In a move to set up ranches and reduce farmer-herder killings in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the sum of N6.25 billion to set up ranches in Katsina State.
This was disclosed in a statement by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, on Friday in Abuja, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
The statement revealed that the Katsina Governor, Aminu Masari, said the ranches would be developed at the inauguration of the Zobe Regional Water scheme in Dustin-ma, Katsina State, 29 years after its commencement, as the FG released an initial N5 billion to start the project.
Earlier this week, 17 Governors from Southern Nigeria met in Delta State to discuss the rising insecurity in the country. They called for restructuring to enable states to have more financial autonomy and capacity to deal with threats relating to Insecurity.
“We discussed various national issues including security and restructuring. In view of the incursions of armed herders, criminals, and bandits, we resolved to ban open grazing in all of Southern Nigeria.
Nigeria needs to be restructured to reflect true federalism leading to state policing and a change in the revenue allocation formula of the nation. We also recommended the establishment of ports in other states to address the congestion of the Apapa Port,” Seyi Makinde, Oyo State Governor said.
What’s new? In 2019, Nigerian authorities launched a ten-year National Livestock Transformation Plan to curtail the movement of cattle, boost livestock production and quell the country’s lethal herder-farmer conflict. But inadequate political leadership, delays, funding uncertainties and a lack of expertise could derail the project. COVID-19 has exacerbated the challenges.
Why did it happen? Violence fuelled by environmental degradation and competition over land has aggravated long-running tensions in the country’s northern and central regions. A surge in bloodshed in 2018 prompted Nigeria’s federal government to formulate a far-reaching set of reforms for the livestock sector.
Why does it matter? The new Plan represents Nigeria’s most comprehensive strategy yet to encourage pastoralists to switch to ranching and other sedentary livestock production systems. Modernising the livestock sector is key to resolving the herder-farmer conflict, which threatens Nigeria’s