Middle Belt group kicks against govt’s demand for grazing lands

A group under the aegies of the Middle Belt Patriots, has kicked against a recent request by the Federal Government for states to provide lands to cattle herders for grazing.

The request for states to provide lands for grazing was made last Monday by President Bola Tinubu during the flag-off of the Agricultural Mechanisation Revolution for Food Security in Minna, Niger State, where he called on governors to give parts of the land in their states for ranching purposes.

The request had met with stiff resistance as groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as well as the Yoruba Nation have rejected the call.

Lending its voice to the rejection of the call, the Middle Belt Patriots, in a statement issued on Saturday by its Director of Media and Strategic Communications, Steven Kefas, frowned at the request which it said would only worsen the current fragile security situation in the country if state governors yield to the demands of the federal government.

The group which wondered how the federal government would con­stantly pander to the interests of Fulani pastoralists at the detriment of the indigenous population, insisted that the people of the Middle Belt would resist any measures aimed at dispossessing them of their God-given heritage. The group described the stance of the Federal Government on grazing land as provocative.

“We of the Middle Belt Patriots vehemently condemn and reject the recent directive from the Federal Government asking state governors to make land available for grazing by herdsmen,” the statement reads.

READ ALSO:Like IPOB, Yoruba separatist group rejects Tinubu’s Grazing Zone proposal

Continuing, the group said:

“This provocative and ill-advised order shows a shocking disregard for the already tenuous security situation in the Middle Belt region that has been under sustained violent attack by armed Fulani ethnic militias.

“We sternly warn the political leaders, monarchs and youth/community leaders of the Middle Belt region – Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, and sections of Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Southern Kaduna and Gombe – to outright disregard and defy this reckless federal directive.

“Capitulating to these demands and ceding more land for grazers will only fan the flames of the ethnic clashes, further the genocidal massacres, escalate the violent displacement of indigenes from their ancestral lands and jeopardise the fragile peace in a region that has already suffered immensely.

“The grazing of cattle is a private business enterprise; it leaves more questions than answers as to why the Federal Government is deliberate on arrogating farmlands to themselves to be handed over to private herders?

“We forcefully remind the authorities in Abuja that pig farmers in the core northern Sharia states like Kano, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi, Jigawa and Sokoto, have to struggle, invest and acquire land for their vocations without any such unconstitutional government directives.

“The same should apply to the cattle herders; if they need land for their trade, they should approach willing farmers and residents to lease or purchase lands for grazing through legitimate means. No farmer or landowner should be forcibly dispossessed of their property.

“We deplore how the Federal Government constantly panders to the interests of the pastoralists at the detriment and displacement of the indigenous populations whose lands and lives are being overrun by the armed ethnic militias affiliated with the herders,” the group reiterated.

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