Igbo group, Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) led by Prof. Uzodinma Nwala has prepared and presented a draft of anti-open grazing bill to seven Igbo speaking states.

The group which unveiled the draft bill to the public during a press conference in Enugu yesterday said it was for the seven states of Enugu, Imo, Rivers, Anambra, Ebonyi, Abia and Delta. Addressing journalists, Max Ozoaka, Coordinator, ADF legal bureau/chairman, ADF anti-open bill committee and Mr. Onochie Ukeme, secretary of the committee urged Houses of Assembly within the seven states to emulate their counterparts in Benue and Ekiti states and give the bill accelerated passage into law.

They said that the bill was necessitated by the need to protect the people of the area against the rampaging killer herdsmen, who were alleged to be pursuing jihad cause.

They said: “Various communities in the Federal Republic of Nigeria are currently overwhelmed by wide-spread invasion by heavily armed Fulani Herdsmen, who have engaged in systematic and reckless grazing of cattle on cultivated agricultural lands, destruction of crops, attacks, abduction and killings of farmers; rape of their women and daughters and in many cases involving sack and displacement of entire communities.

“The Fulani herdsmen are presently classified as the fourth most deadly terrorist organisation in the world, after ISIS, Al-Shabab and Boko Haram.

“It has been firmly established that what is afoot is a Jihad being waged in the guise of herdsmen. The heavily armed herdsmen include both Fulani citizens of Nigeria and other Fulanis from other West African countries such as Niger, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.

There is hardly any state in Nigeria which has not witnessed the horrors inflicted by these Fulani herdsmen armed with AK 47 and other sophisticated weapons.”

•Text (excluding headline) courtesy of New Telegraph.

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