*Position of Benue Stakeholders on the Draft “National Livestock Transformation Plan” (NLTP) - ‘Strategy Document’*
- Key Benue Stakeholders received the draft “National Livestock Transformation Plan” (NLTP) - “Policy Information Document” (PID) quite late and would like to express dismay on why such a sensitive document would be treated in a hurry. That not withstanding, key Benue Stakeholders assembled and discussed, to provide the response in this document as representative of the view of Benue people.
- To start with, Key Stakeholders have seriously frowned at the inclusion of Benue State as one of the seven (7) frontline states. Benue people se this as provocative and show of disregard for the good and peace-loving people of Benue State.
- The presented draft National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) - Policy Information Document (PID) is clearly an offshoot of the recommendations of the brief of the ‘Technical Sub-Committee’ (TSC) as contained in pages 5 and 6, specifically items serial number 8.0 (c), (d), d(a) and d(d). It can be recalled that Benue Stakeholders had previously taken very serious exceptions to that TSC document, during a meeting with Dr. Andrew Kwasari.
- There is an existing Law regulating livestock production in Benue State and as observed, the draft National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) - Policy Information Document (PID) does not present any convergence to that law. It is therefore needful to highlight that the said NLTP-PID does not offer any convergence with the provisions of the existing Benue State law; already in line with the Land Use Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as Amended. It is noteworthy that the extant Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017) already provides for interested persons to privately acquire land for ranches; recognising ranching as a form of agribusiness that, should be driven by the private sector. Government has no business with owning farms; farming is a private enterprise
- There’s no vacant land in Benue State. All land in Benue belong to the original owners by law and practice and is used for crop farming, human habitation and other development purposes. These are indigenous ancestral family lineages and as such it remains to be seen how the FGN plans to take over these lands from the indigenous crop farmers and convert same to livestock production without igniting or exacerbating more conflicts and breaches of already fragile peace. The plausible approach should be for the draft NLTP to take into account the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017) and be private sector driven in line with government policy of privatising even already government owned businesses. In other words, Benue as a State lacks the land proposed for any of the pilot ranches. However, private investors can directly approach and engage individual family land owners to negotiate for available lands, if any, for such purposes.
- There is a lack of transparency of the actual NLTP and its motive. The NLTP itself remains secret and thus is alien, as the purported ‘draft plan’ received no input from Benue state and as such, this “Strategy Document” or “Plan Implementation Document” is promoted in ambiguity. It therefore begs a few pertinent interrogations:
• Are these pastoralists Nigerians or non-Nigerians? If Nigerians; don’t they posses indigenous lands in their home states so they could be incentivised with modern technological investments and bank lending facilities to optimise their livestock business, considering it is already their traditional farming practice and way of life? If non-Nigerian citizens, what rationale justifies this backdoor plan?
• Why impose one’s way of life on another, to whom it is alien? Or is there a secret plan to systematically and strategically ‘grab’ ancestral lands from indigenous peoples of Benue State for settlement of the Fulani of the whole world to make a new home for them in Nigeria?
• It is needful to emphasize that; crop and fish farming are the mainstay agricultural practices of the indigenous people of Benue State and not pastoralism as is being promoted without regard to this mainstay agro-economic activity.
• What parallel preparation/provision can be said to be made for the indigenous peoples that own these lands or, are they also to be incentivised to get into livestock farming? The NLTP-PID in all shades indicates to the contrary.
• Who’s lands will the State Government be ‘granting’ to the Fulani Pastoralists and by who’s volition?
• The provisions of the PID are couched in terms that are incongruous to the dictum of federalism. It ostensibly smacks of land grabbing, contrary to extant law.
• The mere fact that the State Governments will be ‘compelled’ to grant these lands to cooperatives formed by Pastoralists calls for deep concern, even suspicion.
• Who will have title rights to the ranches during the implementation of the NLTP (FGN, State Government, the original owners or the Pastoralist Cooperatives)? This PID states it will be the FGN. Will this still be in line with the Constitution of the FRN 1999 as Amended? Will this still be in line with the Land Use Act? Will the ranches then be run according to the extant provisions of the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017); considering the FGN has demonstrated unrelenting penchant for negating the said Law?
