Nigeria seeks $150m aid from UN, others over farmers-herders clashes

Nigeria would be eliciting the support of the United Nations and other donor agencies to raise $150 million to mitigate the devastating impact of the farmers-herders clashes in the country.

The issue would also form the fulcrum of Nigeria’s position at the forthcoming Climate Change conference in Azerbaijan later in the year.

The Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Climate Change, Mr. Terseer Ugbor, who recently convened a stakeholder forum on the impact of climate change and premiered a documentary titled “Behind the Valley” on the impact of farmers-herders clashes, made this known to reporters at the weekend in Abuja.

The lawmaker, who expressed concern over the plight of over two million Nigerians displaced due to the farmers-herders clashes, explained that stakeholders drawn from the National Assembly, federal and state government officials, civil society organisations, financial, and development partners have perfected a plan to source the fund.

He said, “We are discussing with the Global Environment Fund, the Global Climate Fund under the United Nations, the Development Bank of Nigeria, the African Development Bank, and the Nigerian government.

“We intend to take this message to the international community, to donor agencies across the world, to see how they can intervene in the challenges that we are facing as a result of climate change, leading to the herders-farmers conflict.

“We have some commitments from several partners who are working directly with us already. They’ve booked us to screen the documentary at some of the upcoming international engagements and conferences where most of the global donors and partners will be present.

“And so we hope that we can attract this international funding and we can also call the attention of the Federal Government to see our concept notes as a viable mechanism towards achieving the objective of the federal government in reducing the farmers-herders conflict.

“Our target is $150 million. It could be more because the problem is far greater than even that amount, but we intend to start small. We want to build green homes to resettle the people, we want to train them and reintegrate them back into the communities.

“We are hoping that by the first quarter of next year, we will begin to attract some of the funding that we are anticipating so that we can start the work along with the stakeholders and achieve the goal of our concept.”

Shedding light on the targeted beneficiaries, the lawmaker representing Kwande/Ushongo federal constituency of Benue State noted: “Of course, they are the displaced persons across the North Central, starting from Benue State. The targeted beneficiaries are the farmers themselves, who we need to be trained on modern farming and technologies and climate-smart homes.

“Also included are the herdsmen themselves, who we need to be trained in the practice of ranching, helping them to upgrade and settle down instead of moving from one point to another. We need to also make more revenue from our dairy that the cows produce. We can go back to the time when we used to produce hides and skins from our cattle industry, which is one of the best quality leathers in the world.

“Back in the day, it used to earn Nigeria a lot of revenue. We need to go back into dairy farming. As you know, almost 100% of our milk is imported into the country and we have a lot of capacity to generate milk from our cattle industry.

“So there’s a lot more value we can gain from both the farming and the cattle industry in the country that we are not tapping into right now. And I believe that with this kind of initiative, we can help to achieve more for the country.”