(National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC) will be the new Gestapo....Hitler's police. So people will have a right to take my house and land "if they consider the place good for grazing? God punish all Yorubas, Igbos, minorities of the middle belt and Niger Delta who do not do all they can against this Grazing Laws. If Igbos and Yorubas and the rest of us do not unite against this law, we deserve to be slaughtered. How can a bill that will hand a NGRC commission a right to take any land anywhere for cow get to second reading? Are we crazy? Where on this earth do cows have such rights?)

THE CRAZY GRAZING BILL - MICHAEL DEDON

The proposed Grazing Bill for Fulani herdsmen is an invitation to anarchy in an already volatile country like Nigeria. The Bill is already before the National Assembly and has successfully scaled through second reading in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. All that is left in the legislative process to make it a law is a 3rd reading, that is, a clause by clause debate and then assent by the President. The proposed piece of legislation is full of unconstitutionalities, ethnic discriminations, fundamental human rights violations, religious tenets violations, conspicuous criminal omissions and unforgivable legislative indiscretions.
The full title of the Bill is, AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL GRAZING RESERVE (ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT) COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION AND CONTROL OF NATIONAL GRAZING RESERVES AND STOCK ROUTES AND OTHER MATTERS CONNECTED THEREWITH.

The Bill’s concluding explanatory memorandum says that the Bill seeks to provide for, among other things, the establishment of the National Grazing Reserve Commission of Nigeria, for the preservation and control of national grazing reserves and stock routes in the country. Its key provisions and high points include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. To establish a National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC), a body corporate.
2. The NGRC may acquire, hold, lease or dispose of any property, moveable or immoveable for the purpose of carrying out its function.
3. The NGRC shall have a governing Council headed by a Chairman appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate with members representing the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Resources, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment,Housing and Urban Development, the National Commission for Nomadic Education and shall also have a Director General.
4. To raise monies by way of grants, loans, borrowing, subsidies and donations.
5. The following lands may be subject to the provisions of the Act to be constituted as National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes:
(a) Lands at the disposal of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
(b) Any lands in respect of which it appears to the Commission that grazing in such land should be practiced.
(c) Any land acquired by the Commission through purchase, assignment, gift or otherwise howsoever.
6. State Governments shall be given notice first before land acquisition and gazetting.
7. The Commission shall pay compensation to persons affected by any land acquisition.
8. There shall be no improvements, encroachment, bush burning, hunting, use of chemicals and felling of trees by anyone inside lands acquired and demarcated as National Grazing Reserves or Stock Routes.
9.Contravention of any of the provisions in ( above shall be punishable by a fine of N50,000 or 5 years imprisonment or both.
10. No Court of law shall carry out execution of its judgment or attachment of court process issued against the Commission in any action or suit without obtaining the prior consent of the Attorney General of the Federation.
11. For the time being, the Commission shall report to the Honorable Minster for Agriculture and Water Resources.
12. Native communities referred to in the Bill shall be any group of persons occupying any lands in accordance with, and subject to native law and custom.
13. Stock Routes shall mean tertiary or secondary or inter-state stock routes linking two or more States together or leading from grazing reserve to grazing reserve.
14. When passed into law, the Act shall be cited as The National Grazing Reserve Commission (Establishment and Development) Bill 2008.


The implication of this piece of legislation is that the National Grazing Reserve Commission may seize any choice land in any part of the country and compulsorily acquire it for grazing purposes. For whose use are the grazing reserves and stock routes to be acquired? The Bill does not say. It will simply create grazing reserves and stock routes for nomadic cattle rearers who we know are of one ethnic group – Fulani. The clause cattle rearers in the Bill can as well be replaced with the word Fulani, and it will be seen that it is purely meant to serve the interest of one ethnic group out of over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Passing this Bill into law has the tendency of encroaching on the fundamental rights of other Nigerians to own land and do with it things other than grazing. Farmers may become displaced in their own communities and there is nothing in the Bill stating how they will be resettled should this happen. The Bill is a clear attempt to hand over the entire country, its economy, its land, its citizens, its security and its future into the hands of one tribal group – the Fulani.
It beats ones imagination why the government will be thinking of entrenching a primitive practice of a people instead of thinking of ways of modernizing cattle rearing like establishing ranches and bringing fodder to the cattle instead of taking the cattle to the fodder. If the bill is passed, unspecified but huge federal funding would be used to acquire land and develop same just to preserve a primitive life style of a few people who have refused to partake in the technological and social advancements that the country has recorded. Cattle rearing is a big business and many of Nigeria's leading elites are the real owners of the cattle and not those ragtag lot driving them about wielding sticks and AK-47s. Why can't these big men acquire land, set up ranches and grow the industry together with paying taxes?
The Bill by implication also contravenes the Land Use Act. The Land Use Act provides that “all land comprised in the territory of each State in the Federation are hereby vested in the Governor of that State and such land shall be held in trust and administered for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians”. The Grazing Reserve Commission Bill is in direct contraventions of this provision as it does not serve the ‘common benefit’ of all Nigerians but a chosen few. Just as cattle are very valuable assets to the nomads, so is the land to the agriculturalists and none of us is superior to the other. The government cannot use a piece of legislation to legalize superiority of one ethnic nationality over the other 250 ethnic groups.
This piece of legislation should be resisted by well meaning Nigerians ad should never be passed into law.

