Fulani cows, Grazing Reserve Bill and the looming trouble

On April 18, 2016, Mr. Okonkwo Afamefuna wrote the following on his Facebook wall:”I decided to read a copy of the National Grazing Reserve Bill and I was surprised at what I saw. The Bill creates a Council to be chaired by a Chairman to be appointed by the President. The Council shall have the power to take your land anywhere the land is located in the country and then pay you compensation. Your land, when taken, shall be assigned to herdsmen who shall use your land for grazing purposes. They shall bring cows to the land and you shall lose the land permanently to those Fulani cattlemen”.   This is the Sudan downloading right here in Nigeria. On April 18, Mr. Gabriel Ogbonnaya wrote the following on his Facebook wall: “I decided to read a copy of the National Grazing Reserve Bill and I was surprised at what I saw. The Bill creates a Commission to be chaired by a Chairman to be appointed by the President, to be confirmed by the Senate. The Commission      shall have the power to take your land anywhere the land is located in the country and then pay you compensation. Your land, when taken, shall be assigned to herdsmen who shall use your land for grazing purposes. They shall bring cows to the land and you shall lose the land permanently to those      cattlemen. If you feel that the Commission was not right to take your land, you can go to court but before you go to court, you must first of all notify the Federal Attorney General of your intention to sue the Commission. Apart from notifying, you must get the consent and authority of the Federal Attorney General before you can sue. So that means that if the Attorney General refuses to give his consent to the suit, you have lost your land forever to the herdsmen. And this law, when passed, shall apply to the whole country, so it means that your land in the village or anywhere is not safe. The National Grazing Reserve Commission would have the power to take away your land from you anytime they want and pay you whatever they want as compensation (even when you don’t want to sell, and remember that, for you to get compensation, you must have documents showing or proving ownership). So I think that we all in the South-West, South-South and South-East must rise up and reject this Bill. We must do all things to force our National Assembly members against passing that Bill into law. That Bill is a deliberate attempt to take our lands and hand the lands over to the Fulani cattlemen since it is only the Fulanis that rear cattle in Nigeria. That law, when passed, shall fulfil the directive of Uthman Dan Fodio and other northern leaders to take over other parts of Nigeria. I implore you to use all available means to implore your senator and Rep not to pass that law. That law will destroy Nigeria. All over the world, ranches are established and used to rear cattle. The farmers buy land and put their cattle there. There is no country where the land of the citizens are compulsorily acquired and given to others. This is evil, and designed to favor the Fulanis where the President comes from. We must resist the passage of that Bill into law to save Nigeria, and to protect our future generations”. This is Yugoslavia and Rwanda unfolding right here in Nigeria. On April 18, Mr. Duru Collins wrote the following on his Facebook wall: “This National Grazing Reserve Bill, if passed into law, will just mark the beginning of apartheid in our country. When the government of Zimbabwe collected land from the white people who naturalised there, the whole world worked against President Robert Mugabe. Sanctions were stiffened against his regime even though the whites in Zimbabwe were not African by origin. In our country today, there are people that are not Nigerians by origin and these people are making law to take over our inheritance.This nation will burn once this law is passed”. This is Lebanon and Zimbabwe downloading right here in Nigeria. On April 19, Mr. Oyinemi Nicholas Endeley wrote the following on Facebook: “The National Grazing Reserve Bill is the ticket to kill us ALL down South. This is not the time to sit and watch evil triumph over good. I have called the senator representing me and I have spoken common sense to him! He KNOWS what this is all about NOW. Listen people of God, it’s time to get angry! You will come to understand how devilish Buhari’s APC government is the moment you realise they are talking about a Bill that will protect the Fulani militants who, according to the Global Terror Index, are ‘the 4th deadliest terrorist group’ in the world, and neglect tens of thousands of victims that have suffered gory attacks by these daredevils. This government is gradually telling us their priorities and it’s clear the lives of the southerners are not their priority. THIS GOVERNMENT IS EVIL. The ploy is on. They want to send the Trojan horses to our walls. They want to start the war from our lands. They will fail. They can’t send their militants here in the guise of herdsmen. Those herdsmen don’t own those cows, the rich Fulanis do. And I know their plans. Subsequently I will tell you guys more, you will be shocked. But for now, please get on your phones and call those representing you. Tell them not to accept this Trojan horse.   It will burn our region, it will kill our children’s future. Let idiots that are southerners keep supporting APC. They don’t care about you, they don’t. You will BURN if their plans work!”