New Telegraph

Grazing law: Benue takes stock 3yrs after

The Benue State government recently marked the third anniversary of its Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law. CEPHAS IORHEMEN reports on the gains and challenges of the legislation so far

When Governor Samuel Ortom then on the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) took over the helm of affairs of Benue State from his predecessor, Gabriel Suswam, in 2015, one of his promises to the people as captured in his working document tagged: “Our collective vision for a new Benue,” was to do everything possible to curb attacks on the people of the state by criminal gangs and herdsmen.

The governor stated this considering the fact that Benue is purely an agrarian state as popularly known as “The Food Basket of the Nation,” where the greater population are predominantly farmers. His words then: “We will do everything possible to contain attacks on our people by criminal gangs and herdsmen.

We will through appropriate legislation, encourage those with livestock in the state to keep them on ranches as a way of forestalling incessant clashes with farmers. “We will also move decisively against those of our youths and their patrons who have chosen a living out of unbridled acts of terror and thuggery. Government will no longer be a shield for these youths and those who patronize them. Whoever they may be and no matter how powerful, they will be brought to account.

“We call on all unlawfully armed persons who have been terrorizing innocent citizens to immediately surrender their arms, be free and get integrated into our reform programme, or we shall pursue them down to their holes.

“In agriculture, our expected outcome is to extend our calling as ‘Food Basket of the Nation’ to include processing of agroproducts. We will do this by developing the sector through the introduction of simple technology driven systems and targeted interventions involving agro-processing, improved marketing channels, inputs and rural infrastructure.”

Apart from the challenge of how to pay the teeming workers and pensioners their wages due to the excruciating economic down turn, the recalcitrant issue of armed marauding Fulani herdsmen attacks on farmers in the state has continued to constitute another huge humanitarian burden resting on the shoulders of the governor in his avowed task of propelling the state to enviable heights.

It is on record that shortly after he settled down for face to task he was overwhelmingly elected by the people, suspected armed Fulani insurgents made incursion into the state in January 2018 and killed hordes of peasant farmers, including women and children most of whom were of school age, a development that turned the entire state into a mourning mood.

There were other pockets of attacks after that pogrom in several local government areas including Kwande, Katsina- Ala, Ukum, Logo, Tarka, Makurdi, Gwer, Gwer West, Agatu, Buruku, Gboko, Ogbadibo, Appa, Otukpo and Guma, the governor’s homestead among others where innocent women were raped, schools and homes of the victims destroyed a situation that forced them to become refugees or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in their ancestral land.

Leaders of various Fulani groups in the country, especially the Miyetti Allah Kauta Hore, rose up and allegedly claimed responsibility for the attacks citing the validly promulgated anti open grazing law passed by the Benue State House of Assembly as a reason for the attacks.

The Fulani groups, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) inclusive, told the world that they are the owners of the richly endowed Benue Valley because of the green vegetation that could help them in no small measure to feed their cattle.

This left the governor with no option than to sponsor the antiopen grazing Bill to Assembly as part of measures to stem the killings. Speaking at the occasion of the 3rd anniversary of the Benue Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law 2017, in Makurdi, the governor said between February 2013 and May 13, 2017, the state experienced 46 attacks by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

He said the attacks resulted in the death of over 1,541 people as well as massive destruction of property including schools, hospitals, residential houses, churches, farmlands in 15 local government areas out of the 23 local government areas of the state.

The governor who was represented at the event by the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General of the state, Mike Gusa, put the value of the property lost during those violent attacks on Benue farmers at a conservative estimate of over N400 billion.

He said: “The excuse given for the attacks included reprisals for cattle rustled and killing of herdsmen during conflicts arising from the grazing of cattle. People in several communities in the affected places were living in perpetual fear, many vacated their ancestral homes for fear of been killed by suspected herdsmen.

“To put an end to these incessant attacks which resulted into killings and massive destruction, the Benue State Executive Council sponsored a bill to State Assembly to enact a law Prohibiting open grazing and establishment of ranches for the rearing of livestock in general.”

The governor, while explaining further that the bill included the establishment of the Benue State Livestock Guards to assist the security agencies to enforce the law, said on May 22, 2017, that he assented to the law but directed that the implementation be delayed for six months to give owners of livestock time to adjust to the new law.

He recalled that one week after the signing of the bill into Law, on May 30, 2017, the Fulani Socio-cultural group, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore under the leadership of Alhaji Abdulahi Bodejo (president) and Engr. Alhassan Sale (secretary) addressed a press conference in Abuja and vowed to resist the law. “They (Bodejo and Sale) vowed to mobilize their members nationwide and beyond to resist its implementation.

The group also made spurious claims of being the original inhabitants of the Benue valley, concluding that the planned attacks were a struggle over the resources of the valley. Several other Fulani groups including the Fulani Nationality Movement issued similar threats,” Ortom said.

