The attack of the Attorney-General of the Federation, Alhaji Malami, on the consensus reached by Southern governors on the way forward for Nigeria has attracted wide spread condemnation across the nation. He was also not spared by some of his northern brothers who are very objective and who chose to place issues in the right perspective.
Speaking in a television program, Malami had likened the open grazing by Fulani herders in the South which was banned by the governors to people doing motor spare parts and other businesses in the north. This was his own idea to justify the open grazing which has remained the source of aggression between the farmers whose crops are destroyed, women raped and killed and the herders who perpetrate the crime.
Malami is a very important officer of this administration. He is the chief law officer of the federation. He is also part of the face of the Buhari government playing a critical role in the kitchen cabinet. His comments have very serious implications for the government that he is serving.
His television speech gave him out and exposed the mind set of those ruling us. It explained the reason why things are at this level because of the sectional interest of a selfish group who arrogates to themselves the monopoly of power (born to rule) which they have sworn to by holding others down. This is quite unfortunate.
It is inconceivable and difficult to comprehend that Malami in spite of his high position in law in the land could descend to the level of an ethnic jingoist defending his Fulani ethnic group rather than state the position of the law. He is never bothered about the huge damages of properties including the taking of lives of the victims that they attack.
There is a law against bearing of fire arms. But the Fulani herders with all impunity contravene these laws but no records have shown that any has been arrested or prosecuted. They are held as sacred cows by the powers that be. It is obvious that crime and criminality heightened under the Fulani presidency of Buhari. Sadly, the authorities turn a blind eye to the innumerable atrocities of the herders.
While Malami upheld the rights of the herders to freely move about he failed to reckon that there is no absolute freedom. Their right to move about is limited to the extent that it doesn’t also infringe on others rights. They have no such rights to destroy other people’s source of livelihood.
In a recent comment few days ago, the governor of Kano State, Ganduje and perhaps other Fulani’s are coming to the realization that the open grazing system of cattle rearing is not only archaic but have accepted that it is a source of gun running in the country. Accepting this position is a prelude to discovering solutions and gives hope that escalating situation could be curbed.
News Echo decries the high level of complicity as expressed in the biased position of a top ranking officer of the government. It is quite understood and made very clear to all Nigerians that it is this kind of official sympathy that may have put paid to any efforts to eliminate herders’ crime against farmers.
We advise that the earlier we realize that as members of the geographical contraption called Nigeria no tribe is greater than another and none should strive to impose itself on others. Though that represents his personal views it nevertheless exposed the position of the northern oligarchy.
