I have just read the press statement credited to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Shehu Malami SAN on the resolution of the Southern Governors Forum to ban open grazing in their respective States. The AGF is quoted to have said that this reasoned decision, among others, is akin to banning all spare parts dealers in the Northern parts of the country and is unconstitutional.

It is most unfortunate that the AGF is unable to distill issues as expected of a Senior Advocate. Nothing can be more disconcerting. This outburst should, ordinarily, not elicit response from reasonable people who know the distinction between a legitimate business that is not in anyway injurious and a certain predilection for anarchy. Clinging to an anachronistic model of animal husbandry, which is evidently injurious to harmonious relationship between the herders and the farmers as well as the local populace, is wicked and arrogant.

Comparing this anachronism, which has led to loss of lives, farmlands and property, and engendered untold hardship on the host communities, with buying and selling of auto parts is not only strange. It, annoyingly, betrays a terrible mindset.

Mr Malami is advised to approach the court to challenge the legality of the Laws of the respective States baning open grazing and decision of the Southern Governor Forum taken in the interest of their people. We shall be most willing to meet him in Court.
The decision to ban open grazing stays. It will be enforced with vigour.

SIGNED
ARAKUNRIN OLUWAROTIMI O AKEREDOLU, SAN
GOVERNOR, ONDO STATE

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Sodik Oyeleke

20 May 2021
The Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has tackled the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Shehu Malami, for faulting the ban placed on open grazing in the Southern part of the country.
The Southern Governors had at a meeting in Asaba last week banned open grazing and asked the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to address the nation over the increasing rate of insecurity in the country.

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The chairman of the Southern Governors Forum Rotimi Akeredolu has challenged the attorney general of the federation Abubakar Malami to seek legal redress over the ban on open grazin. more

"While the local "bureau de change" business mostly done by the Fulanis are operating in all parts of Nigeria, why have they not elicited any resentment of other Nigerians?

"It is simply because they live and do their business peacefully without any problem. It is the murderous activities of Fulani herders that have given rise to the current demand for laws that will bring about peaceful coexistence of all Nigerians.

"What's the correlation between spare parts sellers in a rented shop or government properly designated area and marauding Fulani herders destroying farms, killing and raping thus trampling on people's private properties and means of livelihood? Such a divisive statement from a top federal government official, infact the Chief legal adviser to the federal government at that, exposes a very dangerous mindset . This disposition has no doubt raised the tension in Nigeria to a frightening level.

"Why should an Attorney general of the federation be so fixated in evoking ethnic/regional fault lines when duty calls for him to be a statesman. It is disheartening that Mr Abubakar Malami has chosen to debase our country. He has indeed questioned Nigeria's unity. Very unfortunate", Senator Abaribe said when asked his views on what Malami said.

Signed
Uchenna Awom
Media Adviser
To Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe