Cows Are Not Citizens Of Nigeria, Distinguish Senator Godswill Akpabio, The President of the 10th National Assembly of the Nigerian Senate, Blasts Senator Aliero For Saying Cows Should Be Allowed To Move Freely.
Northern senators and the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) have rejected a bill seeking the Restriction of Herders’ Movement and the establishment of ranching as the only viable alternative for cattle breeding in Nigeria.
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The bill aims to establish ranches for herders in their states of origin, replacing the current practice of open grazing.
If enacted, the commission would oversee the management, preservation and control of ranches nationwide.
The National Animal Husbandry and Ranches Commission establishment Bill scaled second reading on the floor of the Senate yesterday after an intense debate.
An anti-open grazing bill that Senator Titus Zam Tartenger, Benue North-West, sponsored was what prompted Aliero’s rigour to share our citizenship with cows. Tartenger’s constituency bears a big part of Fulani herders’ attacks which have resulted in loss of lives, displacement of people, and food shortages due to the insecurity in the farms.
Aliero was over-ruled several times as the mini debate on the citizenship rights of cows went on. Aliero was insistent that cows were citizens of Nigeria. Akpabio was persistent in trying to retrieve the constitutional human rights of Nigerians and fending off chances of allowing us share them with cows.
Why was Akpabio shutting down Aliero? Had he been allowed to ventilate the elevation of cows to citizens, we would have learnt more and been placed on a better stand to interrogate cow citizenship of Nigeria.
It was a great loss. While the actions of governments, particularly the one that Muhammadu Buhari led, accorded cows the unconstitutional rights as citizens of Nigeria, and in most cases favoured cows in their decisions over humans, we thought these were arbitrary policies that would have died with such governments.
The likes of Aliero stand for those rights. They are convinced that Nigerians whose lives, lands, and generations are being wasted by Fulani herders should curtail their rights to accommodate cows and the tendencies of their herders.
“Cows are not citizens of Nigeria, Senator Aliero, are you arguing with me? The Section you are referring to is talking about citizens of Nigeria. And cows are not citizens of Nigeria. Cows can come from Niger, Chad or anywhere,” Akpabio said as he brought that contention to a close.
Aliero is well-educated. The 1980 graduate of political science knows Nigeria well enough and the damage that open grazing of cows has done around the country.
