By Rev. Polycarp Gbaja
Femi Falana as a legal authority makes clear that Buhari has no right or authority over any piece of land except the FCT. This, I believe, is the most important element of this clip.
This fact is primary for the Nigerian public to know.
Yes, ranching is not an illegal endeavor because citizens have a right to engage in it as a business venture.
The Colonial & Regional governments may have initiated Government/ Public owned ranches in the past. But they were NOT and cannot be set up for any ETHNIC group with government funds.
Nor can the Governor of a state, who is charged with the administration of State land, unilaterally take over the land of the indigenous people in the state without their consent or due process according to law.
Falana did not go beyond a mention of the problem. Neither did he attempt to proffer a solution and way forward. I miss the Late Gani Fawinhemi in this regard. This may cause many to think that he is holding back for potential ‘market’ for himself, should communities take legal action against the Buhari Regime, AS THEY SHOULD, in this wanton and unnecessary brigandage of the regime.
It is a huge SHAME on the National Assembly who seem to have gone comatose at the very beginning of this political season.
I sincerely wonder in this uncomfortable silence of lawyers, if Nigeria still has ANY distinguished lawyers of repute with guts and grit left, in the face of this needless legal assault against the Nigerian people over the all important issue of land. And where in the world is Nigerian Bar Association, NBA?!
So WHAT happens if the Governors collude with the President to forcefully take away the land of communities and individuals, as we may see emerging in this scenario, which is but a tip of a four year iceberg?
These are ominous signs for the Nigerian nation if the President continues to show overriding interest in one Ethnic group above that of the rest of the nation, disregarding the divisions and implosions his acts are provoking across the nation.
Now the Presidency seems to have constituted itself as Agent Provocateur against its own people to reward and justify the invasion, murder ad decimation of it’s people and is now rewarding the aggressors to placate them, rather than go after them.
This daylight injustice is indefensible. The narrative being offered by this regime is an insult to our collective sensibilities.
The failure of an apparently weak and compromised Legislature to checkmate the excesses of The Executive now pushes the mass of hapless Nigerian citizens to resist, at the risk of their lives, their dispossession by an incompetent government that refuses to deal decisive with aggressors from across nations who have violated Nigeria’s indigenous people and space.
The people are too impoverished to fight expensive legal battles before a Judiciary they already see as also compromised or subjugated.
We are heading down a terrible road of no return or win if this continues. I hope that men and women of courage would arise in all our Houses of Legislature, as the voice of the people to call out this bad move by the Buhari Regime.
Enough of the bloodshed and bloodletting.
▪ Gbaja, a reverend gentleman, sent this from Abuja
