It would have been enough to dismiss the recent provocative comments by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami who tried to create a false equivalency between the legitimate business of auto parts dealership and the atrocities of marauding Fulani herdsmen as the ranting of an overzealous, self-seeking bigot and agent provocateur. But Malami is Nigeria’s chief law enforcement officer and when he speaks the mind of the northern political establishment, alarm bells must go off across the country. Against the backdrop of sectarian agitations with the forces of darkness beating the drums of war and clamoring for national disintegration; and the embarrassing spectacle of political scums and scavengers stumping around the national stage, the barrage of condemnation that trailed Malami’s comments once again reinforced the growing perception of a hidden agenda that borders on territorial conquest and Islamization of Nigeria. It has also reignited the debate over self-determination; which will continue unabated and become much more polarized unless the federal government sincerely addresses the issue of Nigeria’s restructuring. The times call for all Nigerians to be vigilant and work to uphold national unity.
Malami, who spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today program last Wednesday, said the decision of the southern governors to ban open grazing in their states “does not align with the provisions of the Constitution, hence it does not hold water. For example, it is as good as the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the north. Does it hold water for a northern governor to come and state expressly that he now prohibits spare parts trading in the north?” Malami however, advised the southern governors to work towards amending the 1999 Constitution before banning open grazing. “If you are talking of constitutionally guaranteed rights, the better approach to it is to perhaps go back to ensure the Constitution is amended. It is a dangerous provision for any governor in Nigeria to think he can bring any compromise on the freedom and liberty of individuals to move around,” he said.
Malami was reacting to the 12-point communique that came out of a meeting of southern governors who met in Asaba, Delta State to discuss issues of common interest, at a time of serious existential crisis in the nation. The 17 southern governors comprising seven governors of the ruling APC, nine governors of the main opposition PDP, and one governor of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA); came out with what is now known as the Asaba Declaration, which amongst other things banned open grazing of cattle in every part of southern Nigeria. With massacres and incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers across the country and the atrocities of the nomadic herdsmen which pose a threat to national unity; it should be difficult to fault such a ban on open grazing.
However, the Asaba Declaration has become the source of controversy and anger and regarded as an affront by many Northern stakeholders. Their main grouse is that because the issues addressed at Asaba were of national interest, the Southern governors should have consulted their northern counterparts! This on its face is hypocrisy that stinks to the Heavens, but that has not stopped northern groups like Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) saying the Asaba Declaration was “a call for secession” and that the southern governors are “confused and mischievous.” Northern elite and political leaders like Tanko Yakassai, Prof Usman Yusuf, Senator Ali Ndume and curiously enough, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan have joined in condemnation of the southern governors.
The ban on open grazing, already a matter of law in southern states like Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Ebonyi, has been described as illegal and unconstitutional and a violation of the Land Use Act and Section 41 of the 1999 constitution. In a video that went viral on social media, Prof Yusuf scornfully and insultingly berated southern governors, for banning open grazing and making laws without consulting Fulani leaders. In comments dripping with falsehoods, ornamented with harmful grandiloquence, the chairman of the Bauchi State Chapter of MACBAN, Sadiq Ibrahim Ahmed has urged its members to vacate the 17 southern states saying: “This is a simple calculation. We are heading for secession. If some people are banned from open grazing, there is nothing more. Fulani people should move out from there. It is very simple. I have said it before. We have an option of breeding our cattle here (North). We are peace lovers. Let them come and buy from us…Criminality started in the South. Armed robbery, kidnapping; all started in the South. We have been watching these on television. These are being transited to the North. Let the Southern governors do what they want. The country is already moving apart. Where is the central government, if some governors can meet and take decisions that are against the constitution?” Sadiq charged southern governors to face criminal groups in the South and leave Fulani herders alone.
