Sheikh (Dr) Ahmad Abubakar Gumi has declared the President Muhammadu Buhari APC-led administration as a failure.

The Islamic scholar said this in his assessment of Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last two years.

He noted that the general assessment of government’s performance was below the expectation of Nigerians, and urged Nigerians to reject both the APC and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) if they really desire a new lease of life.

POPULAR NEWS: Buhari has created another system of corruption - Emir Sanusi

His words: “The problem is that no matter how good you are as a leader, you should have a team. If you put Maradona in a bad team, no one will pass the ball to him in order to score a goal. The APC government has failed for lack of a team”.

“Every failure has reasons. When a patient dies in the hospital, there is usually a post mortem examination to determine the direct cause of death. We have symptoms but they may not be the cause of death.

“The widespread suffering in the country is a symptom of an underlying disease afflicting the nation that needs to be tackled. But if the government has been listening all along, it could have alleviated the problem or it could have done more than it is doing.

“I can imagine somebody who has nothing. How is he surviving? How is he paying his children’s school fees? How can he treat his children when they are sick? How can he feed? So, when you look at all these indices, you will know that it is a miracle that we are still existing.

“So, if we want to do a post mortem on this government, you have to look far beyond the inception of the administration. Like I said, they inherited some of the defects and the solution would have been to manage Nigeria as a critically ill patient”.

Gumi, a medical doctor, also stated that Nigeria is not united. He said the APC took over a divided country and that what political scientists needed to do at that time was to design a template without dividing Nigeria.

“Now, there is too much hostility and bad blood in the country. All I know is that all Nigerians are one. What we need was someone to correct us”, he told New Telegraph.

“This is the time to bring people together, the kind of leader that Nigeria needs at this critical time is the one that can pacify. Not one that will show that he is clean and the other person is dirty. No. He should show that we are all dirty, let us all come and clean ourselves.

“So, the so-called clean party which has the broom, who is it trying to sweep? It is so antagonistic. It is so provocative that it has divided the country. If your house is also dirty, you cannot clean someone’s house. People thought that change is coming when it was not possible to effect that change.

Gumi fumed that top officials were getting away with stealing and corruption and cited examples.

“The allegations of corruption are already been made against the (suspended) Secretary to the Government of the Federation, of a government that is fighting corruption. And the government cannot do anything besides suspension.

“The present administration came to rule Nigeria using the slogan of war against corruption and this is disrupting the unity of the country. The unity of the country is more important than the money that people stole; more important than the current underdevelopment that we are witnessing”.

Asked the way out of Nigeria’s problems, Sheikh Gumi advised that before 2019, politics has to change completely and drastically.

“No more APC or PDP”, he declared, adding that “once they continue, Nigeria’s problems will continue. What I am saying is that they should metamorphose, they should change. When you see a butterfly, there was a time when it was a larva.

“The parties have to change; PDP has to change, APC has to change or it will break because it is an alloy which is not well moulded. We want these parties to change because of the future of our children.

“The major defect of APC is that it is a party which was grown by the power of individuals; Buhari in the North and Tinubu in the South West. And there is danger in this kind of politics. Look at Mugabe now, he has suppressed and pinned down everybody in Zimbabwe and he has been winning elections in quote.

“If we continue along this path, Nigeria will be like that. When we have somebody who feels that he is the Messiah, then we are in trouble because as I am speaking to you now, not everybody in the North can speak to you like this.”
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The Federal Government has granted tax defaulters a grace period of nine months to regularise and pay their true tax positions or face stiff penalties at the end of the amnesty window.

This window is offered through the Voluntary Asset and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) launched by the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja yesterday.

Osinbajo said VAIDS is a one-off opportunity for evaders to avoid the full force of the law. Thus between July 1, and March 31, 2017, tax evaders can regularise their tax status in exchange for immunity from prosecution of tax offences and a tax audit, and be absolved from penalty charges and interest.

