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From Tony Osauzo, Benin
A group, Edo Development Forum (EDF), yesterday, accused Governor Godwin Obaseki of plot to cede communal lands in the state to herdsmen attacking, killing, raping and violently displacing local owners of farmlands across the state.
The group stated this against the backdrop of a controversial clause contained in the Anti-Open Grazing Bill transmitted to the House of Assembly by the governor.
The group faulted clause 5(7) of the disputed bill, alleging the Edo State Government allocated 20 per cent of lands across the state to pastoral herdsmen under the guise of a ranching system.
The group expressed fear that the bill, if passed, Edo would become the first southern state to write into law the public concession of lands to herders who stand accused of numerous atrocities in the state and across the southern region.
In a statement by Felix Isere and Baron Mike, executive director and director of media and publicity of EDF respectively, the group alleged that the governor plans to trade lands in the state in exchange for favours with his “Fulani friends.”
“Whereas other southern states have stood solidly in their rejection of any plan to cede even an inch of their lands to herdsmen or any foreign group under any arrangement, be it ranching or whatsoever, we now have hard proof that Mr. Godwin Obaseki is yet again traveling in the opposite direction with the transmission of his Anti-Open Grazing Bill to his partial Assembly, which contains a clause that mandates the gazette of 20 per cent of lands to herdsmen under the pretext of a establishing a ranching system.”
