Afenifere group, which is the Pan Yoruba Socio-Political Group, has chided the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami for comparing the ban on open grazing of cattle by the southern governors to spare parts trading in the North.
The Secretary-General of the Afenifere group, Chief Sola Ebiseni, in a statement entitled “Malami; Attorney General and Agent Provocateur”, said Malami’s “sectarian and emotional vituperations pitiably exposed him as being most unfit for the office of an Attorney General having always allowed his sectarian disposition becloud his eminent qualifications.
It reads that, “Malami does not want serious-minded people to accord him and his high office each time he accepts to play the roles of errand boy and spokesperson of the Miyetti Allah and their herders’ members.
“Each time Malami perceives a threat to the interests of Fulani herdsmen, he is quick to latch on to constitutional provisions which are not relevant to the object of discourse.
“He was readily on hand to vehemently denounce the Amotekun South West regional security initiative as being targeted against Fulani herdsmen and so declared it unconstitutional.
“When challenged to approach the Court, he had since developed cold feet.”
Afenifere group said that “contrary to his latest vituperations, the ban on open grazing and movement of animals by foot is not a denial of “freedom and liberty of movement and does not require the slightest touch of the constitution for the governor to pronounce.
“For the attention of Malami, most of the states already have laws banning open grazing and the pronouncement of the governors was merely to give effect to existing law.
“It is the animal that is being prohibited from grazing openly and being moved by foot except Malami intends to extend the inalienable human rights in the constitution to animals in the defense of a culture which gives more care to cattle than human beings.
“It is the same primitive mindset of which the Buhari administration has threatened the Governor of Benue State that he would have no place except he allowed a free reign of animals.
“Malami was mischievously playing the role of an agent provocateur when he was inciting Northern Governors to place a ban on spare parts trading in which southerners are involved.
“ln deference to their religious and cultural sensibilities, some of the northern states made laws banning trading in alcoholic substances and have been seen destroying such wares in their millions notwithstanding that they share in the VAT collected on those goods and no one is crying over it.
“We in the Afenifere support the resolutions of the Southern Governors banning open grazing and movement of cattle by foot in our territory.
“Those who can cope with the destruction of farmlands and produce by animals and are also permissive of criminality by terrorist herdsmen are free to open their vast lands for such purposes.
“Nigeria will only exist and thrive on the terms agreeable by all its constituent nationalities.
The group added that “Officials of the Federal Government should be advised that their jaundiced sectarian views are eloquent testimony that the Buhari administration has lost the confidence of the generality of Nigerians.”