By any streak of the imagination, these kinds of glib comments by northerners are more than disgraceful, unconscionable and irresponsible. This divisive clamor and inflammation of primordial sentiments is unpatriotic and unacceptable and all northerners of goodwill should feel a sense of outrage at this unbelievable shame that is being contemptuously perpetrated in their name by people like Sadiq, Yusuf and Malami. At the risk of stating the obvious, inciting northern governors to ban trading on spare parts and comparing it to an anachronistic approach to cattle rearing, which has led to loss of life, farmlands and property and engendered untold hardship on farmers, is not only strange; it, annoyingly, betrays Malami as an intellectual misfit with a sectarian disposition and a beclouded mind incapable of sound judgment, making him unfit to be Nigeria’s chief law enforcement officer.
A pertinent question to ask at this juncture is whether southern governors now require permission from Fulani leaders, to secure the lives and property of their citizens, which according to Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution is the primary purpose of government? Did the then governor of Zamfara State, Ahmed Yerima, and his other northern counterparts consult Christians or sought their permission, when they imposed Sharia law and banned the free sale and open consumption of alcohol in their States? Did they even consult Section 10 of the Constitution which grants every Nigerian 18 years and older, the right to consume alcohol, and therefore, placing any restriction on that fundamental right violates Sections 38(1), 39(1), 41(1) and 42(1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution? The argument that the open grazing ban violates the Land Use Act is untenable because the Constitution does not grant any exclusive rights to cattle herders. Section 1 of the Land Use Act vests land ownership, as a public trust, in the Governor of a State. Not even the President can control land in the states. He can only do so in the Federal Capital Territory. There is no law that makes the President of Nigeria or his Fulani kinsmen owners of Nigerian territory. By the same token, Section 41 talks about the right of every citizen to move freely throughout Nigeria, to reside in any part thereof, and not to be expelled from the country or refused entry or exit therefrom. Section 41 grants the right of free movement to Nigerian citizens; not Nigerian cattle.
This is no time for political correctness; the Institute for Economics and Peace, Global Terrorism Index (GTI) has named the Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria as the fifth deadliest terror group in the world. The desire of herdsmen to have boundless access to grazing fields across Nigeria is unacceptable. President Muhammadu Buhari, the chief patron of the Miyetti Allah, and himself, a Fulani cattle owner, must be told in whatever language he chooses to understand that the federal government no power to alienate lands from the people, for state governments hold land in trust for the people. A perception that Fulanis have some exclusive right to graze anywhere in Nigeria is worrisome. Fulani herdsmen are farming with AK47 assault guns, killing and maiming innocent people while their cattle destroy farm crops. Such impunity and the magnitude of their violent activities without intervention from security forces, once again, smack of official complicity. That not a single herdsman has either been arrested or prosecuted despite the havoc they have wrecked in many communities across the country, smack of official complicity. The fact that the Fulani invaders seem to be enjoying some measure of immunity from the government is vexatious and provocative.
The point should also be made; and with emphasis that cattle herding is a private business enterprise. The so-called nomads are mere individuals in the employ of big cattle owners. Need it be said that contemporary cattle business is done through ranching. Besides, Nigeria is a federal state and not a garrisoned centralized government to be ruled at the whims and caprices of a particular group. Any such move would only raise further tension in the polity and create all-round instability. The battle lines have been drawn by the southern governors and MACBAN, by its confrontational stance, and belligerence has chosen a path that will breed irredentism from southern ethnic groups.
If there was any time, when President Buhari ought to see the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen as a national emergency, which poses a threat to national unity; that time is now. The times call for all Nigerians to be vigilant and work to uphold national unity. Everybody should exercise caution and northern ethnic jingoists and tribal bigots should be called to order. Those berating southern governors for rising up to a challenge posed by herdsmen and calling the open grazing ban as secession must realize that too many things bind us together than currently separate us. Let the common bonds of unity attract the statesmen in us because though tongue and tribe may differ, Nigerians must stand in brotherhood. Nigeria is better off as a united country on agreed terms than a splintered one.
