Zamfara community accuses Gusau Emirate of attempt to create fresh Farmers/Herders crisis

From Ibrahim Sidi Muh’d, Gusau

Gusau emirate has been accused of atttempt to compel Hausa and Fulani settlers of Kadaru village under Galadima ward in Gusau local government council of Zamfara State to swift into farmers/herders crisis over encroachment of Government Delineated Public Grazing Reserve.

This was contained in two different petitions to the Security Adviser to the Governor and State Director Security Service through solicitors, Nafi’u Hamza ESQ and Lasco Pwahomdi Miwa ESQ of Pearls and Falls Law Firm and P.M. Lasco & co respectively engaged by the concern citizens of Kadaru village.

The petitions which was written on behalf of Malam Bashiru, Malam Ummaru Tsalha, Abubakar Dan Yada and Alhaji Makau, noted that 33 farmers have been captured as they illegally encroached and criminally trespassed into the over 200 years old Government Delineated Public Grazing Reserve without the consent of any constituted authority.

According to the petitions, there has been an eminent threats of breakdown of law and order being engendered by the ill-motivated decision of the Gusau Emirate Council to grant permission to farmers to cultivate and farm on a grazing reserve situated at Kadaru village which was specifically demarcated, carved and delineated since the reign of Sultan Abubakr III, over 200 years now.

Meanwhile, Governor Bello Matawalle, after being briefed on the history of the grazing area and its role played to made the area exceptional in terms of security challenges had recently directed that the grazing area in Kadaru village should remain to serve as only area where herders would continue feeding their animals.

However, one of the petitions read, “Most disgustingly, our client was recently invited to the Gusau Emir’s palace and told point blank that the emir has given out the said grazing reserve to farmers to cultivate for dry season farming, with threats that resistance by any Fulani man, would be met with banishment from the area.

“Sir, clearly the decision by the Gusau Emirate Council to handover a grazing reserve for farming is not only complete affront to the untiring efforts by your administration to sustain the peace consciously achieved by this administration in a short life span, but a deliberate effort to return the entire state into circle of insecurity, unending lost of lives and property”, the petition has cautioned.

Speaking with Journalists after a peaceful demonstration staged by the people of Kadaru village over the matter, a community member who preferred anonymity cried that, a traditional leader of the community, Murtala Janwuro has been a tool used by the Gusau Emirate to defy Governor Matawalle’s efforts to sustain peace in the area

He further informed that, he was even invited by the Director of Agriculture of Gusau  Local Government Council who threatened that he will be banished from the local government area, adding that, the Deputy Governor himself, Senator Hassan Nasiha was of the opinion of converting the grazing area into farm lands.