Open grazing must not be allowed to continue, Garba Shehu not speaking for Presidency – Akeredolu

Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu has stated that open grazing must not be allowed to continue in the country.

He stated that this act is not productive while speaking at the annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Ibadan, Oyo state, on Monday.

“The federal government must assist those that want to do ranching and spend the way it was spending money on rice production, Akeredolu said

“The national livestock programme is so important and must be supported by the federal government to save lives. Those having these animals should also ranch them, he added

The President in a statement by Garba Shehu on Monday kicked against the ban on open grazing as he termed it illegal. Reacting to the statement, on Tuesday Akeredolu described Shehu as an agent provocateur.

He said the presidential media aide was not speaking for President Muhammadu Buhari on the ban on open grazing which is one of the resolutions of the governors.

He said, “Anyone who has been following the utterances of this man, as well as his fellow travellers on the self-deluding, mendacious but potentially dangerous itinerary to anarchy, cannot but conclude that he works, assiduously, for extraneous interests whose game plan stands at variance with the expectations of genuine lovers of peaceful coexistence among all the peoples whose ethnic extractions are indigenous to Nigeria.

“Mr Garba must disclose, this day, the real motive(s) of those he serves, definitely not the President. He cannot continue to hide under some opaque, omnibus, and dubious directives to create confusion in the polity.

“The easy recourse to mendacious uppity in pushing a barely disguised pernicious agendum is well understood. The declaration that the recommendations of the Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, a mere political appointee like Garba Shehu, are now the “lasting solutions” which eluded all the elected representatives of the people of the Southern part of the country, exposes this man as a pitiable messenger who does not seem to understand the limits of his relevance and charge.

“It is superfluous, and that is being charitable, for anyone to remind us of the constitutional right of bona fide citizens “to enjoy rights and freedoms within every one of our 36 States (and FCT)-regardless of their state of birth and residence”.

“There has never been any contention on this provision. It is clear that Mr Garba seems to have issues understanding the difference between licentious criminality and qualified rights under our law. It is our duty to continually nudge him off his current state of cognitive dissonance. His pronouncement betrays dubiety and mischief,” the statement read in part.