In a recent interview with Arise Television from 01:25, prominent lawyer and social commentator Kenneth Okonkwo criticized Nigeria’s open-grazing policy. He expressed deep concern over the implications of allowing young children to participate in cattle herding across vast distances, describing the practice as archaic and harmful.
“As regarding the open grazing, I am really shocked that any human being in the 21st century will even open his mouth to say they will allow young and beautiful children to be following animals from Maiduguri to Port Harcourt and from Sokoto to Lagos trekking through the forest where they will be drugged, brainwashed, traumatized, and terrorized without the option of going to school,” Okonkwo stated passionately.
A screenshot of Kenneth Okonkwo from a video clip released by Arise Television on their X handle.
He emphasized the disparity between the opportunities afforded to children from affluent families and those from poorer backgrounds, highlighting the inherent unfairness in condemning the latter to a life devoid of education and filled with peril.
“You’re saying your own children will be going to the best of schools, and the children of the poor and less privileged will be condemned perpetually to live in terrorist-infected forests,” he added, pointing out the inequality.
Okonkwo further elaborated on the dire consequences faced by these children, who are forced to endure grueling and dangerous journeys across the country. “You have reduced these children to the level of animals. I can tell you hardly any child will trek from Maiduguri to Port Harcourt in Nigeria today without meeting one kind of Waterloo or the other or without becoming a terrorist himself,” he asserted.