He said, “The scheme will be operated from July 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018. It will be supported by an executive order, which I will sign into law today to offer a once in a life time opportunity to those in default to regularise their tax affairs.

“In exchange for full and honest declaration, tax evaders will receive immunity from prosecution, forgiveness of penalty and interest that is due on unpaid taxes.

“In addition, participants in the scheme will not be selected for audit investigation for the period. We understand that some tax payers may have problems raising cash and for that reason, we have built in a system that will allow those owing to pay over a period of time,” Osinbajo explained.

As a part of the policy, over 75,000 young Nigerians would be engaged as Community Tax Liaison Officers (CTLO) to drive tax awareness in the rural communities.

The Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun said through this, government will increase tax awareness and compliance, and grant tax payers a time-limited opportunity to regularise their tax status without penalty.

The anticipated funds to be raised, according to government, are at least $1 billion (over N300bn) annually, which will reduce Nigeria’s borrowing needs, allow investment in vital infrastructure and spur development.

The minister noted that the initiative became necessary as Nigeria’s tax revenue contribution to GDP is a miserable 6 per cent, one of lowest in the world.

With the window, evaders who refuse participation after the period will be liable for interest on overdue tax balances and even risk criminal prosecution.

Upon conviction, the defaulter risks imprisonment of up to five years and or severe extra penalties of up to 100 per cent fine of the outstanding tax due, compound interest at 21 per cent per annum, and forfeiture of assets.

The Nigerian Senate also supports the initiative.

In a goodwill message, the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, represented by Sen. John Owan Enoh, said the Senate is in full support of the initiative, adding that the initiative has the capability of getting the country out of the woods.

He described the scheme as a bold move to enforce tax compliance, noting that non-oil revenue should be the main driver of government budgetary expenditure and not oil revenue.

The chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum and Governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari, pledged the states’ support for the scheme and the willingness of the states to drive the process.

FORMER Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Professor Chukwuma Soludo, yesterday, said that Nigeria’s economy will be ahead of France and the United Kingdom, UK, by 2050 if the country gets its acts together. *Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo Soludo made this known at an event held by the U.S. Consulate General, Lagos to mark the 241 independence anniversary of the United States of America. While acknowledging the US government’s struggle to attain her level of development today, he noted that Nigeria in the same spirit can do better. According to him “no country comes fully made; every country is a product of continuous struggle by the citizens to make a more perfect union. What creates a good society, in fact institutions don’t just emerge from heaven, and institutions are products of struggle.” He stated: “The next Nigeria must be everything that the first Nigeria has not been and that is trying to be, in a process of creating a more perfect and prosperous nation. And I will dare to say a more united country trying to forge a nation out of the disparate nationalities. This won’t be easy because it will require a lot of dialogue, contestations but I think where there’s a will, there will always be a way. We already have the human and natural resources. “ So if we get our acts together especial economically, Nigeria will by 2050 be ahead of France and the UK in terms of economy. But the big question is if we can get our acts together to begin. This is a responsibility for all Nigerians.”’

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/nigeriall-ahead-france-uk-economically-2050-soludo/

