Apart from complaints trailing the ongoing process to remove the Deputy Governor of Imo State, Prince Eze Madumere, citizens of the State are gearing up to protest the proposed new Bills the members of the Imo State House of Assembly are considering to pass into law.
There is serious disquiet in the State following the reported listing of a grazing Bill in Order Paper of the Imo State House of Assembly on Monday during a special sitting.
According to the details of the Bill, the law if passed by the House does not provide for rearing and grazing of livestock but providing for the establishment of ranches and livestock administration, regulation and control, among other matters.
The title of the Bill from what Trumpeta saw is a “Bill for a Law to Prohibit Open Rearing and Grazing of Livestock and Provide For Establishment of Ranches and Livestock Administration, Regulation and Control for other matters connected therewith”.
Trumpeta also recalls that a Bill before the House believed to be unpopular and created to compel all rural roads in the State to have Certificate of Occupany is in the offing.
Based on these two Bills, civil society organizations have started mobilizing to protest the development.
To this end, a civil society organization, the Imo People Action For Democracy (IPAD) plans to convene a meeting of concerned Imolites to fashion out the best method of resisting the unpopular for the people of the State.
A coordinator of IPAD notes that “two great dangers that are incubating before as now at the Imo State House of Assembly are the Bill to compel all rural lands in the State to have Certificate of Occupancy and a Bill to reintroduce the earlier defeated cattle colony in Imo. These Bills have passed Second Readings and have been referred to the committees”
IPAD states that “these two Bills cannot be in the interest of the Imo people as the first is armed at reaping us off while the second may see our lands ceded out to cattle rears who are certainly not Ndi Imo respectively by an ending government”.
