The madness of Abubakar Malami

The other day, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today program to declare southern governors’ ban on open grazing unconstitutional.

The Usmanu Danfodiyo University-trained lawyer argued that the ban “does not align with the provisions of the Constitution, hence it does not hold water.” If he had stopped it there, it would have been one of those interventions of his that would soon be forgotten by history and forgiven by man. He did a similar thing after the rollout of the Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun in in January 2020. But the senior advocate of Nigeria went further.

“It is about constitutionality within the context of the freedoms expressed in our constitution,” he said. “Can you deny the rights of a Nigerian? For example: it is as good as saying, perhaps, maybe, the northern governors coming together to say they prohibit spare parts trading in the north. Does it hold water? Does it hold water for a northern governor to come and state expressly that he now prohibits spare parts trading in the north?”

The show’s host, Seun Okinbaloye should not have let the minister get away with that attempt to draw a moral equivalence between herdsmen and their cows and spare parts dealers. Mr. Okinbaloye should have called Malami…