The anti-open-grazing law has been in operation in some southern states of Nigeria. Pretty soon, the bill would be passed to law in Edo state as the state assembly on Tuesday, the 15th of February 2022, received copies of the bill for a law to prohibit open grazing of cattle and other related activities in the state, as forwarded to the house by the executive arm.
Marcus Onobun, the speaker of the house, disclosed this on Tuesday, positing that, the long awaited bill is expedient after receiving contributions from different stakeholders on the bill.
Over time, communities have been sacked following incessant attacks by deadly armed herdsmen, lives have been lost, communities displaced, farmers maimed, women raped by the suspected herders and crops worth millions of naira wantonly destroyed by cattle.
In Benin city on Tuesday, some communities in Ovia South West Local Government Area of Edo State staged a peaceful protest to appeal to Governor, Godwin Obaseki to protect them from killer herdsmen.
The protesters matched through major roads to the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Edo State council, carrying placards with different inscriptions such as: ‘Obaseki, wake up. It is not cows that voted for you’; ‘Sorrow, pains, hunger, tears in our land’; ‘Owners of cows are owners of AK-47’, etc.
It is anticipated that, with the passing of the bill into law in the state, this would bring an end to the pains and agony occasioned by the invasion of marauding cattle herders.