• If food security is to be actualised as envisioned and enshrined in the SDGs; why would the NLTP-PID recommend the cultivation of only maize within the so called ‘grazing reserves’? It means there’s an agenda, even at that, and it is restricted to primary support to the pastoralists and their pastoral business, without regard to the mainstay cropping preoccupation of the indigenous people whose lands are to be annexed and/or ‘grabbed’ and given to the Fulani of the whole world.
- Of “clusters” of the said ranches/grazing reserves within the donated “gazetted grazing reserves” as captured in the PID: Benue does not have ‘gazetted grazing reserves’ and has no vacant land to be gazetted. Benue State should be delisted from the list of states proposed for the pilot scheme.
- Concerning the reference in the TSC report that the ‘Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017)’ being the spark of the herdsmen attacks on Benue farmers: it is instructive to state that the wanton and unprovoked killings of Benue farmers, women and children and the attendant destruction of their homes and means of livelihood actually predates the enactment of the “Law”. The recent spate of killings began February 8, 2011 in Gwer-West Local Government Area. Other incidences were also reported for Plateau, Nassarawa, Zamfara, Kaduna and Taraba States. This is an evidence that these killings couldn't have been sparked by the passage into law of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment bill.
- The use of the terms “pilot ranches” and “grazing reserves” interchangeably rather seem deliberate and on purpose; and betrays the plan to smuggle the previously rejected morphed policy of ‘Grazing Reserves’ cum ‘Cattle Colonies’. It is noteworthy to state again that, Benue does not have ‘gazetted grazing reserves’ and Benue does not have vacant land to be gazetted; hence should be removed from the list of states for the NLTP pilot scheme.
- It is reasonable, necessarily and pertinent to note that the FGN needs the more to demonstrate transparency to the citizenry, because of good reasons, derived from the recently abandoned, ‘Grazing Reserves’, ‘Cattle Routes’ and the ill-conceived ‘Cattle Colonies’ proposals.
- Also, the handling, by the Federal Government, of the killings by herdsmen with attendant destruction of homes, farms, churches, schools, health facilities, bridges, police posts with concomitant displacement of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands as internally displaced persons (IDPs) with the siege on ancestral lands of these IDPs; has been largely unsatisfactory and overtly discriminatory and contrary to the provisions of the Constitution of the FRN 1999 as Amended.
- There is therefore a justifiable and strong degree of suspicion of, and doubts about the motives for FGN’s involvement in cattle rearing including committing humongous public money to what should normally be private business - as it is in any other part of the world; including some countries in Africa like Kenya, Botswana and others.
- The NTLP-PID, at best is a backdoor policy, and at worst, looks more like a booby trap for the people of Benue State.
- On the revamping of ‘gazetted grazing reserves’ and proposing to ‘gazette’ some previously not gazetted ones is reactionary and retrogressive. It is rather an anathema for the FGN to be attempting to redraw maps of federating states in this manner today using precolonial cartography of the time when the country had a population of less than 60 million people. Today with close to 200 million people, these lines no doubt have become people’s farms. Moreover, land administration under the Land Use Act of 1978, as stipulated therein Part 1, Section 1 is vested in the states as federating units and not the Federal Government.
- It is still needful to emphasize that cattle rearing is akin to poultry, piggery, yam, soybean, sesame seeds, citrus, mango, fishery or cassava farming; all private businesses. It therefore stands to reason that, even with due regard to an entitlement to government assistance, it must remain the business of its proprietors. But this is not to prevent ranch operators from enjoying federal government support in incentives as indeed should other types of agribusinesses, in such critical areas as will enhance productivity and in turn, boost national GDP, provided no group or individual is discriminated against or their rights infringed upon.
