• Benue professionals explain rejection of FG’s ranching scheme

Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State has given firm assurances that the federal government’s proposed ranching policy would not be imposed on the state while he remains governor.

The assurance comes on the heels of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development’s listing of the state in its proposed ranching pilot scheme, as part of efforts to end open grazing and curb the farmer-herder clashes.

In the meantime, a coalition of Benue professionals under the aegis of the OnTiv Professionals Association (OPA), Abuja, has argued that the choice of Benue defies logic, with its economy anchored on crop farming rather than large-scale livestock production.

Rejecting the federal government’s proposed national ranching pilot scheme, they insisted that the state must not be included until millions of its displaced citizens are first resettled in their ancestral homes.

However, Alia told traditional rulers, All Pååogressives Congress (APC) faithful and the public who gathered to welcome him yesterday in Katsina-Ala during his thank-you tour of local council areas that “Nobody will force us to cede even an inch of our land to the pastoralist for any purpose. If that must happen, I can assure you, it will not be this time that I am still the Governor of Benue State”.

He added that “the provisions of the (state’s) Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law will be adequately enforced.”

Benue’s inclusion among the five proposed states has sparked reactions in the state, with the clergy and several groups and individuals calling for its outright rejection.

Nevertheless, in a statement by its President, Abraham Aku, and General Secretary, Jacob Akaanan, OPA noted that Benue had already outlawed open grazing through its 2017 Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, signed by then-Governor Samuel Ortom, but that the federal government refused to back its enforcement with security support.

The group said that refusal has left over three million residents displaced by herdsmen’s attacks, with many still living in degrading conditions in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, and their ancestral lands occupied by the same herdsmen that the law sought to check.

The group further clarified that they are not opposed to livestock ranching in principle, but wanted it “domesticated,” and by Benue people themselves, using local livestock and other ruminants rather than by outsiders settling on Benue land with their herds.

They also alleged a pattern of controversial federal agricultural policies repeatedly targeting the state, from the rejected cattle colony proposal to the National Water Resources Bill and grazing route plans.

The OPA raised concerns over what it described as attempts at forced land annexation, insisting that any ranching arrangement must be voluntary, legally secured, and subject to Benue’s own land-use laws, without any surrender of the state’s control over land-use decisions to a federal template.

It listed community consultation, guarantees against land transfer, a ban on armed protection for private ranches outside the law, equal access to justice and independent monitoring as non-negotiable conditions for any engagement with the scheme.

The group also called on Governor Alia to defend the state’s existing anti-open-grazing law and negotiate with the federal government “from the standpoint of constitutional competence rather than political subservience,” while Abuja should approach Benue “as a partner, facilitator and enabler, not as a landlord.”