Over the last year, the issue of grazing reserves has been a vexed issue in Nigeria due to the incessant menace of heavily armed Fulani cattle attacking local farming communities. These clashes came about as a result of their livestock destroying crops, which has led communities to protest, which has then attracted brutal reprisals from the herdsmen.
To resolve the matter, the government proposed introducing a National Grazing Bill but this has been widely criticised as it will empower the herdsmen to graze their cattle anywhere they want in Nigeria. Several experts have suggested that instead, the government should insist that the herdsmen feed and keep their cattle on private ranches as every other livestock farmer does.
Yesterday, the senate rejected a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of a Grazing Areas Management Agency and for other related matters sponsored by Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso from Kano State. It also rejected a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of a National Ranches Commission for the regulation, management, preservation and control of ranches and for connected purposes, proposed by Senator Barnabas Gemade from Benue State.
A bill for an act to control the keeping and movement of cattle and related matters thereto, sponsored by Senator Chukwuka Utazi of Enugu State was then withdrawn due to disagreement on the way forward. Deputy senate president Senator Ike Ekweremadu, told his colleagues that the upper legislative chamber lacked the power to legislate on livestock matters.
Senator Ekweremadu said: “The issues at stake here are neither in the exclusive list nor in the concurrent list, so I believe therefore it is a residual matter and it is for states to decide how to deal with them. I believe the matter here concerns everybody given the level of carnage and the conflicts going on in different states, so, I feel the concern of my colleagues but unfortunately, we do not have power to legislate on matters relating to livestock in this assembly.
”It is a matter reserved for the states, so, I believe that the bills by Kwankwaso, Gemade and Utazi are beyond the reach of this National Assembly. They should be accordingly withdrawn so that the states under the constitution should be able to deal with the matters which the constitution has prescribe for them.”
Senate leader Mohammed Ali Ndume, in his contribution, said Senator Ekweremadu raised fundamental issues that should not be ignored. He added that there was no point the senate wasting its time debating the bills if it lacked power to legislate on the matter.
Senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki seemed not to be comfortable with the trend of debate on the bills. He said since the understanding that the bills would be consolidated could not sail through, they should be stepped down.
Senator Saraki noted that the only reason bills were captured in the order paper was on the understanding that they would be consolidated. After Senator Saraki’s suggestion, Senator Ndume promptly moved that the bills be stepped down.
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