The Ondo State governor, Olusegun Mimiko, has declared
that there is no land for a grazing reserve in the state.
He argued that the proposal to have grazing lands across
the country did not align with the Nigerian constitution.
Mr. Mimiko spoke in Akure on Saturday at the Public
lecture organised by members of Pan Yoruba socio-
political group, Afenifere, to commemorate the 90th
birthday of its leader, Reuben Fasoranti.
He said the grazing bill might not see the light of the day
as the constitution empowers state governors to allocate
land and to revoke same.
He said the constitution had not been amended to pave the
way for the new thinking.
Mr. Mimiko condemned the frequent violence involving
herdsmen in different states.
“The question now is for how long shall we continue to call
for peace in the face of the prevailing situation; definitely
something has to be done,” Mr. Mimiko said.
“No law has vested power on any person be it commission
or whatever name it is called to take land for any use
without the approval of the governor.”

Delivering a lecture titled “The Yoruba Welfare Ideology
and the Future of the Yoruba Nation,” foremost academic,
Banji Akintoye, tasked President Muhammadu Buhari to
employ peaceful negotiations to find solutions to the
challenges confronting the country instead of using
military force.
He also urged the President to find ways to knit together
an alliance for success and prosperity.
Mr. Akintoye called on leaders of Yoruba nation to work
together peacefully with other nationalities within the
country to find ways to restructure the Nigerian federation
and find ways to revive economic and social development
initiatives in all parts of the country.
“President Buhari should lead Nigeria to embark on
serious and far reaching discussions with leaders, peoples
and the militants of the Niger Delta, the hurting peoples of
the Middle Belts desperately in need of security, the Igbo
citizens demanding Biafra, the Yoruba people intensely
asking for national autonomy for the benefit of all
Nigerian peoples and the Hausa -Fulani insisting on an
over -centralized federation for the defence of their
interest,” he said.
“We must find ways to persuade various aggrieved peoples
of Nigeria to stop hitting Nigeria, to lay down their arms
now and forever, to join hands with the rest of Nigeria to
create a harmonious structure for Nigeria, and to turn
Nigeria’s destiny around for the good for all Nigeria.
“The end objective must be to make all Nigerian peoples
happy to belong to harmonious family of equal Nigerian
nationalities and to give every Nigerian citizen a confident
hope in life more abundant.”
Mr. Akintoye, who is the Patron of Oodua Foundation in
the Diaspora, also called on the Yoruba nation and other
nationalities within the country to support President
Buhari’s crusade against corruption.
He charged leaders of Yoruba in the south west to work
with other Nigerians to find a lasting solution to the
menace of the herdsmen.
He urged the governors of the region to set up security
apparatus which would adequately protect farmlands.