FCT Minister bans grazing in Abuja

The minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Muhammad Musa Bello has barred free grazing by Fulani herdsmen in the nation’s capital – The minister directed directed the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and the FCT Task Team on Environment to get rid of herdsmen

The minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Muhammad Musa Bello has barred free grazing by Fulani herdsmen in the nation’s capital. This is coming days after the Ekiti state government signed into law a bill resiticting grazing by the rampaging herdsmen within the state.
The minister directed directed the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and the FCT Task Team on Environment to get rid of herdsmen. He described the free grazing situation as “buzzard” as he equally directed the two agencies to stop hawkers selling on pedestrian bridges.

According to the report by Daily Post, the minister ordered any principal of government schools in Abuja who fails to achieve 50 percent success in the 2017 WASSCE and NECO exams should honourably resign or risk being sacked. He said it is unthinkable that the FCT with the largest concentration of the elite, which should be setting the pace for other states, is now turning out a measly 30 percent success in very critical examinations as WAEC and NECO. “The mandate I will give you that goes with sanction; for this new session, every principal must be determined that for WAEC and NECO in 2017, any principal that does not achieve 50 percent success should just quietly leave that school because the principal is going to be removed. “If you don’t achieve 50 percent success in WAEC and NECO 2017, you are no longer fit to be a principal in FCT and I mean it. That is the minimum that we want for every school and you must work towards it,” he stressed. “We want the success rate to change. That is very important. We cannot be gathering students and at the end of their final year, all they will have is three credits. I don’t know whether you are proud as a principal that in your school, the success rate is five percent.

“I want principals that will be determined to say in my school, things must change. Infrastructure or no infrastructure, resources or no resources, I want to put myself as a sacrifice and change things. That is what I want to do before I leave the service. I want to be known to have done something good for Nigeria.” Meanwhile, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy President of the Senate, has called on states and the FG to pass legislation restricting cattle rearing to modern ranches and also setting up Forest Rangers to enforce such laws. Mr Ekweremadu who spoke in New York during the 2016 Convention of the World Igbo Congress (WIC) said unless Nigeria was restructured, to make it more efficient and productive, it would be difficult for the country to wriggle out of security challenges, pervasive poverty and retarded growth. Recall that Ekiti-based Fulani herdsmen from Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, under the auspices of Jamu Nate Fulbe Association of Nigeria have rejected the new grazing law signed by Governor Ayodele Fayose.