By; NICHOLAS DEKERA, Kaduna
Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, on Wednesday, knocked the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria for saying that a cow may cost up to N2 million with the anti-grazing law.
According to Adams, the people of Southern Nigeria, especially the Yoruba people in the South-West will start eating fish and other alternatives to beef.
He also said the North can’t use its cattle bought by the people of Southern Nigeria to threaten the people.
Adams was reacting to a statement credited to MACBAN Zonal Secretary for South-West, Maikudi Usman, during a one-day public hearing organised by the state House of Assembly on the anti-open grazing bill on September 8, 2021.
Lagos consumes over 6,000 herds of cattle daily and over 1.8 million herds of cattle annually, according to the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya.
Speaking with newsmen on an Online programme on Wednesday, Adams commended the Southern governors for banning open grazing in the region and for supporting the move with legal backing.
He said, “Countries are moving towards creating a secured environment for their people and in a situation where a profession within agriculture is creating problems, creating insecurity for us in every region, the governors of the South have right to decide how to protect the lives and property of their citizens.
A bill for a law to Prohibit Open Cattle Grazing In Lagos State, the Trespass of Cattle Land And For Other Connected Purposes’, had scaled second reading in the House.
The move was in consonance with the resolution of the 17 Southern governors who had on July 5, 2021, “set a timeline of Wednesday, 1st September, 2021 for the promulgation of the anti-open grazing law in all member states”.
Aside from Lagos, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State had on August 31, 2021, signed into law, the Anti-Grazing Bill passed by the State House of Assembly.
Some other governors in the Southern part of the country had also signed the bill into law in the last few weeks with a move geared towards curbing the farmer-herder crisis and attendant insecurity in the region.