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has sent a warning signal to whoever will take over from him after the expiration of his eight year tenure as the governor of the state, saying that his successor could risk being stoned if his performance falls below the standard he had set in the state. Chief Rochas Okorocha The governor also claimed that his administration had spoilt the people of Imo with infrastructural development which he said will be a legacy to be left behind when he completes his second term. Okorocha who disclosed this in Abuja in an interview with State House Correspondents, explained that what his administration had done in Imo State in the past six years could be comparable to what other governors in that state whether living or dead had done. He said that when he concludes his term and leaves the state house, he would be remembered as “a good governor who impacted positively on the lives of the people.” His words: “I am in this job not for the profit of it but for the honour and glory of the job. So I want to leave a legacy. I want Imo people to miss me and they will definitely miss me. Believe you me they have not seen such developmental work before now and they will miss it. “The only problem I have is that anybody that comes after me and does not perform will be stoned. Because you cannot come to Imo State now and say you want to abolish free education from primary to university, they will not accept. I have spoilt Imo people believe me. “You cannot come to Imo State and say you want to give them a single lane road when they are now used to eight lane road in the city, they won’t accept it. You cannot come here and tell the children to go to schools where the floors are not tiled they will not accept because all the schools have been rebuilt. I have rebuilt 450 schools.” Although most of the hospitals the administration started over three years ago were yet to be completed and have not taken off, the governor claimed that, “You can no longer take them to those ramshackle hospitals, those shanties they called hospitals because I have built 27 to 200 bed general hospitals. You can no longer tell them those stories. All the infrastructures are there. “You cannot tell them that there are criminal activities any more and that your hands are tied they will not accept it because we know where we brought Imo from, from unsafe place to a safe place right now. And you can no longer tell our workers to dress shabbily they will not, they will want to dress in their suits and tie and white shirts. So Imo has changed believe me.” Giving himself pass mark, he said, “I stand to be challenged and corrected by anybody that what we have done in Imo State in six years can be comparable to what any governor in that state living or dead has done. “And if we put all of them together, I can’t say whether they can match what we have done. Have you seen me sounding boisterous? That is the truth. But the point is I don’t make media noise, I don’t make foundation laying stones Programme, I don’t bring women to dance because I want to lay foundation project. I don’t commission projects because for me it doesn’t make sense.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/successor-may-stoned-okorocha/

[quote author=bundlez post=58002678]The Jigawa state deputy governor, Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, has said that the government was committed towards providing a paramilitary outfit for the protection of farmers against encroaching herdsmen. He also spoke on other issues of interest.

‎Why did the Jigawa state government sponsored a bill in the State House of Assembly that imposes severe sanctions on herdsmen that encroached on farmlands?

When we came into office, at our council meeting the issue of farmers/fulani came up, which is a perennial issue. So the council decided that a committee be set up to look into this issue, and the committee was chaired by my good self. It comprises emirs, farmers, herdsmen, and representatives of virtually all the security agencies. The first thing I did was to call for a copy of the law establishing the farmers and herdsmen board and I went through it very carefully. I called for the inaugural meeting and by the time we listed out all the 11 problems that we believed were responsible for these clashes I came to the realization that all these problems could be solved with prudent application of that existing law.

And I explained this to the members of my team and I told them we need not waste our time meeting severally on this issue, I made copies of the law to everybody. When we had the last meeting we all agreed on a point by point basis that all the problems enumerated could be taken care of if this law was applied. What I realized was that even the members of the farmers and herdsmen board were not conversant with the law; they didn’t care or bothered to look at it. This is a law that calls for the establishment of a paramilitary group within that agency that would be responsible for guarding grazing reserves for ensuring peaceful coordination in ensuring that these herdsmen when they come in at a particular time of the year are restricted to their cattle routes and their designated places.

These rangers apart from being a paramilitary group have been empowered by that law to arrest. The powers of arrest they have are more than that of the police because they can arrest on mere suspicion while a Policeman might need a warrant, very powerful group of people of which if we had taken the time to establish them, we would have solved 70percent of the problems. This law bans night grazing. Most of the events that happen take place at night. This law bans night grazing and if you are caught grazing at night the penalty is there in the law. It provides that any herdsman that strays into any farm land and destroys the crops, the board is empowered to confiscate all his cows that participate in that destruction and the law said you should get a court order and sell them. And when you sell them you not only compensate the farmer but you also deduct the expenses for the implementation of that particular provision of the law, which include the fuelling of vehicles, the running up and down in terms of the feeding of the cows and everything is to be deducted from the sale of that cattle. This law designates cattle routes; it also calls for the control of entry and exit of herdsmen.

