Over 130 Pan Yoruba groups reject open grazing
By Akin Olaolu
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been asked to drop the open grazing proposal recommended by a committee on Thursday.
The Alliance for Yoruba Democratic Movement, (AYDM)a coalition of 130 Pan Yoruba groups in a letter submitted to the Presidency on Friday and made available to Irohinoodua said the recommendation is a recipe for “sustained violence and disaster.”
The petition was signed by the 130 groups and endorsed by the General Secretary,Mr Popoola Ajayi and the Assistant Secretary, Foreign Affairs Mr Kunle Ahmed.
The President had set up a committee on open grazing with former Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) Prof Attahiru Jega as the General Secretary while President Tinubu is the Chairman of the Committee.
It recommended both open grazing and ranching for a period of 10 years.
The AYDM said the President should avoid walking the blade edge of the complex ethnic politics associated with violent nomads by creating policies that placate the Fulani nomads.
“You should show determination to stamp out farmers-herders clash by recognising that the herdsmen are invaders in territories that does not belong to them” AYDM said adding that the conflict has taken the lives of four traditional rulers and thousands of human lives in Yoruba territories.
“We want to tell you, Mr President that your ethnic group, Yoruba totally reject this recommendation. To accept it is to accept the continuation of violence and terrorism across Nigeria. The Fulani is only one ethnic group in Nigeria out of more than 250 ethnic groups.”
AYDM said Nigeria must be free from the strangulation of one ethnic group whose policy of open grazing has taken more than 30,000 human lives in the past one decade across Nigeria.
The Pan Yoruba group said the recommendation came as a surprise. It added that open grazing is a major pillar of climate change through the violence unleashed on nature by herdsmen.
“We caution that it will embolden violent pasturalists and strengthen their will to conquer.
In the past two decades, jihadists have been hiding under open grazing to expand their violent domination of indigenous territories in Nigeria.”
AYDM urged President Tinubu to be conscious of the negative impact of open grazing on climate change.
“Nomads set ablaze ancestral forests in other to compel budding plants that sprout after the burning of such forests. They invade sacred stream, spring and natural water, pollute them with cow dungs.Our people rely on traditional spring water which the nomads convert to rest places for their cows,” the group said.
It called on the President to reject what it called “obnoxious recommendations.”
AYDM said the committee members are subjective.
“The Secretary of the Committee is a Fulani man. He is expected to protect the interest of his people. The committee did not visit farmers’ unions across the country and never met traditional rulers.”
It said the recommendation of 10 years for a combination of open grazing and ranching is a deceitful and a funny way to sustain open grazing knowing that in the next 10 years, there is high probability that the President of Nigeria at that time will be Fulani or their agent fueling the prospect of sustained open grazing.
