HUMAN rights lawyer Femi Falana has said President Muhammadu Buhari was misled by Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami regarding the alleged grazing routes in southern part of Nigeria.
In response to open grazing ban by governors of the Southern region, which Malami had vehemently opposed, Buhari had, during an interview on ARISE TV, revealed that he had directed the AGF to dig up a gazette that delineated cattle grazing routes in all parts of the country during the First Republic.
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“What I did was to ask him to go and dig the gazette of the First Republic when people were obeying laws. There were cattle routes and grazing areas. Cattle routes were for when they (herdsmen) were moving upcountry, north to south or east to west. They had to go through there,” Buhari said.
However, reacting to the development while featuring on an ARISE TV programme’s ‘The Morning Show,’ Falana noted the president’s action was based on a wrong counsel given to him by Malami.
Falana observed that Buhari made it abundantly clear that he was advised by the AGF.
But he stressed that there was never a time grazing routes existed in the southern part of the country.
The human rights lawyer suggested that Malami should be sanctioned for offering a wrong counsel to the president.
Falana said, “You cannot blame the president. He is not a lawyer. So if he was informed by lawyers that there is a gazette, what do you expect him to say? And the president made it abundantly clear during the interview, ‘I am not going to oppose my attorney general.”
“What I am saying here is that there was no time in the history of Nigeria that grazing routes existed in the southern part of the country. So, whoever has misinformed the president should be questioned and sanctioned.”
Falana wondered why the president was talking about old grazing routes even after the 36 states had adopted the National Livestock Plan which recommended ranching as the solution to open grazing in the country.
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