During Saminu Turaki’s administration we had a system that if any Fulani is coming into your state at the point of entry, he stops and he needs to have a sponsor or guarantor under a Fulani chief who would act as his guarantor that ‘yes he is coming to stay in my domain and if there is any destruction by his cattle he would be held responsible.’ And then at the point of exit he would also do his registration and shown the designated cattle routes that they are supposed to follow. Before they come in they will tell us if they coming back through that route or they are heading to another state. If you are going to Bauchi or Kano states there are designated routes for you to follow. These routes have been clearly defined by the last administration, grazing reserves have been clearly defined by the last administration, and cattle routes have been defined and enforced. Everything that is meant to cater for the easy passage of the Fulani has been enforced by the last administration. So there is nothing new that we have introduced there is no new bill no new system it is the same law and staff of the farmers and herdsmen board that are implementing these policies. We are simply waking-up to our responsibilities.

Don’t you think that this stringent government policy could affect government’s desire to‎ stimulate farmers to go back to farms?

We are farmers’ centred government, and when I’m talking of farmers I’m talking of both farmers and pastoralists. This government is focused on agriculture and in all its ramifications, we can’t have a situation where government will take its money and put it in agriculture and encourages people to go to farms and then at the end of the day we cannot protect their crops. Three, four months a farmer has borrowed fertilizers, borrowed inputs have put all his time and effort and at the time of harvest just two, three weeks before he harvests and go to market the Fulani man would come and destroy not even eat but by the time he moves a herd of hundreds of cattle across somebody’s farm it is totally destroyed. These people are mischievous to the extent that when they meet a farm of water melon they will even use machetes to chop-off the melons so that their cows can easily eat it and digest it easily. If you challenge them they will brandish weapons and kill you.

We will not close our eyes and watch the fruits of labour of our farmers destroyed by itinerant Fulani herdsmen, not under this administration. So there is nothing new we are just applying the full force of the law.

Does this government have the intention of establishing such paramilitary outfit in the state?

Absolutely, the law provides for them, we are supposed to train them we are supposed to equip them provide them with uniforms and train them in the special method of enforcing this law. We are going to establish them, we are already discussing with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC)‎, because the civil defence also have a special unit set-up to check mate cattle rustling. So you would find out that it is also something similar, by the time we engage them with that unit we would combine them to be undergoing a joint patrol to ensure that our grazing reserves are protected.

That is what our neighbours are doing, if you go to Niger republic if you caught with one stolen cow in your herd even if it is two thousand cows, you will lose the whole two thousand. In Niger republic if you come into one state with your cattle and you are given permission to stay there if there is harvest in the farms of other states you will not be allowed one inch till the governor of the neighbouring state calls his counterpart governor and tell him our people have cleared their harvests. While you are remaining in that state you will be buying grass at your own cost for your cattle, whether you are spending one week or three weeks or four weeks, that is your lot and you will hardly hear a case of conflict. You cannot come all the way through five countries in West Africa pass through Senegal, Niger and obey all their laws and the moment you cross over into Maigatari you become lawless because you don’t want to respect our own laws here, we cannot allow that to happen.

In one of your recent meetings you faulted the police for failing to curtail Farmers/ Fulani clashes; does that mean the state government has no confidence in the police?

We can’t say we don’t have much confidence in the police. I’m talking about specific references where we provide logistics for the police to go and chase out those herders and lo and behold sometime we don’t know what happens they made arrests and sometimes we ‎are told they’ve been released and sometimes the police goes there and farmers show them where the herders are, and they tell them they haven’t been trained to cross over water, the water that is beneath your ankle they say they cannot cross because it is not part of their training.

So we believe there are individual policemen or maybe heads of divisions who are not willing to cooperate with us, which is why the issue of establishing the paramilitary force is very important to us. These are people under our control whom we would have given the training they would require to do the job, including how to swim so that no matter where you cross to with your cattle we would be able to track you down. We have been getting supports from the police. Virtually all the arrests we have made in the two or three instances we have confiscated cows we have used the police and the civil defence to guard these cows where they are being kept and we have gotten our court orders according to the law.

