As controversy still greets the ban on open grazing by southern governors, the Coalition of Northern Groups has asked all herdsmen to relocate to the North, with their cattle.
In a statement on Sunday, it called for the safety of the herders as they try to return home.
Besides, the CNG said the Southern governors unfairly profiled the entire business community of herders as the sole cause of the bulk of the security challenges in the region in their resolution in Asaba, Delta State.
In a statement by its spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, titled ‘Response to the Asaba Declaration by Southern Nigerian governors”, it said: “Against the backdrop of these observations, on grazing ban, the CNG emphatically repudiates the vilification and targeting of the entire pastoral community for vilification, systematic dehumanisation, profiling, alienation or any action that will render them objects of attack and persecution.
“The CNG categorically calls on all pastoralists and by extension, all northerners living as minorities in the South, whose lives and livelihoods stand threatened by this regime of hostile and damaging policies to be ratified by the southern governors, to immediately relocate with their livestock assets to the North.
“We demand absolute guarantee of protecting the lives and property of the pastoral communities as they relocate to the North, by ensuring their movement is not impeded by any legislation or obstacle imposed by a state or a community in the South.
“We demand the federal and northern states governments to immediately identify suitable lands across the region and create grazing reserves and cattle routes through resort to extant provisions of the Land Use Act and other related laws.”
