Banner Online News

There comes a time when a government must choose between political convenience and moral responsibility. In Delta State, that time is long overdue. The anti–open grazing law, celebrated as a bold step when it was passed now lies abandoned, gathering dust like an old pamphlet while farmers across the state are being terrorized, dispossessed, and forced off the land that feeds us all.

And so the question rings out again, loud and uncomfortably clear: Why is the anti–open grazing law not being implemented?

This is not a rhetorical line. It is a cry of anguish from citizens whose lives are being shattered while their government looks away. When a concerned social media commentator warned that they “will soon protest to the House of Assembly to stop churning out bills” because even the ones that protect lives are treated as mere decorative documents, he was not being dramatic, he was stating a truth as bitter as it is undeniable.

A Law That Protects No One Is Not a Law, It Is a Mockery

Across Delta’s communities, AK-47-bearing herdsmen continue to roam freely, grazing cattle on peoples’ ancestral farmlands, destroying crops, abducting farmers, raping women, killing breadwinners, and turning entire local economies upside down. Yet, the law that outlawed open grazing, passed when Sheriff Oborevwori was Speaker and now gathering dust while he is Governor, is treated like a suggestion instead of a statute.

What then is the point of legislation if not to safeguard the people? How can a law designed specifically to address this menace remain unenforced while Delta’s farmlands turn into crime scenes and mass graves?

Voices from Igbodo: Pleas the Government Pretends Not to Hear

This week, the people of Igbodo, in Ika North East Local Government Area marched in protest; not because they enjoy chanting under the sun, but because they are fighting for their right to live. They are fighting for the land that feeds them. They are fighting for their dignity.

Mr. Chinedu Augustine, speaking for his people, drove this pain home: “For eight years, our people have suffered… Farmers are afraid to go to their farms for fear of being kidnapped, killed, or raped… These hoodlums now enter people’s homes and abduct them without fear.”

If this testimony does not ignite action in Government House, what will?

A mass burial?

A famine?

A community wiped out?

Another resident, Mr. Daniel Nnabuife, made it even clearer: “We are suffering in Igbodo… Our farmers are kidnapped, raped, murdered. We have endured enough.”

Delta’s farmers are not just losing crops, they are losing their lives. They are losing their identity. They are losing the very land their ancestors handed down to them.

A Government Distracted by Politics While Its People Bleed

While blood flows on Delta’s farmlands, the government appears preoccupied with politics, specifically the governor’s realignment with the APC and the calculations for 2027. The irony is suffocating: a government that cannot protect its citizens is strategizing on how to keep ruling them.

How does a government campaign for votes with one hand, while allowing the same voters to be brutalized with the other? Where is the empathy? Where is the responsibility? Where is the leadership?

Questions Governor Oborevwori Must Answer Now

At Banner Online News, we refuse to stay silent. The people deserve answers, and the governor owes them nothing less. So we ask, directly and unapologetically:

• Why are you not enforcing the anti–open grazing law you helped enact?
• Why have you allowed farmlands to become killing fields when the law to stop this already exists?
• Why must Delta farmers sleep with one eye open while cattle roam freely in defiance of the law?
• Why are the people who voted you into office being abandoned to kidnappers, rapists, and armed herders?
• Why is Delta State the only place where cattle enjoy more freedom of movement than human beings?

These are not political questions, they are existential ones.

A Governor’s Legacy Is Measured Not by Speeches, but by Courage

Sheriff Oborevwori must understand this: if the anti–open grazing law continues to rot unimplemented, it will be placed at his doorstep by history. He cannot hide behind excuses. He cannot outsource responsibility. This fight is his to lead, or his to abandon. And abandonment, in this case, is nothing short of betrayal.

Delta cannot continue like this. Communities cannot continue like this. Families cannot continue like this. Enforce the Law. Protect the People. Restore the Farmlands. Anything less is governance in name only.

The people of Delta did not elect cattle. They elected a governor. Now, Governor Oborevwori must prove he remembers that.