The Fulani, and every other ethnic nationality in Nigeria, do have a fundamental right to freedom of movement, and an inalienable and fundamental right to reside lawfully in any part of Nigeria. But I don’t think that is the issue at stake in Ondo State.
The issue there is whether the Fulani, or any other ethnic nationality, do have a right to arrive a state, and without an application and consequent allocation of land to them under the Land Use Act, simply enter upon land and start grazing cattle, and in the process, destroying farmlands that may have been lawfully allocated to other people. What the Fulani have in Ondo state is a statutory right to apply to the Governor, like very other Nigerian, for the allocation of land for agricultural and grazing purposes, and a right not to be discriminated against on grounds of religion or tribe, in the consideration of the application.
And once such a land is allocated, the occupying Fulani will enjoy and exercise the constitutionally guaranteed right to property, over the property. But nobody, including the Fulani, does have any right whatsoever to enter into un-allocated land, and take it over as his own. Should that happen, and a public nuisance is thereby occasioned, as is now the case in Ondo State where armed kidnappers are operating unhindered from such lands, the State Governor, in whom all lands in the state are vested by virtue of the Land Use Act, has a statutory right, and indeed a duty, to evict the trespassers and effect an abatement of the nuisance. And it is no answer to the Governor, under the law, that “neither the Governor nor his subjects came with any land from heaven”, as the Fulani are presently asserting.
Neither such an abatement of nuisance nor the eviction of squatters from land would amount to an infringement of the constitutionally guaranteed right to property or freedom of movement. These rights do not imbue Yoruba settlers in Kano to enter any land they see in Kano and start planting colanuts – without prior allocation by the Governor of Kano State, or acquisition from natives by private treaty, on the rather outlandish ground that “the Governor of Kano State did not come with any land from heaven.” This distinction must be kept in mind so that issues are not unnecessarily obfuscated, as Garba Shehu, the Presidential spokesman, has done!
Kenneth Ikonne is a legal luminary.
