Pan-Arewa socio-political organisation, Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), has outrightly rejected the ban on open grazing imposed by southern governors, a decision intended to tame the impasse between cattle herders and farmers.
CNG argued that the profiling of cattle herders as the architect of the bulk of security challenges in the region, while excluding members of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN), and alleged violent gang led by Sunday Ighoho in the West, and the assortment of militant groups in the South South was unjust.
Its spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, in a statement, yesterday, further blasted northern governors for failing to stand up for the rights of cattle herders, while their southern counterparts instituted Amotekun and Ebubeagu.
He said: “The southern governors typically neglected to acknowledge that just as development and population growth has put pressure on available land and increased the prospects of conflict between migrating herders and local populations, so also has the mass movement of millions of people from the South into the vast interior of the North and the permanent nature of this movement.
“Disappointingly, the southern governors cowed from hitting the nail directly on the head by not holding the total failure of the All Progressives Congress administration of Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbajo responsible for the current national woes, rather than singling out a particular ethnic group for attack and irreverent treatment.
“The Asaba meeting has, however, exposed the extent of the bankruptcy of northern governors who have not, for once, met to take concrete steps to anticipate and checkmate the maneuvers of the South, particularly with the creation of such armed outfits as the Amotekun, Eastern Security Network and recently the Ebubeagu, which are now the tools used to intimidate northerners in the South and to challenge the Nigerian State.”