anti-open grazing law in Benue State was an attempt to curtail the already lingering Fulani herdsmen’s killings in the State. Unfortunately, the killings have never stopped but have rather accelerated. What the Federal Government said was simply that the herdsmen should be accommodated in the State in what they called ‘cattle colony’. If this is the only solution this administration would profer to the herdsmen’s killings, one may doubt whether there will ever be peace in this military regime. An honest and patriotic citizen will want to hear what the Federal Government is saying to the herdsmen all this while. Simply put, you are being attacked by someone and the leader in charge of the two of you is not talking to that person attacking you; he is talking exclusively to you being attacked and is not ready to defend you. If you are the one under attack in this case, won’t you realize that both your attacker and your leader are against you? In my own prayer, however, God shall Himself defend the weak under attack.