BY TOM CHIAHEMEN
THERE is something profoundly unsettling about a government announcing a policy ostensibly designed to resolve one of Nigeria’s most intractable security and agricultural problems, only to discover that the announcement itself has become another source of anxiety.
That, increasingly, appears to be the predicament of the Federal Government’s proposed National Ranching Policy.
On paper, few would quarrel with the idea of modernising Nigeria’s livestock industry. A country struggling with farmer-herder violence, cattle rustling, dwindling agricultural productivity and an increasingly stressed food system ought to be thinking seriously about how to move livestock production away from open grazing and an increasingly unsustainable nomadic model.
The Middle Belt Forum has gone even further, describing the proposed policy as a potential “forceful land-grabbing scheme” dressed up as livestock development. The Forum argues that states such as Adamawa, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and the FCT—areas it identifies as Middle Belt territories—have suffered some of the worst violence associated with herder militias. It therefore questions why these same territories should now become the principal theatre for a ranching programme. The Forum’s argument is brutally simple: if the primary objective is livestock development, why concentrate the pilot in areas where land ownership, security and community relations are already so combustible?
Indeed, the Federal Government’s argument is straightforward. According to the Minister of Livestock Development, Alhaji Idi Maiha, the government plans to pilot the National Ranching Policy in Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa and Plateau states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, with the Wase Grazing Reserve in Plateau State serving as the test model.
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The rationale, he explained, is that these areas have experienced high levels of farmer-herder violence partly because traditional grazing routes have been swallowed by expanding towns and farms.
The proposed programme also includes livestock tracking, under which four-legged animals would be tagged to curb cattle theft and establish a national livestock database.
And the broader objective is to move Nigeria away from cattle mobility and nomadism, which the minister says is no longer safe or sustainable.
All of that sounds reasonable.
But then comes the question that the government must not dodge:
Whose land?
And immediately behind it come several others:
Ranches for whom? Who owns them? Who occupies them? Who benefits from them? And what happens to the communities whose land is required to establish them?
Those are not rhetorical questions. They are the questions that may determine whether the policy becomes a historic solution to Nigeria’s livestock crisis or another trigger for a fresh round of conflict.
The reactions from the Middle Belt since the minister’s August 12 announcement have been swift and unusually emphatic.
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In Benue, the three major ethnic socio-cultural organisations—Mdzough-U-Tiv, Ochetoha k’Idoma and Omi Ny’Igede—have not rejected modern ranching as an idea. Far from it.
Their objection is to what they perceive as an attempt to impose the policy from Abuja without adequate consultation with the communities, traditional institutions and state authorities whose lands and livelihoods would inevitably be affected.
Their message is perhaps best captured in the phrase: “peace must precede policy.”
That distinction is important.
For years, Nigeria’s public conversation about the farmer-herder crisis has been reduced to the convenient phrase “farmer-herder conflict”. But many communities in Benue and elsewhere in the Middle Belt strongly reject that characterisation.
They insist that what they have experienced is not merely a quarrel between farmers and wandering cattle rearers but sustained attacks, killings, destruction of homes and farms, and mass displacement.
That perception matters because public policy is rarely successful when it begins by dismissing the lived experience of the people it is supposed to serve.
The Benue socio-cultural organisations say more than 500,000 displaced citizens remain in IDP camps after losing their homes and farms.
And here lies perhaps the most emotionally and politically potent objection to the ranching proposal:
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How does a government explain allocating land for a new federal livestock project while the original owners of land in parts of the state remain refugees?
That is a question Abuja must answer convincingly.
The Middle Belt Forum has gone even further, describing the proposed policy as a potential “forceful land-grabbing scheme” dressed up as livestock development.
The Forum argues that states such as Adamawa, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and the FCT—areas it identifies as Middle Belt territories—have suffered some of the worst violence associated with herder militias.
It therefore questions why these same territories should now become the principal theatre for a ranching programme.
The Forum’s argument is brutally simple: if the primary objective is livestock development, why concentrate the pilot in areas where land ownership, security and community relations are already so combustible?
It points to large expanses of unused land in parts of northern Nigeria and asks why states such as Jigawa, Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, Zamfara and northern Kebbi are not being considered.
The Forum also raises questions about the changing composition of the proposed pilot locations. Kano, which was reportedly among the locations announced earlier in the year, has now given way to Nasarawa.
Whether that change is simply a matter of policy design or something more fundamental, the government owes Nigerians an explanation.
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Because once suspicion enters a policy of this magnitude, silence becomes an accomplice to conspiracy theories.
The Wase model has also become controversial.
The Middle Belt Forum says ordinary farmers and Plateau indigenes have opposed the model, arguing that support for the allocation of large areas of land comes principally from sections of the political and traditional elite who may benefit from it.
Whether that allegation is entirely fair is another matter. But it cannot simply be dismissed.
The government must demonstrate that the proposed ranching programme enjoys genuine grassroots consent—not merely endorsements from politicians, officials or selected traditional rulers.
And this is where the intervention of Christian leaders in Benue adds another dimension.
The Nigeria Catholic Diocesan Priests Association, Makurdi Diocese, has also rejected the proposed pilot scheme, arguing that the immediate priority should be the safe return and resettlement of displaced citizens.
Their position is anchored on a simple moral proposition: land should not be allocated for new settlements while citizens who originally occupied and cultivated that land remain homeless in camps.