We cannot say we are 100 percent satisfied, we have one or two issues, but generally I think the police have done well to support our effort.

Since your committee started working may we know how many cows that have been confiscated?
We have confiscated 58 cows in Marma. After two weeks of investigations ‎we found out that those particular cows were not those that inflicted the damages in Marma village. We had witnesses and we released the cows to the owner and even paid for them to be transported back to his remaining herd. We have arrested another set of 18 cows in Iwo village of Kirikasnma local government which have been sold off but the amount realised was not enough to pay for the compensation. These cows were being sold in the presence of the court; in fact the court was the one that took charge of the process the last time, in the presence of Miyetti Allah, in the presence of security agents in a fair and transparent manner.

Right now we have about 30 cows in our custody. We are in the process of getting a court order to also sell those even though I understand that the owners have appeared and are trying to arrange for a settlement. What I will always say is that the law must always take its course.

The issue of grazing reserves, what is the state government doing to ensure that the grazing reserves are being preserved for the Fulani Cattle breeders?

‎There is no incidence that we have recorded so far that is as a result of inadequate grazing reserves or farmers blocking cattle routes. If there were farmers that have encroached into any grazing reserve the law would be applied even if you have built a house there we will destroy it. We are working for both sides, our grazing reserves are intact they are being gazetted. As it is we have gazetted about 12 out of close to 74 grazing reserves that we have and we are in the process of developing them.

Development here means physical demarcation, either with drums or some typical objects. We then try to remove poisonous weeds. The issue of grazing reserves is also one of our mentality , these people are nomadic in nature and there is no scientific report that has not shown that it is better to keep your cows in one place and feed them rather than roaming round the whole continent burning up the energy that you have. It is something that will take time to go, for it is a cultural thing and maybe when we have examples of those that have settled down and they see it physically working we will try to change some of these habits.

There is this observation ‎by some affected farmers that lands were allocated to Dangote and Lee group companies at the detriment of farmers in those areas, what is the true story?

We have not allocated one inch of land to Dangote as I talk to you now. The one Dangote has is the one that was allocated to him for sugar by the previous government. Dangote came and wanted 20,000 hectares of land we came up with a new land policy for Jigawa state which is the land reform and resettlement framework adopted by the council. What that law stated is that we are encouraging large scale investment in farming, we are ready to give people lands even if it means dispossessing farmers of their lands on the overall public interest. But we have to do it with sense of responsibility. Part of the condition of granting people land is that if you come across a settlement whether it is farmers or Fulani that is bigger than may be 200 or 250 people we cannot do displacement .So if this is the land you want and it is a settlement of more than 200 people what we need to do is to ensure that when you come across this land we create a buffer zone around the settlement. That buffer zone should have enough space for that settlement to expand for the next 30 years. So you can’t have it, that’s why you have a situation where even Mr. Lee couldn’t get one plot of land. Those that are displaced by resettlement apart of paying them compensation you have to give us a resettlement framework which we call a livelihood restoration framework. If he is a farmer, and you have displaced him how do you restore his livelihood, if he wants to continue farming? Then he goes into your agro scheme. Mr. Lee wanted 17,000 hectares of land, he can’t have it, what we are giving his 12, 000 hectares then he has to work with out-growers to make up of the rest of the seven or eight thousand hectares. The same thing with Dangote, when we came in and what we told him was that we can’t just give you 20,000 hectares of land. No investor will sink $400 million and not own any land it is not possible, he cannot rely on people waking up one day and decided they want to grow groundnut instead of sugarcane. So you will get your land which will form your estate but a large percentage of what you need would be grown by out-growers. Dangote has now close to 2000 farmers in his out-growers scheme, he started with 260 hectares in Haggo, it was successful that the repayment rate in that scheme was 96percent and he decided that instead of the 40percent we said we will give him, he said that he only needed from 20 to 30 percent of his land requirement and let 70percent be out-growers.

