Southern states has right to ban open grazing

Dr Pogu said: “It is good that the South East has banned opened grazing and rather than play into sentiments, the Northern Elders Forum should have advised the president on the need to implement a policy of cattle ranching. Our brothers who are herdsmen have not done a good job of it and there are also people who are not herdsmen who are hiding under the cover of cattle rearers and perpetuating atrocities in the south and also in the north.
“Remember the North Central governors had earlier passed the law that people should ranch their cattle. It is the North West and parts of the North East that said something else.
“The government came up with RUGA and setting up of cattle colonies, but we opposed the policy because it was intended to take away our ancestral lands and hand them over to herdsmen to rear cattle. They wanted to set up Fulani settlements and wanted to start in all Middle Belt states, not even in the far north. We knew such a policy was discriminatory. We cannot give our ancestral land to Fulani all over Africa to come and populate our communities. Ranching is the way forward and we all know our local Fulani.”