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Senate, Reps knock Defence Minister over comment on states’ anti-open grazing laws

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The Minister of Defence, Brig.-Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (retd.) on Wednesday received knocks from both chambers of the National Assembly over his anti-open grazing law comment.

The minister had on Tuesday after a meeting he and other security chiefs had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, through a statement by his Public Relations Officer, Col. Tukur Gusau, said that states operating anti-grazing laws should suspend its implementation.

He had argued that suspending the grazing laws “would reduce tension” occasioned by killer herdsmen across the country, especially in Benue, Kaduna, Taraba and Nasarawa states.

Reacting to the comment during its session on Wednesday the upper chamber of the National Assembly called on the minister to immediately withdraw his statement, wondering why such an “absurd” comment should be coming from a Defence Minister.

Senator Barnabas Gemade (Benue North-East), who raised the issues as a point of order argued that the states have the right to make laws on the security of its citizens having been empowered by the Land Use Act to take ownership and management of land resources.

“This is not the first time that we will hear this kind of absurd statements coming from no less a personality than the Minister of Defence, if a Minister of Defence is calling for anarchy, where else can we find peace?

“We understand that the minister comes from Zamfara State and I wonder if all the killings in Zamfara that are almost equal in number with the ones in Benue, are also as a result of the anti-open grazing law. And if by his own experience the killings in Zamfara have nothing to do with the anti-open grazing law, why does he believe that the killings in Benue and Taraba are because they enacted the laws?

“These killings have been on for seven years before the laws came into operation. So, what was responsible for the killings at that time? And now the killings in Zamfara have not ceased, yet they have not made a law prohibiting open grazing. We think that this Republic is probably being misadvised by those who have been given appointments to take responsibility for the good governance of this nation. Therefore, they must be called to order.

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“While we are looking up to the government for protection, and indeed looking up to the security agencies for protection, we get so dismayed by the attitude of those who lead these security forces,” he said.

Similarly the House of Representatives, during its plenary on Wednesday, also knocked Dan-Ali and the National Security Council (NSC) for demanding that state governments suspend their anti-open grazing laws.

According to the lower chamber of the National Assembly, in a Federation states have the constitutional cover to make laws for the security and welfare of their citizenry.

 

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