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| Samuel Ortom and Muhammad Buhari |
A Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a suit filed by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore seeking to void the 2017 Open Grazing Prohibition and Establishment Law passed by the Benue State House of Assembly.
In a judgment on Thursday, Justice Okon Abang held that the plaintiff’s suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/527/2017 was incompetent.
Justice Abang further held that the plaintiff failed to comply with an earlier order of the court made about 19 months ago, directing it to file an amended originating summons.
The judge awarded a cost of N100, 000 against the plaintiff to be paid to all the 14 defendants before any other step can be taken in the suit.
Another judge of the court, Justice Babatunde Quadri, who was hearing the case before he was transferred to another division of the court, had, in an earlier ruling, held that the plaintiff had no valid originating summons before the court.
Rather than taking steps to correct the error noticed by the judge by filing an amended originating summons, the plaintiff went to sleep and took no further steps.
The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore had, by the suit, sought among others, to restrain the Benue State Government from implementing the law as passed by the House of Assembly.
The Benue State government had on November 1, 2017 officially effected its ban on open grazing throughout the state.
This was after Governor Samuel Ortom on May 22, 2019 signed the anti-open grazing and anti-kidnapping, abduction, cultism and terrorism bills into law.
The governor had said the anti-grazing law would put to an end to the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers in the state.
