The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami’s comment of comparing open grazing with spare parts business has continued to generate reactions from Nigerians, with the Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State calling the minister wicked and ignorant.
According to Akeredolu, “it is worrisome for Malami who is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, to compare a well-structured business such as the spare part business with the archaic method of cattle grazing,”
Akeredolu maintained that the ban on open grazing in the southern region has come to stay and will be enforced with utmost vigour.
The Attorney General was said to have frowned at the meeting of the Southern Governors’ Forum held in Asaba, Delta State capital where the governors ordered the immediate ban of open grazing across the zone.
Akeredolu who coordinated the Asaba meeting in a statement he personally signed, urged Malami to approach the court if he has anything against the move by the governors.
While emphasizing that the decision to ban open grazing was taken in the interest of the people, Akeredolu in the statement said, “It is most unfortunate that the AGF is unable to distil issues as expected of a Senior Advocate. Nothing can be more disconcerting.
“This outburst should, ordinarily, not elicit response from reasonable people who know the distinction between a legitimate business that is not in any way injurious and a certain predilection for anarchy.
“Clinging to an anachronistic model of animal husbandry, which is evidently injurious to harmonious relationship between the herders and the farmers as well as the local populace, is wicked and arrogant.
“Comparing this anachronism, which has led to loss of lives, farmlands and property, and engendered untold hardship on the host communities, with buying and selling of auto parts is not only strange. It, annoyingly, betrays a terrible mindset.”
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