Asaba resolves: CNG criticises South, orders herders to relocate

The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), in a statement on Sunday, stated that the Southern Governors unjustly described the total business community of herders as the sole reason of the majority of the security difficulties in the region in their resolve in Asaba, Delta State.

It faulted the Governors of intentionally omitting the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Eastern Security Network among others in recognising causes of security difficulties in their realms.

The standpoint of CNG was enclosed in a statement by its representative, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, named ‘Response to the Asaba Declaration by Southern Nigerian governors.’

It further said that the southern Governors failed to recognise that just as growth and population development had put pressure on available land and improved the possibilities of dispute between moving herders and local populations, so also had the migration of millions of individuals from the South into the huge interior of the North and the lasting idea of this development.

It also blamed the southern Governors of neglecting to ascribe the present national misfortunes to the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by the President Muhammadu Buhari.

The statement read, “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.”