Livestock ministry must end open grazing, conflicts

Against the backdrop of several failed attempts of the government to curtail incessant herders-farmers’ clashes that have claimed thousands of lives of peasant Nigerians, the plan by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to set up a Ministry of Livestock Development appears not too exciting, none the least because it has not clearly enunciated how to keep herders away from farmlands, and thus destroying weeks, if not months of hard labour. Nigerians are anxious to embrace any measure to end, once and for all, years of carnage and bring peace to farming and cattle rearing; but they are skeptical of half measures that sound great on presentation but deficient in their capacity. The Tinubu government must, therefore, be prepared to back its plan with sincerity of purpose.

Acting on the recommendation of a report of the National Conference on Livestock Reforms and Mitigation of Associated Conflicts in Nigeria, President Tinubu announced the intention to create a Ministry of Livestock Development. He has furthermore, inaugurated a Renewed Hope Livestock Reform Implementation Committee to realise the intentions of his government to, in his words, “enable Nigeria to finally take advantage of livestock farming.” Indeed the president enthused that “we have seen the solution and opportunity [in the enduring conflict related to livestock rearing] and I believe the prosperity is here in our hands.”

Tinubu’s enthusiasm is well noted. Any well-meaning effort and lawful measure that can be taken to reform livestock rearing and mitigate associated conflicts in the country is welcomed and deserves support. There is good reason to emphasise that the government’s action in respect of livestock rearing matters must be demonstrably well–meaning and lawful.

The Buhari-led administration pursued – or appeared to pursue – various solutions to the conflict, but only with spectacular failure. First the dubiously-intentioned, ill-conceived, and surreptitiously executed Audu Ogbeh-initiated RUGA (Rural Grazing Area) project was widely condemned and rejected. Next came a 10-year, N100 billion National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) of the Federal Government, to comprehensively modernise the livestock sub-sector.

Launched in Adamawa State in September 2019 by then Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, as collaboration among federal and state governments, farmers, pastoralists and private sector investors, the government at the centre was to contribute 80 per cent of the required fund, while participating states contribute 20 per cent. Osinbajo was as enthusiastic about the project as Tinubu is now. He had assured the country that “it is a plan that hopes to birth tailor-made ranches where cattle are bred, meat, and dairy products are produced using modern livestock breeding and dairy methods”. He added, emphatically: “I wish to emphasise that this is not  RUGA …settlements  launched by the Ministry of  Agriculture  [and which]  created a problem when it was perceived  as a plan  to seize lands to create  settlements for  herders. RUGA was not the plan designed or approved by the governors’.

Against the backdrop of other glaringly suspected motives of the Buhari-led government, this contribution formula raised eyebrows. The Guardian noted with concern the inequitable ownership and representation structure, besides that the beneficiary private owners of livestock appeared to have no financial input.  Furthermore, the NLTP was viewed as a surreptitious attempt by a distant federal authority in Abuja to impose its will and interest upon the land of the states and their respective indigenous peoples. It was a plan dead on arrival.

In 2020, a Nigeria Livestock Roadmap for Productivity Improvement and Resilience (LPRES) (2020-2026) was launched by the Federal Government. It was explained as ‘a six-year project (2020-2026), whose development objective is to improve Livestock productivity, resilience, and commercialisation of selected value chains, and to strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to respond to crises/emergencies in the livestock sector.” This is one of the many sophisticatedly named, attention-diverting policies and plans that governments in Nigeria initiate but characteristically fail miserably to execute.

The Tinubu-All Progressives Congress (APC) government offers, by the establishment of a ministry of livestock, to reform the livestock industry and provide long-term solutions to the recurring clashes between farming communities and itinerant cattle rearers. Very well. But let no one make any mistake: as this newspaper wrote a few years ago, first, the received opinion is the global tendency toward a private sector-driven livestock business. Second, ranching of livestock is the modern way to rear livestock. The days of archaic thinking that informed open grazing of cattle is gone and dead.

In 2016, Audu Ogbeh, as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the 2011 National Agricultural Sample Survey indicated that Nigeria was endowed with an estimated 19.5 million cattle, 72.5 million goats, 41.3 million sheep, 7.1 million pigs and 28,000 camels. By 2021, Food and Agriculture Organisation statistics put the number of ruminants at 146.1 million. This included 21.2 million cattle, 48.6 million sheep, 76.3 million goats, and 8.09 million pigs.

Besides being a global best practice, ranching is not new to Nigeria. It was practiced in north and south of this country from the colonial days into the days of the First Republic.  Even in modern day Kano State, the then governor, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, in the heat of the RUGA controversy, invited “herdsmen from all parts of Nigeria to relocate to Kano because we have enough  facilities to  accommodate  them…[including] Falgore Games Reserve [that] has been designed to  accommodate schools, human and animal clinics, markets, recreational centres and other social amenities that would provide the herdsmen enough comfort  to  take care of  their animals  and transact their business…”. This generous and forward-looking offer has never been taken up by either the Federal Government or the association of cattle rearers – for reasons only best known to them.

The Ministry of Livestock Development has, subject to the good intentions, commitment and political will of its creator, enough research materials, policy papers and experienced  local specialists to draw from that will enable it succeed. There should be no excuse for non-performance.

Tinubu’s Action Plan for a Better Nigeria manifesto promised to “reduce bureaucracy, streamline agencies, and decrease inefficiencies and waste …streamline the amount that government spends on itself… [and] strive earnestly to reduce the overall cost of the Federal Government”. It is not exactly pleasing to Nigerians that another layer of public cost is created in an already oversized government.

Available data puts livestock farming in Nigeria at about five per cent of the GDP and 17 per cent of the agriculture GDP. These contributions can grow hugely if the business is well structured, coordinated, and nurtured free of corrupt practices.

Therefore, if, hopefully, another ministry with its huge attendant cost to the public purse is what it will take to rescue the country from perennial conflict and  bring peace and ‘prosperity’ Tinubu envisages for the federation of which he is the chief executive, Nigerians are prepared to let it be. Nonetheless, we should say directly, let the cost not outweigh the benefits to the country.