Dangote is an investor and an industrialist, he is not a farmer if you come in and somebody who is running a sugar plant or a rice mill come in and say you want to focus on running the rice mill with the industrial permutations and administration and then you want to run 10,000 hectares of farm it would be too much for your health. If you can find a situation where somebody can take care of the farming, someone who has been a farmer all his life and supply you your paddy rice then administratively it is better for you, it is a win- win situation. You will not be dealing with cattle\herders, thieves, fire, rain, no rain, harvest or no harvest if you can have somebody that will take that of you and will provide means of living peacefully because if you come and displaced all these farmers after one or two years they have squandered their compensations and then they will be looking at trailers coming out of your factory everyday it is a potential problem. So it’s better to have a situation where everyone is happy. And that is what we have done.
http://sunnewsonline.com/why-we-moved-against-fulani-herds-men-jigawa-deputy-gov/

The Jigawa state deputy governor, Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, has said that the government was committed towards providing a paramilitary outfit for the protection of farmers against encroaching herdsmen. He also spoke on other issues of interest.

‎Why did the Jigawa state government sponsored a bill in the State House of Assembly that imposes severe sanctions on herdsmen that encroached on farmlands?

When we came into office, at our council meeting the issue of farmers/fulani came up, which is a perennial issue. So the council decided that a committee be set up to look into this issue, and the committee was chaired by my good self. It comprises emirs, farmers, herdsmen, and representatives of virtually all the security agencies. The first thing I did was to call for a copy of the law establishing the farmers and herdsmen board and I went through it very carefully. I called for the inaugural meeting and by the time we listed out all the 11 problems that we believed were responsible for these clashes I came to the realization that all these problems could be solved with prudent application of that existing law.

And I explained this to the members of my team and I told them we need not waste our time meeting severally on this issue, I made copies of the law to everybody. When we had the last meeting we all agreed on a point by point basis that all the problems enumerated could be taken care of if this law was applied. What I realized was that even the members of the farmers and herdsmen board were not conversant with the law; they didn’t care or bothered to look at it. This is a law that calls for the establishment of a paramilitary group within that agency that would be responsible for guarding grazing reserves for ensuring peaceful coordination in ensuring that these herdsmen when they come in at a particular time of the year are restricted to their cattle routes and their designated places.

These rangers apart from being a paramilitary group have been empowered by that law to arrest. The powers of arrest they have are more than that of the police because they can arrest on mere suspicion while a Policeman might need a warrant, very powerful group of people of which if we had taken the time to establish them, we would have solved 70percent of the problems. This law bans night grazing. Most of the events that happen take place at night. This law bans night grazing and if you are caught grazing at night the penalty is there in the law. It provides that any herdsman that strays into any farm land and destroys the crops, the board is empowered to confiscate all his cows that participate in that destruction and the law said you should get a court order and sell them. And when you sell them you not only compensate the farmer but you also deduct the expenses for the implementation of that particular provision of the law, which include the fuelling of vehicles, the running up and down in terms of the feeding of the cows and everything is to be deducted from the sale of that cattle. This law designates cattle routes; it also calls for the control of entry and exit of herdsmen.

During Saminu Turaki’s administration we had a system that if any Fulani is coming into your state at the point of entry, he stops and he needs to have a sponsor or guarantor under a Fulani chief who would act as his guarantor that ‘yes he is coming to stay in my domain and if there is any destruction by his cattle he would be held responsible.’ And then at the point of exit he would also do his registration and shown the designated cattle routes that they are supposed to follow. Before they come in they will tell us if they coming back through that route or they are heading to another state. If you are going to Bauchi or Kano states there are designated routes for you to follow. These routes have been clearly defined by the last administration, grazing reserves have been clearly defined by the last administration, and cattle routes have been defined and enforced. Everything that is meant to cater for the easy passage of the Fulani has been enforced by the last administration. So there is nothing new that we have introduced there is no new bill no new system it is the same law and staff of the farmers and herdsmen board that are implementing these policies. We are simply waking-up to our responsibilities.