- It is considered wisdom for appropriate states as federating units to concentrate on their respective areas of competitive advantage, and channel investment in requisite research in science and technology to enhance such activities. A policy on animal husbandry in the Federal Republic of Nigeria shouldn’t be a compelling project for the federating units.
- In fact, it was David Mark, as then President of the Nigerian Senate who stated on 4th of October, 2012 that: “Cattle rearers should be restricted to their states of origin to limit the incessant bloody clashes between herders and farmers.” In agreement with the quoted statement, the peace-loving people of Benue State are vehemently opposed to the establishment of Grazing Reserves/Cattle Colonies/Cattle Routes using this suspicious backdoor guise of the NLTP in the State.
- It is important to provide that the Benue State government does not have the moral, legal, or political authority to subscribe to the NLTP-PID (the NLTP policy itself still being kept in secrecy from the state).
- Whereas the State may not be in position to question the economic argument for an NLTP in other states of the federation, who may have the land where it can be productively implemented, especially in the States where cattle rearing is already the farming practice and lifestyle of the people; the attendant socio-cultural implications and the realpolitik of the NLTP-PID questions what should reasonably and ordinarily be a purely private business decision and a matter of economics as it is in other climes. This would be free of real or suspected land grabbing motives, and real or imagined fears of foreigners being imported to occupy and take over ancestral lands of others (as exemplified in the ‘Ladugga Chiefdom’ in Kachia Local Government in Southern Kaduna).
- Other cases of note today are the present Wase LGA in Plateau State and Kafanchan town in Jama’a LGA in Kaduna State among others. Locations that were initially gazetted as grazing reserves but have been converted into full fledged settlements, and Emirates today established in these places.
- The Citizenship Question: It is imperative for the Nigerian State to urgently interrogate and settle the vexed issue of citizenship: the ’Citizenship Question.’ The land of one’s birth is one issue that elicits emotions such as which make individuals grow into becoming proud citizens; and with values that instigate selfless service and comradeship in the context of nation building.
- The proposed NLTP-PID must sit well with this concept. The Nigerian Citizen must in contrast with the alien, share a compact that breeds patriotism in roles and responsibilities that need to be fulfilled as a member that belongs to, and functions as a part of that state. The NLTP must consciously manifestly mandate a citizen to enter into “his or her own”, where he or she belongs (the nation state); not foreign fighters, herders or Fulani of the whole world as has always been alleged. But as citizens, joint investors in the common good, shared purpose, progressive future of the State and its commonwealth.
- The Nigerian constitution must not be captive to the ECOWAS protocol and must therefore clearly distinguish the alien from the citizen, to whom much belongs and from whom all is expected, as he/she (the citizen) identifies with the State structure within the Nation State.
- It is equally important to note that even the ECOWAS treaty on transhumance (1998) requires that the herdsmen must seek and obtain the permission of the host community before emigrating to the place with their herds; but this section of the protocol had previously never been obeyed by the herdsmen. Furthermore, the transhumance are required to obey the laws of the host community; in our case we have the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017) that requires such individuals to privately seek and legitimately obtain private land on which to ranch their cattle.
- To genuinely address the issue of law and order is to frankly interrogate the conversation of ‘restructuring’ towards constitutional, experiential and indeed, fiscal federalism and the necessary question of ‘State Policing;’ where the state government is indeed able to execute immediate and rapid response in curtailing any breach of peace and security within the state.
- Conclusion
- The FGN must not be found taking indigenous peasant lands in violation of the Constitution of FRN 1999 as Amended, the Land Use Act, and the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017), and donating to the pastoralists cooperatives in the name of National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). Presently, there are no pastoralist cooperatives registered with Benue State Government.
- The resolve of the Benue people, as represented by Key Stakeholders is that:
• The NLTP-PID does not represent the interest, progress and development of the people of Benue State and as such is unacceptable. In view of the foregoing;
• Benue State should be delisted from the list of frontline or pilot states for implementation of the NLTP, as there are no ‘gazetted grazing reserves’ nor vacant land for gazetting into grazing reserves.
• Benue people are comfortable with the existing “Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law (2017)”.
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