Seriki Adinoyi in Jos
A Center Belt group, Center Belt Patriots, has urged state governors to reject stress from the federal authorities to cede lands of their states to herders for grazing, including that yielding to such calls for will worsen the safety state of affairs within the area and certainly different components of the nation.
In an announcement issued yesterday and signed by its Director of Media and Strategic Communications, Mr. Steven Kefas, the group expressed concern over the style the federal authorities continually panders to the pursuits of the pastoralists on the detriment and displacement of the indigenous populations whose lands and lives are being overrun by the armed ethnic militias affiliated with the herders.
Warning that the individuals of the Center Belt would resist any try and dispossess them of their God-given heritage, the group described the stance of the federal authorities on grazing land as provocative.
The group stated, “We vehemently condemn and reject the current directive from the federal authorities asking state governors to make land obtainable for grazing by Fulani herdsmen. This provocative and ill-advised order exhibits a surprising disregard for the already tenuous safety state of affairs within the Center Belt area that has been below sustained violent assault by armed Fulani ethnic militias.
“We sternly warn the political leaders, monarchs, and youth/neighborhood leaders of the Center Belt region-Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, and sections of Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Southern Kaduna, and Gombe states to outright disregard and defy this reckless federal directive.
“Capitulating to those calls for and ceding extra land for grazers will solely stir up the ethnic clashes, additional the genocidal massacres, escalate the violent displacement of indigenes from their ancestral lands, and jeopardize the delicate peace in a area that has already suffered immensely.
“The grazing of cattle is a non-public enterprise enterprise; it leaves extra questions than solutions as to why the federal authorities is intentionally arrogating farmlands to themselves to be handed over to personal herders? We forcefully remind the authorities in Abuja that pig farmers within the core northern Sharia states like Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Jigawa and Sokoto should battle, make investments and purchase land for his or her vocations with none such unconstitutional authorities directives.
“The identical ought to apply to the cattle herders – in the event that they want land for his or her commerce, they need to method prepared farmers and residents to lease or buy lands for grazing via professional means. No farmer or landowner ought to be forcibly dispossessed of their property.
“We deplore how the federal authorities continually panders to the pursuits of the pastoralists on the detriment and displacement of the indigenous populations whose lands and lives are being overrun by the armed ethnic militias affiliated with the herders.
“In Takum Native Authorities Space of Taraba State alone, over 200 Kuteb villages have been brutally sacked, with hundreds displaced from their houses and ancestral farmlands in a extreme humanitarian disaster brought on by the rampaging herders and their militias.
“The Kuteb individuals are historically famend farmers whose agricultural lands and technique of livelihood have been fully destroyed by the grazing herds and armed militancy.
“It’s an absolute travesty that their cries for safety, justice, and succour have fallen on deaf ears, whereas their land grabbers and tormentors are being rewarded with extra official edicts to additional dispossess them.
“The federal government ought to put a right away cease to those unlawful land grabs and acts of impunity. The cattle herders are non-public enterprise operators and ought to be compelled to lawfully lease, buy, or negotiate grazing lands with prepared landowners as an alternative of getting lands forcibly taken from defenseless indigenous populations at gunpoint.
“The Center Belt Patriots Belt Patriots will resist these unconscionable measures via all authorized and legit means at our disposal.”
President Bola Tinubu had whereas talking on the flag-off of the agricultural mechanisation revolution for meals safety in Minna, Niger State on Monday referred to as on governors to present components of the land of their states to Fulani herders for ranching functions.