By Okechukwu Okechukwu
The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, the apex socio-political youth group in the South East geopolitical zone condemns in strongest terms the approval for review of 368 grazing routes with dispatch by President Muhammadu Buhari despite the condemnation by Nigerians against it.
COSEYL, in a statement by The President General of the group, Hon. Goodluck Ibem, and Secretary General, Comrade Kanice Igwe, describe it as "an intentional show of wicked ignorance by the president whose interest should be what will bring peace and security. The President has not done anything to address the killings in Benue state and other states in the country nor has he addressed the assassination attempt on the life of the Executive Governor of Benue state, Chief Samuel ortom by his Fulani kinsmen, but he is rather interested on how to acquire land through the back door for his Fulani kinsmen."
According to them, "land belongs to the people and the president has no right to forcefully take what belongs to the people from them. The Land Use Act gives people right over their lands. Even the governor of the State who the constitution gives the power to hold the land in trust cannot dispossess anyone his land or property."
The coalition also called on the governor of Ebonyi state Engr. David Umahi who is a member of the committee reviewing the vexatious 368 grazing routes "to remove the hand of the monkey from soup before it turns to the hand of a human being. what he is part of, is totally against the popular will of the people. The committee constituted by the President is a total waste of our lean resources. It is disheartening that the president will go borrowing to bankroll such fruitless venture.
"The endorsement by Mr President for the review of vexatious 368 grazing routes shows crass and boorish disrespect to the sacrosanctity and inviolability of life and a calculated attempt to insult Nigerians. The present move will evoke old faultlines that will tear Nigeria apart. It is unacceptable that a country like Nigeria with millions of intellectuals of global reputation to be governed by a President like Muhammadu Buhari who is insensitive in all sense of the word.
"The President rather than take steps to order the arrest, swift prosecution and sanction of these armed Fulani herdsmen with blood of innocent citizens on their hands and who have unleashed massive scale of violence, President Buhari has continued to stoke the embers of divisiveness and disunity by seeking to take lands from states to be made open grazing routes for private owners of cattles.
"The committee headed by the president's Chief of staff Mr Gambari reviewing grazing routes across 25 states formed by the president has an agenda to acquire land at all cost for non-Nigerian Fulanis to settle even at the cost of stoking up a civil war. The tendency to grab lands across the country for open grazing even when under the land use Act, the governors who have control over lands have rejected open grazing is definitely going to lead to more and more violence, destruction and killings even as no effort is made to disarm the armed herders because they are kinsmen of the president."
They further urged the federal government to take the lead in instituting the appropriate social policies that would engender a regime of justice, a major requirement for peace and security. The government could start with the restructuring process. It will resolve a lot of the pressure.