Don’t you think that this stringent government policy could affect government’s desire to‎ stimulate farmers to go back to farms?

We are farmers’ centred government, and when I’m talking of farmers I’m talking of both farmers and pastoralists. This government is focused on agriculture and in all its ramifications, we can’t have a situation where government will take its money and put it in agriculture and encourages people to go to farms and then at the end of the day we cannot protect their crops. Three, four months a farmer has borrowed fertilizers, borrowed inputs have put all his time and effort and at the time of harvest just two, three weeks before he harvests and go to market the Fulani man would come and destroy not even eat but by the time he moves a herd of hundreds of cattle across somebody’s farm it is totally destroyed. These people are mischievous to the extent that when they meet a farm of water melon they will even use machetes to chop-off the melons so that their cows can easily eat it and digest it easily. If you challenge them they will brandish weapons and kill you.

We will not close our eyes and watch the fruits of labour of our farmers destroyed by itinerant Fulani herdsmen, not under this administration. So there is nothing new we are just applying the full force of the law.

Does this government have the intention of establishing such paramilitary outfit in the state?

Absolutely, the law provides for them, we are supposed to train them we are supposed to equip them provide them with uniforms and train them in the special method of enforcing this law. We are going to establish them, we are already discussing with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC)‎, because the civil defence also have a special unit set-up to check mate cattle rustling. So you would find out that it is also something similar, by the time we engage them with that unit we would combine them to be undergoing a joint patrol to ensure that our grazing reserves are protected.

That is what our neighbours are doing, if you go to Niger republic if you caught with one stolen cow in your herd even if it is two thousand cows, you will lose the whole two thousand. In Niger republic if you come into one state with your cattle and you are given permission to stay there if there is harvest in the farms of other states you will not be allowed one inch till the governor of the neighbouring state calls his counterpart governor and tell him our people have cleared their harvests. While you are remaining in that state you will be buying grass at your own cost for your cattle, whether you are spending one week or three weeks or four weeks, that is your lot and you will hardly hear a case of conflict. You cannot come all the way through five countries in West Africa pass through Senegal, Niger and obey all their laws and the moment you cross over into Maigatari you become lawless because you don’t want to respect our own laws here, we cannot allow that to happen.

In one of your recent meetings you faulted the police for failing to curtail Farmers/ Fulani clashes; does that mean the state government has no confidence in the police?

We can’t say we don’t have much confidence in the police. I’m talking about specific references where we provide logistics for the police to go and chase out those herders and lo and behold sometime we don’t know what happens they made arrests and sometimes we ‎are told they’ve been released and sometimes the police goes there and farmers show them where the herders are, and they tell them they haven’t been trained to cross over water, the water that is beneath your ankle they say they cannot cross because it is not part of their training.

So we believe there are individual policemen or maybe heads of divisions who are not willing to cooperate with us, which is why the issue of establishing the paramilitary force is very important to us. These are people under our control whom we would have given the training they would require to do the job, including how to swim so that no matter where you cross to with your cattle we would be able to track you down. We have been getting supports from the police. Virtually all the arrests we have made in the two or three instances we have confiscated cows we have used the police and the civil defence to guard these cows where they are being kept and we have gotten our court orders according to the law.

We cannot say we are 100 percent satisfied, we have one or two issues, but generally I think the police have done well to support our effort.

Since your committee started working may we know how many cows that have been confiscated?
We have confiscated 58 cows in Marma. After two weeks of investigations ‎we found out that those particular cows were not those that inflicted the damages in Marma village. We had witnesses and we released the cows to the owner and even paid for them to be transported back to his remaining herd. We have arrested another set of 18 cows in Iwo village of Kirikasnma local government which have been sold off but the amount realised was not enough to pay for the compensation. These cows were being sold in the presence of the court; in fact the court was the one that took charge of the process the last time, in the presence of Miyetti Allah, in the presence of security agents in a fair and transparent manner.

