From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri

The herdsmen issue may soon take a new dimension in the South-East, as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has insisted that nomadic herdsmen would no longer be tolerated in Igbo land.

IPOB declared that the era of occupying forests and grazing openly was over; noting that it was determined to enforce the anti-open grazing law promulgated by the five South East States.

Chairman, South East Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ebonyi State; David Umahi, recently announced that the governors in the region had banned open grazing.

Umahi also indicated that the zone would not cede any land either for RUGA or ranching for the Fulani herdsmen.

But in a swift reaction, the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore had vowed that its members would not obey any anti-open grazing law in the South East, a situation that might have set the stage for confrontation.

Declaring its support for the anti-open grazing law announced by the governors; IPOB spokesman, Emma Powerful said: “We therefore, want to aver, and assure the governors that our gallant Eastern Security Network (ESN) will ensure strict enforcement of the ban which is also in line with a subsisting but neglected judicial pronouncement in 1969. ESN will move in to deal with any herder flouting the law.

“Since the law enforcement agents are too weak or have wittingly failed to enforce the ban, we can no longer afford to sit idly and watch the wanton destruction of lives and crops of our people. ESN will do the needful. We shall no longer allow law breakers to have a field day after inflicting physical and economic harm on innocent victims.”

A leading Igbo group; the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) said the statement credited to Miyetti Allah was the height of lawlessness.

Related News

According to ADF, such a brazen declaration that they will not obey the anti-open grazing law when it is enacted in the South East required that the authorities should call them to order.

Chairman of ADF’s Media and Publicity Bureau, Chief Abia Onyike said such arrogant posture has no place in Nigeria’s statutes.

“No group or entity can ride above the laws of the land. President Muhammadu Buhari should call his kinsmen to order because they make those outlandish statements because of him. But he will not remain in office forever. 

“We, Nigerians, want to live in a Federal republic governed by laws. We are not a conquered people. The Fulani did not conquer Nigeria. The jihad did not cover the whole of Nigeria. We should understand that Nigeria is a multi-ethnic Federal Republic. All the ethnic nationalities and federating units are important in nation building.

“When we took a position some five years ago that the solution to the then emerging atrocities of the herdsmen in the South East was an anti-open grazing legislation, it was informed by our deep study of the dynamics of conflicts from the Plateaus of Mambilla to the plains of Southern Taraba, and down to the Benue valleys. One thing was clear from inception: there was an aggressive plot by the herdsmen to expropriate the indigenous populations from their ancestral lands and dispossess them of their sources of livelihoods,” Onyike stated.

Another broad-based Igbo group, the Association of South East Town Unions (ASETU) reiterated its position that anti-open grazing laws will permanently banish the carnage and ravages of the herdsmen from Igbo land. 

The town unions stated that the Miyetti Allah’s threat was bizarre, incendiary and a recipe for crisis.

The group’s National President, Chief Emeka Diwe, said by that very statement, the Miyetti Allah has defined itself unapologetically as a terror organization which has no respect whatsoever for the laws of the land, but instead upholds anarchy, destruction and death.