Political and religious leaders from the far northern part of the country are mounting renewed pressure on the governor of Benue State, Dr Samuel Ortom, to repeal the anti Open Grazing Laws, The Voice can reveal.
\nA top official in the presidency who disclosed this to\u00a0The Voice\u00a0recently said the pressure also include those of some governors from the north who believe that the Benue State governor should repeal the law \u201cin the spirit of one north and one country.
\nBut the spokesman of the state governor, Terver Akase who spoke on the alleged pressure said \u201cthe law will not be repealed under any guise\u201d.
\nAccording to the government official, the Benue Valley occupies a special place in the minds of herders in the whole of West Africa Sub-region, hence the pressure on the governor to revisit the issue of the law.
\n\u201cIt is believed that any herder who has not grazed in the Benue Valley has not started. Herdsmen believe that if their cows are in the Benue Valley, it increase their fertility. It is a belief that strongly held by most herdsmen in the West Africa sub-region\u201d.
\nThe Voice\u00a0gathered that at a recent meeting in Lafia, the Nasarawa State Capital, religious and political leaders from the north appealed to Governor Samuel Ortom to revisit the issue of the ban on open grazing, a request that Governor Ortom allegedly said was beyond him to grant.
\n\u201cThe governor told the meeting that the issue was beyond him as the governor. It was at that meeting that I heard for the first time that the Benue State governor initially reluctant to sign the Anti-Open Grazing Law but was literally forced to introduce it as a result of pressure from the people.
\n\u201cInfact, a representative of the Tor \u2013 Tiv told the gathering that the governor only obeyed the call of his people by introducing the law. The governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, was shocked because he said in the governor\u2019s forum, \u201cthe belief is that governor Ortom single handedly foisted the law on the state\u201d. He promised to tell his colleagues the true position of things as it affects the law\u201d
\nReacting to the pressure Governor Ortom\u2019s spokesman, Mr. Terver Akase said \u201conly Benue people have the power to demand the repeal of the law\u201d.
\nAccording to him, \u201cthe law will not be repealed under any guise because the Open-Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law was popularly enacted by Benue people through their representatives in the State House of Assembly after Governor Samuel Ortom sent the bill to the House.
\n\u201cOnly Benue people have the power to demand the repeal of the law. The state government introduced the Legislation on behalf of the people. The law is very clear in its provisions on the procedure of acquiring land for the purpose of establishing ranches.
\n\u201cIt is not a law against any ethnic group, so anyone who is against the law is the very person who does not want peace. Those pushing for the repeal of the law are those who benefit from crises, they are the same people responsible for attacks in the state such as Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore.
\nRanching remains the global best practice of animal husbandry. Population growth has made open grazing impracticable.
\nWe believe in the rule of law. That is why Governor Samule Ortom has consistently challenged those pushing for the repeal of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law to step forward with an alternative better than ranching as a method of animal husbandry.\u00a0 Benue is ready to work with such an alternative\u201d, he said
\nBy The Voice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Political and religious leaders from the far northern part of the country are mounting renewed pressure on the governor of Benue State, Dr Samuel Ortom, to repeal the anti Open Grazing Laws, The Voice can reveal. A top official in the presidency who disclosed this to\u00a0The Voice\u00a0recently said the pressure also include those of some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[1115,820,1116],"class_list":["post-24831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics","tag-anti-grazing","tag-ortom","tag-repeal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}