The Bauchi State Administrative Committee of Inquiry into Land Disputes, set up by Governor Bala Mohammed to look into farmers/herders crisis in the state has received a memorandum from a Fulani socio-cultural group, Daddo Pulaku, demanding four percent of the total land area of the state.
The demand was contained in a memorandum submitted by the group to the committee yesterday where it stressed that the government should ensure the full implementation of the Cattle Routes law of Bauchi State, 2018 which enforced the non-cultivation of both sides of all major roads in the state by 30 meters from the drains.
In the memorandum by State Chairman, Muhammad Aminu Tukur, the group claimed that herders were being threatened with intense hostility that were having multiplier effect every year, and on daily basis.
According to the memorandum, “The most pertinent thing being the fact that all those challenging our right to live and choice of occupation are the most gluttonous protein (beef) eaters and addictive milk consumers. Nomadic communities all over the world are never known to be parasites but major contributors to the economy of the nation.”
The memorandum which demanded four percent of total land mass also stated that nomads had ‘serious challenges’ in all the 20 local government areas of the state with the most cases common in Itas/Gadau, Ganjuwa and Bauchi LGAs where some village heads along with land officers are apportioning grazing reserves and cattle routes to themselves and selling to individuals.
“It is a fact that our people suffer most in the hands of village heads, district heads and greedy lands officers in the LGAs. It is our opinion that for a permanent solution to the escalating conflicts between farmers and herders in Nigeria as the most pressing security challenge of our time which has the potential to degenerate into more violence and bloodshed, government at all levels must step in and address the issue squarely no matter whose ox is gored,” the group added.
