Pan-Esan sociocultural, non-political pressure group, Esan Youth Movement, has rejected the Grazing Agency Bill proposed by the Edo State House of Assembly to address the burning issue of farmers and Fulani herdsmen clashes erupting in different parts of the Edo State cum Esan land.
Esan Youths Movement described the bill as “anti-people.”
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The bill proposes the establishment of the State Grazing Agency which will preserve and control the national grazing reserves and livestock routes and other matters related to it.
The group’s President, Mr. Kingsley Ohens, while addressing journalists in Edo State, said the bill, which empowered the commission to acquire any land anywhere in the state, would violate the subsisting Land Use Act and traditional means of land holding if enacted.
He noted that the bill was being proposed allegedly to favour the business of the Fulani herdsmen at the expense of the farmers whose farms were always destroyed by the Fulani’s cows in some other parts of the Edo State cum Esan land.
” We reject any law that would rob the citizens of their possessions and award to another set of citizens as this offensive bill attempts to do. That is against the principle of natural justice, ” Mr. Kingsley Ohens who also the coordinator Esan Mega Forum Benin City declared.
“It is also against federal/state principle for the government of the Edo state to therefore want to violate the rights of other sections of the State/local government to please a group from an ethnic unit over and above the interest of other original ethnic groups of Edo State.
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He called on all Edo State Law makers and Edo State in general to join Esan Youths Movement in rejecting the bill.
He also said the group would not keep quiet until true justice was entrenched in the State and Country in general.
“We stand with the decision of the of the 2014 National Conference which recommended the scrapping of grazing route for the establishment of ranches,” the President of the group said.
He said the system of roaming animals all over the State was no more in vogue.
He called on Gov Godwin Obaseki to embrace the ranching system in order to put an end to the incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in many parts of the State mostly Esanland.
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