Grazing reserves: We’ll defend the Benue with the last drop of our blood – Tiv youths reply presidency

Tiv Youth Organization, TYO, Worldwide has fired back to presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu for questioning the legality of the recent ban on open grazing in the southern region of the nation.

IDOMA VOICE recalls that Shehu had said the current administration was working on other alternatives to bring peace between farmers and herders.

The presidency had approved the rehabilitation of grazing reserves across the country as from June, to curb the bloody clashes between herders and farmers across the country.

However, the youth group said Shehu is one of Buhari’s hatchet men in the modern day jihad to conquer Nigeria for Fulani tribe.

This was contained in a statement by Timothy Hembaor, President General of the group.

The group vowed to defend the Benue Valley with the last drop of their blood.

The statement reads.

The man called Garba Shehu has proven that he is indeed Garbage Shehu. He is one of President Buhari’s hatchet men in the modern day jihad to conquer Nigeria for his Fulani tribe. The truth is only manifesting now. Shehu the Alsatian is on the loose and has put the country on notice that the grazing routes for cattle will be opened in June this year, that the funding problem has been taken care of. This is at the behest of the Presidency and not the whole federal government. If it were from government, the procedural lane would have been clear. At least, a semblance of inclusion would have been attempted by taking the grazing reserves proposal to the National Assembly for our representatives there to consider it. It happened in Benue where the State House of Assembly enacted an anti open grazing law and the bill was assented to by the Governor. That’s how the executive that has respect for other arms of government operates. Not with the Buhari Presidency which is run by the likes of Garba Shehu and other enemies of the people of this country.

It has turned out that the government of Muhammadu Buhari has all along been taking Nigerians for a ride on a bumpy road. How else can one explain the latest statement signed by Garba Shehu mocking 17 southern governors and the entire people of that region? Is Shehu familiar with sections of the Land Use Act which vest all lands in the state governors? Can the Federal Government lay claim to land outside FCT without the approval of the Governor of such a state?

When men of conscience and honour like Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State say Buhari is a President working only in the interest of Fulani people, some apologists of the President find the submission a very bitter pill to swallow, but every day that passes, Buhari proves Gov Ortom and others right. His agenda since 2015 has been to grab lands in each state of the federation and hand to his Fulani kinsmen. Perhaps that was the reason he cried when he previously lost election. Buhari wants to be the last president of Nigeria so he is stoking fires and provoking other Nigerians to get angry and start a war that will consume the country so that the conquest agenda of the descendants of Usman Dan Fodio can be realized.

The decision of the southern governors on open grazing is not new. It is rather an echo of what Benue State has been saying for years and with a law to back it up. The law was made when Samuel Ortom was in the APC, the President’s party. This was in the first tenure of both Buhari and Samuel Ortom, some four years ago. This law was made as a consequence and solution to the bloodletting by the Fulani herders who are killers and terrorists rather than cattle rearers. For all the bloodshed and the displacement of people from their ancestral homes, it is laughable that the presidency would raise the spectre of constitutional breach in regard to freedom of movement. Whose movement, man or cattle?

And the cattle routes that Buhari’s men keep taking about, where are they located? They have become a bogey used to swindle us. Where were the routes leading to? Where were the Fulani migrating? You cannot call a constant perambulation based on the  instinct of an animal, looking for pasture a regular route. The right of passage to a green area does not belong to the herder, it belongs to the owner of the green area. The narrative that green areas are there to be accessed by any herder is rather idiotic. These areas have their uses for people who live and farm there, and no one has a right to encroach and begin to ride roughshod on the people who have lived there for ages. Nigeria is not a new frontier where the first to arrive has a right to grab whatever fancies him.

As farmers in Benue State, we are aware of how land should be approached and appropriated. Our people who don’t own plots of land legitimately seek for farmlands from the owners. They do not go to a community and start farming on empty land without the permission of owners of the land. This is what Fulanis have refused to do. And they move about with an irritating arrogance as if all the lands belong to them. They say the Fulani is a global citizen who does not need a permit to go to any region of his choice! What arrant nonsense!

There are boundaries to observe and protocols to respect. And this applies to all human contact levels. There should be decorum, no superior nor holier-than-thou attitude solves problems. But the Fulani will not have any of these. They prefer a rapacious attitude and the mentality of a conqueror. Buhari must speak to his kinsmen to stop this haughty behaviour for the country to heal the wounds inflicted on it by the rampaging herders. Fulani men should stop carrying on as though they have monopoly of violence. Enough is enough!

Finally, for us in Benue State, we do not have cattle routes nor grazing reserves. Our forefathers would have informed us just like we were told about the Ushongo battle where the Tiv rejected the Fulani jihad and defeated Danfodio and his warriors. We have reasons to believe that grazing routes, RUGA and other pretensions are sleight of the hand measures to rewrite history from a leader who has fallen prisoner to a cabal. We will defend the Benue Valley with the last drop of our blood! After all, our brethren have been killed in their thousands and Ayatutu has resurrected. For the rest of Nigeria, let it be known that it always starts here and like a whirlwind, it spreads to God knows where.