‘No going back on anti-open grazing law,’ Akeredolu replies El-Rufai

The Ondo State Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, said on Wednesday there was no going back on the anti-open grazing law in the Southern part of Nigeria.

The Southern Governors’ Forum had on July 5 resolved to put in place the anti-open grazing law in a bid to check frequent farmers/herdsmen crisis in several states across the region.

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Tuesday criticized his colleagues over the decision.

The governor, who addressed journalists at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Secretariat in Abuja, described the anti-open grazing law canvassed by the Southern governors as unrealistic.

He added that ranching was the only realistic solution to the farmers/herdsmen crisis in the country.

However, in a statement issued by Donald Ojogo, the state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation in Akure, Akeredolu said the anti-open grazing law has come to stay.

He said: “There is no wisdom in condemning/banning open grazing, prohibiting inter border movement of cattle in the North, including Kaduna, with accompanying disapproval of a law that gives bite to same in another part of the country.

“For emphasis, any such comment like that of the Kaduna Governor, if indeed he made that statement, merely seeks to encourage anarchy under the guise of resentment of a Law by affected stakeholders.

“It’s a ploy beyond the ordinary. It must, however, be noted that the Anti-Grazing Law, especially in Ondo State, has come to stay. It shall be zealously guarded and conscionably deployed to protect all residents of Ondo State notwithstanding their ethnic and religious biases. Those who have nothing evil to perpetrate have nothing to fear as regards the law.”