Right now we have about 30 cows in our custody. We are in the process of getting a court order to also sell those even though I understand that the owners have appeared and are trying to arrange for a settlement. What I will always say is that the law must always take its course.

The issue of grazing reserves, what is the state government doing to ensure that the grazing reserves are being preserved for the Fulani Cattle breeders?

‎There is no incidence that we have recorded so far that is as a result of inadequate grazing reserves or farmers blocking cattle routes. If there were farmers that have encroached into any grazing reserve the law would be applied even if you have built a house there we will destroy it. We are working for both sides, our grazing reserves are intact they are being gazetted. As it is we have gazetted about 12 out of close to 74 grazing reserves that we have and we are in the process of developing them.

Development here means physical demarcation, either with drums or some typical objects. We then try to remove poisonous weeds. The issue of grazing reserves is also one of our mentality , these people are nomadic in nature and there is no scientific report that has not shown that it is better to keep your cows in one place and feed them rather than roaming round the whole continent burning up the energy that you have. It is something that will take time to go, for it is a cultural thing and maybe when we have examples of those that have settled down and they see it physically working we will try to change some of these habits.

There is this observation ‎by some affected farmers that lands were allocated to Dangote and Lee group companies at the detriment of farmers in those areas, what is the true story?

We have not allocated one inch of land to Dangote as I talk to you now. The one Dangote has is the one that was allocated to him for sugar by the previous government. Dangote came and wanted 20,000 hectares of land we came up with a new land policy for Jigawa state which is the land reform and resettlement framework adopted by the council. What that law stated is that we are encouraging large scale investment in farming, we are ready to give people lands even if it means dispossessing farmers of their lands on the overall public interest. But we have to do it with sense of responsibility. Part of the condition of granting people land is that if you come across a settlement whether it is farmers or Fulani that is bigger than may be 200 or 250 people we cannot do displacement .So if this is the land you want and it is a settlement of more than 200 people what we need to do is to ensure that when you come across this land we create a buffer zone around the settlement. That buffer zone should have enough space for that settlement to expand for the next 30 years. So you can’t have it, that’s why you have a situation where even Mr. Lee couldn’t get one plot of land. Those that are displaced by resettlement apart of paying them compensation you have to give us a resettlement framework which we call a livelihood restoration framework. If he is a farmer, and you have displaced him how do you restore his livelihood, if he wants to continue farming? Then he goes into your agro scheme. Mr. Lee wanted 17,000 hectares of land, he can’t have it, what we are giving his 12, 000 hectares then he has to work with out-growers to make up of the rest of the seven or eight thousand hectares. The same thing with Dangote, when we came in and what we told him was that we can’t just give you 20,000 hectares of land. No investor will sink $400 million and not own any land it is not possible, he cannot rely on people waking up one day and decided they want to grow groundnut instead of sugarcane. So you will get your land which will form your estate but a large percentage of what you need would be grown by out-growers. Dangote has now close to 2000 farmers in his out-growers scheme, he started with 260 hectares in Haggo, it was successful that the repayment rate in that scheme was 96percent and he decided that instead of the 40percent we said we will give him, he said that he only needed from 20 to 30 percent of his land requirement and let 70percent be out-growers.

Dangote is an investor and an industrialist, he is not a farmer if you come in and somebody who is running a sugar plant or a rice mill come in and say you want to focus on running the rice mill with the industrial permutations and administration and then you want to run 10,000 hectares of farm it would be too much for your health. If you can find a situation where somebody can take care of the farming, someone who has been a farmer all his life and supply you your paddy rice then administratively it is better for you, it is a win- win situation. You will not be dealing with cattle\herders, thieves, fire, rain, no rain, harvest or no harvest if you can have somebody that will take that of you and will provide means of living peacefully because if you come and displaced all these farmers after one or two years they have squandered their compensations and then they will be looking at trailers coming out of your factory everyday it is a potential problem. So it’s better to have a situation where everyone is happy. And that is what we have done.
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A total failure