Buhari’s grazing routes

EVERY now and then, close watchers of President Muhammadu Buhari get an uneasy feeling that the man who campaigned assiduously for the country’s top political job and assured all and sundry that he was the right person for it is woefully unprepared and profoundly disconnected from the mood of the generality of Nigerians. The latest indication of this disconnect is the announcement by President Buhari, speaking during an interview with Arise TV, that he had instructed the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to “dig the Gazette of the First Republic” (sic), apparently with a view to recovering land from individuals who have contracted those grazing routes to personal use. The president was speaking against the backdrop of a spike in reported attacks on farming communities by suspected Fulani herdsmen across the country, and the subsequent declaration by 17 southern state governors banning open grazing.

For a much-anticipated conversation between the president and journalists, the interview was a huge disappointment. While many Nigerians watched eagerly, expecting some reassurance that the president understood their hurt and shared their pain, all they got was a tone-deaf lecture that confirmed their worst fears about President Buhari and his advisers. For the government, the interview was a political and legal disaster. Politically, it renewed the message that the president’s passion is reserved for only one section of the country, no more. Significantly, at no time during the 44-minute interview did the president attempt to speak directly to the families and loved ones of victims of attacks by herdsmen. As many have pointed out, the gazette cited by Buhari in trying to harness land for nomadic herdsmen across the entire country was not a federal law: it applied only to the northern region. Then, it even criminalised open grazing.

Legally speaking, the interview gave teeth to the opinion that either the nation’s first citizen does not understand the law, or, worse still, that he is surrounded by mischievous advisers whose knowledge of the country’s laws is distinctly unsound. Either way, President Buhari appeared to confirm that he is indeed detached from reality, speaking in what Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka describes as “the language of a leader who felt he was on a roll, while the nation is on a rollercoaster, and that’s even putting it mildly because the nation is on a nose-dive.”

The legal questions raised by President Buhari’s ill-advised recourse to an expired First Republic law are many, and we crave the indulgence of Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clark and Lagos lawyer Femi Falana to quote verbatim from their respective stinging indictments of the president. First, Chief Clark: “Perhaps Mr. President is not aware, or he has not been advised by the AGF that the Land Use Act which vested ownership of land in the state governor is entrenched in the constitution. Therefore, any gazette or law passed by any state or National Assembly is and will be null and void because the 1999 Constitution supersedes all such laws or gazette notices. The president has no power or authority to impose open grazing on state governments… Therefore, any law banning open grazing by state governments is not only legal, it is unchallengeable and binding on any person or group of persons, including the president.” For Mr. Falana, “The president of Nigeria does not have control over land outside of the Federal Capital Territory, according to the Land Use Act. So, the Federal Government cannot acquire land from any state under the Land Use Act. So, with the Land Use Act, the law on open grazing is no longer applicable.”

We couldn’t agree more, and we are disappointed that the president did not do his homework on the legal ramifications of his position before going on live television. More worryingly, the president’s pronouncements have revived our worries (and those of a cross section of Nigerians) that he is a democrat in name only, and that, deep down, he lusts for the military era when the head of the junta was also the law. The president’s preference for antiquated grazing reserves and his wish that there were laws backing that preference is not only a misreading of the corpus of laws in Nigeria, it is also an attempt to impose personal thinking as a substitute for what legally obtains. And in any case, is he suggesting that the laws passed in the various states banning open grazing are not acceptable to him and are thus null and void? Is he assuming the role of the judiciary in pronouncing on the propriety and legality or otherwise of laws validly passed by constituent states? Is that the duty of a president in a federal system of government?

In the face of complaints by people in the constituent states of Nigeria about the negative and deleterious effects of the activities of herders on life and security in their communities, Buhari behaves as if nothing is amiss. He insists on the distressed communities accommodating the herders and their open grazing and even fishes for non-existent laws to appropriate other people’s lands for them! This is not unacceptable in a federal and diverse country; it is not promotive of unity and integrated  living. It unmasks a fascist disposition. Buhari needs to see himself as the president of the entire country. He cannot continue subjecting the country to problems on account of his ethnic affiliation, which he has almost turned into the only basis for governmental thinking and action.

For the umpteenth time, we urge the president to listen to what members of the public (including, incidentally, the governors of the 19 northern states) are saying. It is not too late to change course.

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