Land for life: Intersociety blasts Adesina, reveals what should happen

A rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and the
Rule of Law (Intersociety) has condemned comments credited to the
Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr
Femi Adesina asking Nigerians to stay alive by giving up their land for
ranching.

Adesina had spoken in an interview against the backdrop of lingering
clashes between herdsmen and villagers, reportedly encouraging indigenes
in parts of the country to give up part of their land for the
construction of ranches as proposed by the federal government.




He was also quoted as saying that it was better to donate land and
stay alive than being killed because of persistent clashes involving
herders.

But Intersociety, in a press statement signed by its Chairman Board
of Trustees, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi, and made available to DAILY POST in
Awka, said that such comment was legitimizing the killings being
perpetuated by the rampaging herdsmen.




He said, “Instead of government de-escalating the violent attacks on
Christians, such inflammable and complicit comments by the said
presidential aide have escalated same.”




The group said that by making such comment, Adesina has made himself
complicit in the killings going on around the country, while calling on
those it described as apostles of justice not to forget to join him when
suing those responsible for such killings.

“The apostles of justice and other campaigners of accountability for
state and non-state atrocities around the world particularly in
Nigeria’s old Middle Belt and Eastern Nigeria are hereby called upon to
ensure that names of such presidential aides in Nigeria including Mr.
Vice President and Mr. Femi Adesina are not omitted in any civil
claimant or criminal suit to be initiated in any part of the world
including before ICC at Hague.”




The group also condemned the comparison by Adesina over the level of
killings in the present government and those of the past, saying that
the comparisons were unnecessary.




“These days, if he (Adesina) is not caught on camera comparing
between his boss’ regime and that of the immediate or long past which
one ‘out-killed or out-supervised each other in national killing spree’;
then he is caught on camera and in print ordering indigenous Nigerian
Christians and other non Muslims to “give up their ancestral lands for
ranching or die or become a land owner in dead”.





The group appealed to international community to come to the aid of
vulnerable Nigerians, especially in the face of ineptitude on the part
of the federal government.

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