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The Fulani socio-cultural association, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore (MAKH) has made a new demand.
The group on Monday called on the National Assembly to review the Land Use Act, which vests the control of land within their domains in the hands of state governors.
The National Secretary of the association, Saleh Alhassan, who made this call at an event in Nasarawa State, said this review was long overdue to accommodate the interest of all land resources users, including pastoralists.
While lauding the courageous efforts of the Buhari government for listening to our consistent call to restore the existing grazing reserves, routes and create new ones, MAKH called for the creation of a Federal Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries.
Alhassan also called on the National Assembly to intervene and stop attempts by some states governors to enact anti-open grazing laws targeted at Fulani pastoralists.
Alhassan said that the law would undermine the relative peace and stability currently enjoyed in the local communities, threaten the social order and exacerbated cattle rustling.
He argued that the anti-open grazing laws would destroy livestock production and send into poverty millions of people that depend on the livestock value chain.
The MAKH scribe urged federal legislators to come to the rescue of the pastoralists by resuscitating and passing the Grazing Reserves Commission Bill and other livestock management bills that were initiated by the previous assembly.
He stressed the need for the government to take an inventory of all the existing grazing reserves, traditional grazing areas, transhumance corridors, major stock routes and fully develop at least one grazing reserve in each Senatorial District.
“This is in line with the recommendation of the
Inter-ministerial Committee on Livestock Development in Nigeria 2015, the Report of the President Committee on Pastoralists and Insecurity 2014 and National Livestock Transformation Programme.”
He said that ranching as envisaged by many required capital investment and was difficult to sustain, not economical “and it is not small livestock holder-centred.
Alhassan, therefore, called for the proper funding of the National Commission for Nomadic Education and the expansion of its mandate.
“Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore totally condemns the continuous extortion and profiling of the Fulani pastoralists by Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue and we call on him to offer an apology to the Fulani race.
“We commend the courageous efforts of the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari for listening to our consistent call to restore the existing grazing reserves, routes and create new ones.
“Because it is the only sustainable solution to the farmers and herders conflicts in the country,” he said.