An ex-aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, has slammed the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami for saying open grazing ban in Southern Nigeria is the same as Northern governors banning spare parts trading in their own region.
According to Omokri, the AGF didn’t condemn the confiscation of millions of bottles of beer destroyed in the north but was swift to condemn open grazing ban pronounced by Southern governors last week.
It was reported that operatives of the religious police in North-West states, Hisbah, have destroyed millions of bottles of different beer worth billions of naira in the last couple of years, thus, rendering hundreds of Southern traders hopeless and jobless in the north.
The various Hisbah Boards in the north claim consumption of alcohol and all other intoxicants was forbidden in Islam.
Hisbah has also been accused of blatantly violating the basic rights of citizens in its mission to enforce criminal aspects of Sharia law on residents of the North-West state.
In a string of tweets on Thursday, Omokri said Malami didn’t condemn the actions of Hisbah but was quick to criticise Southern governors for banning open grazing in the region over rising insecurity associated with the activities of criminal elements masquerading as herders.
The ex-presidential aide wrote, “The comment by (President Muhammadu) Buhari ’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, that banning open grazing is like banning spare parts trading, shows this regime is fully behind killer herdsmen. If Northern states can ban beer and pig farming, Southern states can ban open grazing.
“If Nigerians can’t do open grazing of pigs in the North, then local and foreign herdsmen can’t do open grazing of cows in the South. You should not condemn one without condemning the other, except you mean Southerners are second class citizens!
“When Hisbah demolishes the businesses of their fellow Nigerians in the North for selling alcohol, where was Malami to defend them? But now that the open grazing ban has touched his ‘anointed’ herdsmen, he resurfaces to protect them.”
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