The governor said the herdsmen made good their threats on New Year day of 2018 by attacking innocent and defenceless citizens of the state in Guma and Logo local government areas, leading to the death of over 73 people and destruction of property worth several billions of naira.

His words: “After these killings, leader of MACBAN in Benue State, Garus Gololo, while speaking on BBC News pidgin English said the killing of innocent and defenceless Benue citizens on New Year day at Gaambe-Tiev, Ayilamo, Turan in Logo, and Tse-Ako, Tomatar near Tse-Abi in Guma, was an act of self-defence.”

He maintained that despite the legion of opposition to the law, and the resultant loss of enormous lives and property, the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, 2017, has recorded milestones, major of which is the reduction in the rapidity and number of attacks on communities by suspected herdsmen in the last two years as compared to 2016-2017.

Ortom revealed that between November 1, 2017 and October 27, 2020, more than 400 herdsmen were been arrested for violating the law out of which 261 persons have been convicted, 21 persons discharged, 36 cases still pending, while investigation is ongoing in other cases.

“Most of the convicts were able to pay fines and were released while many who could not were sent to jail ranging from six months to two years,” he added, He further disclosed that within the period 7,629 cows and 210 sheep as well as other livestock were impounded, adding that the law has also witnessed the arrest, arraignment and conviction of five cattle rustlers.

According to him, “the convicted rustlers were of Fulani extraction, who confessed to the crime in open court. Besides, the law has ensured the arrest and arraignment of people irrespective of their ethnic groups or religion.”

Ortom regretted that in spite of the huge success recorded by the law, hundreds of indigenes of the state, who were displaced by the herdsmen and who are taking refuge in several camps are yet to go back to their ancestral homes despite the military’s Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS) in the state.

It would be recalled that while the killings lasted, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the then Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to relocate to Benue State and immediately restore law and order, prevent further loss of lives and forestall the crisis from escalating and spreading in the state though he described the killings as a “communal clash.” While Governor Ortom must be praised for the matured handling of the crisis, his firm stand against repealing the law as well as his efforts at catering for the IDPs in eight designated camps through constant supply of assorted relief materials to cushion their hardship, it is not yet Uhuru for a return to their ancestral homes due to renewed skirmishes launched on residents.

For instance, two communities within Makurdi metropolis – Tse-Tyohemba and Tse-Angbande, recently received fresh doses of violent attacks in which six people were killed in midnight attack and seven others badly injured.

New Telegraph gathered that in Tse-Tyohemba, the invaders killed a man and his wife, while at Tse-Angbande, the head of a family, one Emberga Akwa and three others were felled by bullets fired by the herders.

Governor Samuel Ortom who swiftly visited the scene of the attack alongside top security personnel, condemned the brutal attack and killing of the farmers. He said: “I got information that there was an attack on this village by herdsmen and they killed four people, seven others who sustained varying degrees of injuries are in the hospital.

This is a repeat of what happened last week when they came in this manner without cattle but fully armed and killed a husband and wife and security men were alerted and they went after them and arrested three of them with AK-47 guns.

“This time around, they killed four people; the house head was killed with his brother and son and one other person. Seven people who were injured are in the hospital. These are poor people struggling to live their lives with what they earn from their farms and now these Fulani herdsmen will not allow them to have even what to eat, then what is the future of this state and country in general.”

The governor, who commended security agencies for doing their best to contain the incessant attacks on communities in the state, stressed the need for dialogue with the Federal Government to see what could be done to end the carnage. He promised to meet with security operatives to device more strategies to stop the guerilla style of attacks on people of the state, and urged those fleeing their homes to return as security men had been deployed to the entire community to ensure safety of the lives and property of the people.

He later visited the injured victims at their hospital beds at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) Makurdi and promised to foot their bills, while praying for God to give them speedy recovery. Given these attacks, the question on the lips of every Benue person now is: Where has governor Ortom gone wrong in the enactment of the law to protect his people and ensure food sufficiency to further justify the status of the state as the nation’s hub of food production? The governor has challenged every Nigerian with a superior and better way of ending the herders/farmers impasse than the one he has put on the table to bring it forward to help solve the protracted issue once and for all.

It is the feeling of an average Benue person that President Buhari, who swore the country’s constitution to protect the lives of the citizenry, should rise to the challenge to first, fulfill his N10 billion promise to the state as Federal Government’s contribution to rebuild ravaged communities to ensure safe return of the IDPs back home.

While the gesture is being expected, the Federal Government should make a definite pronouncement that the Benue grazing law be replicated in all the 36 states of the federation as the modern method of animal husbandry to end rampant cases of herdsmen attacks on farmers in the country.

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