FG’s ranching initiative gains acceptance across all geopolitical zones except one

The National Livestock Transformation Programme has made a come-back to the front-burner as farmer-herder crisis escalates across the nation, and it’s getting attention from at least five of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.

Even where it is not popular as a federal government initiative, the LNTP model, in one form or the other, is accepted.

So far, 20 states, including 17 across the north, two in the west, and one in the east have subscribed to the initiative.

Only those in the south-south, including Delta, Cross River, Edo,  Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Rivers, and two in the west—Oyo,Lagos,Osun, and all in the east, except Ebonyi have outrightly kicked against it, or are yet to make up their minds.

These states, however have laws proscribing open grazing, restricting FG taking over state land, and approving and regulating ranching as a private business.

“Ranching is big business. If herders apply for land to do their business, we can consider allotting land to them,” said Anambra’s Commissioner of Information C-Don Adinuba

“But government cannot on its own start establishing grazing reserves because the era of government going into full-scale businesses has gone. Private sectors drive the economy all over the world.”

The federal government in February said it had mapped out 30 grazing reserves across the country for the implementation of the NLTP which would result in a lasting solution to the farmers-herders crisis in the country.

“And every state that adopts the NLTP, it is to its own reality. It is not conscription, but if they do it this way, it will modernise livestock and crop production, remove conflict, create dialogue, and create cohesion in communities,” the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Agriculture, Dr. Andrew Kwasari, said in a statement,

Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, inaugurated the NLTP at the Gongoshi Grazing Reserve in the Mayo-Belwa LGA, Adamawa in 2018.

Osinbajo said the plan was designed to run from 2019 to 2028 as a collaborative project among the federal and state governments, farmers, pastoralists and private investors.