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By Chinyere Anyanwu
Kano State Governor, Dr. Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, has inaugurated a 27-member committee to organise a national conference on reforms in the livestock sector and attendant issues.
This he said is in a bid to put an end to the unyielding bitter conflict between sedentary farmers and nomadic herdsmen in Nigeria, even as he said the Ruga settlement policy was misconstrued.
The 27-member conference committee, headed by former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, also has Pro-Chancellor, Yusuf Maitama Sule University, Prof. Jibrila Dahiru Amin; Managing Director, Guardian Newspaper, Mr. Martins Oloja, among others, while the Kano State Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, serves as secretary of the committee.
Inaugurating the committee in Abuja at the weekend, the governor said it was tasked with the responsibility to work towards planning and organising a befitting national conference on farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria and to select appropriate themes for the conference.
He noted that the decision by his administration to host a national conference on “Livestock Reforms and Mitigation of Associated Conflicts in Nigeria” underscored the recognition that the primary business of government was law and order.
He recalled that in 2019, the Federal Government launched a 10-year National Livestock Transformation Plan to curtail the movement of cattle, boost livestock production and control the country’s deadly herder-farmer conflict.
He, however, regretted that inadequate political leadership, delays, funding uncertainties and a lack of expertise derailed the project, while the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the challenges.
“It is regrettable that deficient political leadership, popular misperceptions about its purpose and widespread insecurity hindered its progress,” he noted.
According to him, the move by the Federal Government to establish the Ruga Settlement, which was received out of misconception with mass criticisms, resulted in the suspension of the project in which contracts had already been awarded.
Ganduje said, “there is also a clear sense which I think must be appreciated, that the Federal Government cannot dictate to states what to do with their land. This is so because the Land Use Act of 1978 puts land under the control of governors on behalf of their states.”
