The Fulani Grazing Reserve bill: A Trojan horse of Islamisation of Nigeria

The Fulani Grazing Reserve bill: A Trojan horse of Islamisation of Nigeria

I have scanned the grazing reserve bill and I am very alarmed that none of the legislators and senators from other parts of Nigeria have not raised concern or seek to educate the people they represent on its implications.

Most of what is relevant, which the bill seeks to achieve, are already within the remit of federal ministry of agriculture and nomadic education. Therefore, I fail to see the rationale for attempting to enact another bill, which would duplicate functions and necessitate increasing government expenditure.

The bill, if it becomes law would be a very discriminatory legislation that accords special treatment to a group to further their peculiar interest, which is not extended to other similar groups in the country.

The Fulani herdsmen (nomads) are not the only people from an ethnic group in Nigeria that go outside their ethnic region to ply their trade. After all, cattle rearing is a business just like any other business, and why should they receive special treatment, which is not extended to others?

Therefore, why should the law (Land use Act) be abused to enable them take over vast acres of land that belong to other communities to establish a community within a community?

Igbos and other tribes have been trading in different parts of Nigeria for many years. There has never been a history of Igbo traders invading a village and killing the people and burning their houses because they want to build a markets or establish a community within a community. Igbos have never been a danger to the communities they settle in.

The experience of Igbos has been that of persecution from the ethnic communities, whose economy they grow. Igbos are often killed in large numbers and their markets burnt or destroyed.

The same cannot be said of armed Fulani herdsmen, who have become increasingly militants and go around terrorising villages and seeking to take over other people's land by force as grazing grounds for their cows.

This bill, if it becomes law in its present form would be rewarding terror, legitimising violence and discriminatory treatment and putting several regions of Nigeria at significant risk of terrorism by Fulani herdsmen.

This bill gives the government right to acquire land in any part of Nigeria and reserve it for the exclusive use of the Fulanis.

More than anything, it expose the unfairness of the Land use Act, the extent it can be abused by a government with sectarian agenda to advance sectarian interests and another reason why the Land Usr Act should be abrogated.

It gives the Fulanis right to land in any part of Nigeria, which no other ethnic group enjoys and sets aside a significant percentage of federal government income for it.

This is a law to carve out large part of Nigeria in different regions for the exclusive use of Fulanis. A privilege not available to any other ethnic group.

Why should the Fulanis be given special assistance to enhance their economic advantage, which no other group enjoys? They already get foreign exchange from the central Bank to sell, which has destroyed the value of the Naira.

Why should the rest of Nigeria subsidise cattle rearing business and way of life of Fulanis, when such assistance is not available to other farmers?

Why is such treatment and protection not available to other groups, who have to earn their living in regions outside their ethnic region?

What measure will be put in place to stop these reserved areas from becoming terrorist training grounds to advance Islamic agenda in the whole of Nigeria?

The bill provides for a substantial percentage of federal account to be contributed for running of grazing grounds

CLICK TO ENLARGE

It would be very risky for any people to accept such exclusive community of people who are armed to the teeth in their community.

This is because there is nothing in the bill, to stop the grazing grounds from becoming training grounds for Islamic terrorists to lunch a jihad on the host communities. In this case the whole of Nigeria. This is consistent with the history of the Fulanis.

This bill would seem to be a clever attempt to extend the caliphate. It looks like a Trojan horse, which should be rejected in its present form.

Other minorities who live in other parts of Nigeria buy their own land and seek to integrate into the host communities, while the government hiding behind unfair land use act wants to acquire land belonging to communities for the exclusive use of Fulanis herds men.

This bill comes, while the north is deepening the hold of Shari law in its region, which discriminates against none Muslim ethnic minorities and christians.

The bill is coming at a time, when Fulani herdsmen are ethnically cleansing minority Christian villages in the north and middle belt and using the army to intimidate farmers in Igboland.

This bill is not an attempt to find solution to Fulani herdsmen terrorism. It is a calculated attempt to exploit the unfair land use Act to grab land all over Nigeria to further the sectarian interest of the north.

The bill, if such a law must be enacted,should be changed to Minority Right Bill, to give minorities in any part of Nigeria equal right to end discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion, which Sharia enables the north to perpetrate.

In Nigeria, Igbo graduate are not offered jobs in northern states, but the government wants a bill to declare some part of Igbo land Fulani Caliphate in the name of one Nigeria.

Fulanis like any people in Nigeria should be free to live anywhere and if they need land for grazing their cows, they should acquire it the way other minorities acquire land in other parts of Nigeria.

Such a bill, if at all necessary, should mandate the government to acquire land all over the country for the use of minorities populations to build ranches, churches, mosques and markets and for the minority population to acquire AK 47 and a munitions to defend themselves and protect their assets as the Fulanis are allowed to do at the moment. It cannot be one law for Fulanis and another for the rest of Nigeria.

This bill does not meet the minimum requirement for a good law. It does not satisfy equality principle and it discriminates against none Fulanis.

Therefore, the grazing reserve bill, should not become law in its present form, without its implication and various ways it can be abused by a government with sectarian agenda addressed.

Law makers from the south should consider sponsoring a bill to repeal the land use Act to start with and substantially review this bill to make it equitable and fair, if they have any deep awareness of what Nigeria is up against in its attempt to develop as a secular democracy.

- E.O.Eke