Fulani Graz­ing Bill : Southern Senators Stand United in Opposition

Senators and governors from the Southern bloc have initiated moves to stop the National Graz­ing Bill which the Executive arm of government plans to send to the National Assembly.

The bill, according to the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, is designed to check the incessant clashes be­tween Fulani herdsmen and farmers by creating special graz­ing reserves for the herdsmen in various parts of the country.

But Southern States’ gov­ernors and senators, who ex­pressed their opposition to the bill, have vowed to shut it down whenever President Muham­madu Buhari presents it to the National Assembly for passage.

The move of the Southern political leaders came as the Senate on Tuesday declared that no such proposed law had been forwarded to the National As­sembly by the Executive for con­sideration.

The proposed law, which has a huge financial implication on the Federal Government, has already split the senators along ethnic lines.

Some Senators, who spoke on the bill, said they would only sup­port it if it provides for stiffer sanctions for herdsmen who use their cattle to destroy farm crops of poor farmers across the country.

The opposing lawmakers de­clared that it would be wrong to use the national budget to fund cattle rearing, which is a major private business in the North.

The Senators asserted that they would demand for the fi­nancial compendium of the pro­posed Grazing Bill ahead of its presentation.

A senator from the South East zone, who did not want his name in print, said that the only thing anybody in the South would sup­port in the bill would be punish­ment for herdsmen who destroy peoples’ farm crops.

He lamented the damage the herdsmen and their cows had done in the South East zone by destroying farm crops without any check by security agents.

Indeed, there was a mini-dra­ma on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday when Senator Enyin­naya Abaribe (PDP, Abia) drew the attention of his colleagues to speculations in the social media over claims by the Presidency that its “Bill on the Establishment of a National Grazing Commis­sion” had passed the second read­ing on the floor of the Senate.

Abaribe, who raised a Point of Order under Order 43, said he had been inundated with over 1,000 calls from his constit­uents and the public on the pre­sent Senate passing the said bill.

He recalled that the bill on grazing reserves was presented during the 7th Senate by Senator Zaynab Kure (Niger), who is no longer in the Upper House, but the bill was rejected.

The third term Senator not­ed that his reason for raising the Point of Order was to seek expla­nation on when the bill was dis­cussed on the floor of the Senate to the extent of it scaling first and second readings.

He said: “This personal ex­planation has to do with a series of calls on the issues. I have got­ten more than 1,000 calls over the weekend and this has to do with something I consider is not be­fore the Senate; a phantom thing that is not before the Senate.

“It is about something called the Grazing Reserves Commis­sion and everybody is calling me and people are sending me text messages to the extent that when I explained to some of my constituents that there is no such thing before the Senate, they now turned around to say ‘the only reason why you are saying so is that you never go to the Senate plenaries; you must be an absen­tee member.’

“And when I asked where the information was coming from, they said it was from the social media”.

Responding, the Senate Pres­ident, Dr Bukola Saraki, who apparently didn’t want to go into another round of contro­versy with the Presidency, sim­ply said he had noted Abaribe’s complaint, whilst vacating his seat at about 11.45am to attend his Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) trial.

Meanwhile, the Chairman, Committee on Rules and Busi­ness, Senator Babajide Omow­orare, has denied any receipt of the National Grazing Bill by the Senate.

Senator Omoworare said: “Several distinguished Sena­tors have been inundated with the request by members of the public concerning the penden­cy of a National Grazing Bill in the Senate.

“This is to clarify that no such bill has been presented by the Ex­ecutive arm of government and none has so far been filed by any Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the 8th Senate,” he said.

“For the avoidance of doubt, a `National Grazing Reserve Es­tablishment and Development 

Commission Bill” (SB. 60) was presented by Senator Zaynab Kure (Niger Central) during the 7th Senate (2011 – 2015) which has now expired by the opera­tions of law on the 6th June, 2015 in furtherance of Section 64(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended),” the lawmaker main­tained.

Ogbe was reported to have confirmed the Federal Govern­ment’s plan to import grass for feeding cattle as a first step to the presentation of a National Graz­ing Bill to the National Assem­bly.