They also insist that the Federal Government must respect Benue’s existing Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law.
This raises another constitutional and policy question that Abuja cannot wish away: how does a federal ranching initiative interface with state laws governing land use and open grazing?
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But perhaps the most useful intervention in this increasingly polarised debate comes from an individual voice that refuses to choose between modern livestock development and protection of indigenous land rights.
Gideon Inyom, a visionary leader, innovation strategist and transformational thinker, asks the question that perhaps ought to have been at the heart of the government’s consultation process from the beginning:
“Ranches for whom, on whose land, under what ownership structure, and with what long-term consequences?”
That is the real conversation.
Suppose the Federal Government’s ranching programme is designed to empower Benue farmers themselves to enter commercial livestock production.
Suppose Tiv, Idoma, Igede, Etulo and other Benue citizens who want to diversify from crops into cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, dairy production, animal-feed manufacturing, veterinary services and meat processing can access finance, improved breeds, veterinary support, water infrastructure, processing facilities and markets.
Would that not be an opportunity worth embracing?
Of course it would.
There is no compelling reason why Benue should remain merely the “Food Basket of the Nation” on the strength of crops while other Nigerians dominate the economic opportunities in the livestock value chain.
Indeed, if ranching is to be the future of livestock production in Nigeria, the people of the Middle Belt should not merely be expected to provide the land.
They should be among the principal beneficiaries.
This is why the government must clearly identify the intended beneficiaries of the programme.
Are the ranches to belong to existing Nigerian livestock farmers?
Will Benue farmers have access to them?
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Will participation be voluntary?
Who will own the land?
Who will own the ranches?
Will government acquire community land?
What rights will existing landowners retain?
Will beneficiaries acquire ownership rights, leases or merely occupancy rights?
And, most importantly, what safeguards will prevent a livestock-development initiative from quietly transforming into a permanent settlement programme?
These are not anti-development questions.
They are the questions of responsible development.
Ranches for whom? On whose land? Who owns them? Who benefits? And what happens to the people who are already there? Until those questions are answered convincingly, the proposed National Ranching Policy will remain less a solution than another controversy waiting to happen.
There is a world of difference between establishing a modern ranch on voluntarily acquired or properly leased land for Nigerian livestock entrepreneurs and acquiring vast stretches of ancestral community land for permanent settlement of populations from elsewhere.
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The former is an agricultural policy.
The latter could become a demographic and territorial policy.
And once permanent settlements are created, reversing the consequences may be virtually impossible.
That is why the Federal Government should resist the temptation to sell ranching as a simple technical solution to a problem that is fundamentally also about land, identity, security, justice and trust.
Nigeria has been here before.
Policies imposed from Abuja without sufficient consultation with the communities expected to live with their consequences have often produced resistance, suspicion and, eventually, conflict.
The irony would be tragic if a policy designed to end farmer-herder violence ended up generating another dispute over land.
The government therefore needs to slow down—not necessarily abandon—the ranching initiative.
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There is nothing wrong with the concept of ranching. In fact, Nigeria urgently needs a modern livestock economy.
But modernisation must not mean dispossession.
Agricultural transformation must not become an excuse for land alienation.
And livestock development must not become a euphemism for permanent resettlement.
The first step should be an exhaustive consultation involving state governments, traditional institutions, local communities, farmers’ organisations, livestock producers, displaced persons, security agencies, civil society and other relevant stakeholders.
The government must also publish the ownership, financing, land acquisition and beneficiary framework of the programme.
Let Nigerians see the map.
Let them know whose land is involved.
Let them know who will own what.
Let them know who will benefit.
Let them know whether participation is voluntary.
And let them know what happens to the indigenous communities whose ancestral lands may be required.
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Above all, let the government first resolve the security crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of citizens.
There is a moral absurdity in creating new ranches while old homes remain abandoned and old farms remain inaccessible because their owners are afraid to return.
The Middle Belt does not need to reject development in order to defend its land.
Nor should Abuja interpret legitimate concerns about land and security as opposition to livestock modernisation.
There is a middle ground—and that is precisely where sensible policy should live.
Let Benue people participate in livestock.
Let Plateau people participate.
Let Nasarawa, Kaduna and Adamawa communities participate.
Let Nigerian farmers across the country enter the entire livestock value chain.
Let the government provide finance, technology, veterinary infrastructure, water, processing facilities, markets and security.
But let Nigerians also retain the right to determine what happens to their ancestral land in accordance with the law.
The lesson from this controversy should therefore not be that ranching is impossible.
It should be that ranching without trust is impossible.
Nigeria can modernise its livestock industry without surrendering the land rights, security and dignity of the communities that have already paid an enormous price for the country’s failure to resolve the farmer-herder crisis.
The Federal Government has an opportunity here to demonstrate that development does not have to be a zero-sum game.
But it must first answer the questions that are already echoing across the Middle Belt:
Ranches for whom? On whose land? Who owns them? Who benefits? And what happens to the people who are already there?
Until those questions are answered convincingly, the proposed National Ranching Policy will remain less a solution than another controversy waiting to happen.
As Inyom aptly puts it, Nigeria can embrace economic opportunity without abandoning institutional memory.
That may ultimately be.
Mr Chiahemen is the publisher/CEO of National Accord, an Abuja-based online newspaper
