By Kayode Adeyemo/LAGOS// The Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been asked to jettison the recommendations for open grazing as proposed by a Presidential committee report.
The Alliance for Yoruba Democratic Movements, (AYDM) in a letter submitted to the President urged Tinubu to be careful in walking the blade edge of the complex ethnic politics associated with violent nomads.
In the letter signed by the 130 groups and endorsed by its General Secretary, Mr Popoola Ajayi the group said “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.”
Excerpt from the letter stated:
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. Nigeria must be free from the strangulation of one ethnic group whose policy of open grazing has take more than 30,000 human lives in the past one decade.
This recommendation came as a surprise. We caution that it will emboldened violent pasturalist 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.
We urge you 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, pollute them with cow dungs.Our people rely on traditional spring which the nomads convert to rest places for their cows
We call on your as the President to reject this obnoxious recommendations. 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 recommendation of 10 years for a combination of open grazing and ranching is a deceitful and 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.”
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