CAN, PDP condemn Edo grazing bill

THE Edo State chapters of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have voiced their displeasure to a bill before the State House of Assembly seeking to establish an agency for grazing in the state.

A public hearing by the Edo State House of Assembly to discuss a bill to establish the Edo State Control on Nomadic Cattle Rearing/Grazing Agency comes up on Thursday.

However, ahead of the public hearing the Edo CAN and the opposition PDP descended on the proponents of the bill, calling on the State House of Assembly to throw out the bill as its contents portend grave danger to the present and future generation of Edo people.

CAN, at a press conference in Benin on Wednesday by its state chairman, Bishop Oriname Oyonude Kure, while voicing CAN’s objection to the bill, said the proposed agency was an anomaly as nomadic cattle rearing was not part of the culture and tradition of the Edo people and the state.

He said if passed into law, communal and ancestral lands would be transferred and given to a favoured ethnic group in the country, adding that the bill was against Section 42 (1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

He said, “CAN believes that the grazing bill before the Edo State House of Assembly is seeking to confer an unfair advantage on particular section and ethnic group in Nigeria to the disadvantage of the indigenes of Edo State whose indigenous and ancestral lands that have been transferred from generation to generation will be taken from them and given to that preferred ethnic group.

“Setting up a state agency to cater for a particular section of the country by depriving indigenous communities of their choice ancestral home lands and acquiring same for a preferred ethnic group in the country is contrary to the provisions of Section 26 of the Land Use Act, which is to the effect that any transaction or any instrument which purports to confer on, or vest in any person any interest or right over land other than in accordance with the provisions of the Land Use Act is null and void.

“From the provisions of this law, it is evident that it wrong for the Edo State government to give indigenous ancestral communal lands owned by communities to a preferred or favoured section of the country as nomadic cattle grazing is not customary among Edo people.”

On its part, Edo PDP said if passed “communal lands will be forcibly acquired in the 18 local government areas of the state for exclusive use of the herdsmen that were already beheading and raping women in various communities in the state.”

The state chairman of the party, Dan Orbih said, “those behind the bill, in their desperate efforts to please their financial benefactors have ignored the feelings of the vast majority of our people who are vehemently opposed to the bill.”

He said, “By this action, the Godwin Obaseki APC government has shown that they don’t see anything wrong in the unacceptable cattle herdsmen unwarranted onslaught laced with deceptive political irredentism.”