I second the motion as moved by you , OP

It will never work,

Wat has Ben Azonto Bruce got to say about dis?it's no more Islamisation,it now land confistication,una nor dey rest?I bow 4 una o....

Hmmm is well.

[size=13pt]Check out the world's greatest beef producers, Nigeria is not among them even in spite of our numerous herdsmen. The Nomadic method of producing livestock is not in any way an improved way of producing beef or diary products. What are the merits of growing cattle the nomadic way that all of the nation should sacrifice for that?

Or that any individual for that matter should expend resources trying to establish it over better methods?

Indeed, what are those special benefits that anyone should expend limited resources in trying to sustain it over more improved methods, or worse still, in trying to foist it on other people's lands?[/size]

coolscott:
[size=13pt]Check out the world's greatest beef producers, Nigeria is not among them even in spite of our numerous herdsmen. The Nomadic method of producing livestock is not in any way an improved way of producing beef or diary products. What are the merits of growing cattle the nomadic way that all of the nation should sacrifice for that?

Or that any individual for that matter should expend resources trying to establish it over better methods?

Indeed, what are those special benefits that anyone should expend limited resources in trying to sustain it over more improved methods, or worse still, in trying to foist it on other people's lands?[/size]

There are proven advantages to open range grazing. It is the preferred method in the US. Even in germany, cattle farmers are adopting some limited open grazing practices to improve the health of cattle.

Will the owners of the cattle pay tax to the state government on which the grazing reserve is situated? ... Northerners are trying very hard to grab our lands down south here but we are not seeing it. Why is that it's only southern Muslims that are supporting this crazy bill down south here?

Adminisher:


There are proven advantages to open range grazing. It is the preferred method in the US. Even in germany, cattle farmers are adopting some limited open grazing practices to improve the health of cattle.

[size=13pt]Do you think I do not know what open range grazing is? It may surprise you to know that animal production and health is the course I studied first in University.

Why do you think open range grazing is the same thing as nomadic grazing?

It actually crossed my mind to make the distinction.

What they need is established ranches (in the north) with HAY SUPPLY

AND WATER SUPPLY
AND VET OUTREACH
AND OTHER LOGISTICS LIKE :-

FENCEs AND POWER, + MINI MILKING stations

They will find it increasingly harder to drift too far away from guaranteed water for their cattle
and animal health care, etc., etc.
Remember ranches don't move around

Adminisher
[/size]

So there is still something like southern Nigeria, I thought the southern Nigeria ended during Goodluck Jonathan era, an era where the south west collaborated with the north to force jonathan out of office for the post of vice president and finance minister.

Now I am hearing about southern Nigeria, please who revived it and when was it revived. The same southern Nigeria where an oba vowed to drown his supposed fellow southerners for voting a particular party.

Other southerners should be wise

When Ahmadu Bello said he was going to dip the Koran in the sea, many people thought that he was joking. Now it is very clear to see why these people wanted power so much. Tilt the senate in their favour so as to influence what laws and bills are passed. The land use act was destructive in its own way and now this? The land maSs of the North is a hundred times bigger than the SE. SS and SW when checked individually. But the land isn't enough so their islamisation has to be done through forceful acquisition of land by these fulani people. I don't blame the igbos wanting to leave this contraption. And this is exactly the reasons. These people are using tactical ways to impose their authorities on the south and how most educated people do not see this baffles me.

Why are there so few comments on this thread... It is so important we need to shout please.

coolscott:

[size=13pt]Do you think I do not know what open range grazing is? It may surprise you to know that animal production and health is the course I studied first in University.

Why do you think open range grazing is the same thing as nomadic grazing?

It actually crossed my mind to make the distinction.

What they need is established ranches (in the north) with HAY SUPPLY

AND WATER SUPPLY
AND VET OUTREACH
AND OTHER LOGISTICS LIKE :-

FENCEs AND POWER, + MINI MILKING stations

They will find it increasingly harder to drift too far away from guaranteed water for their cattle
and animal health care, etc., etc.
Remember ranches don't move around

Adminisher
[/size]

Part of the problems we have in this country is failure to seek guardiance from experts of the specified field........
The grazing bill is what u get when scums from other fields are put in agricultural committee instead of qualified personels like coolscott

All of you who insist on eating beef are contributing to this nonsense.