By Shehu Usman
The Fulani socio-cultural group, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, has rejected a bill that seeks to establish a national agency for the regulation and management of ranches in Nigeria.
MACBAN’s national president, Alhaji Baba Usman Ngelzarma, announced the association’s opposition to the bill at the weekend while speaking to newsmen in Damaturu, shortly after the inauguration of the state executive council of the association.
He said that a Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development should be created instead.
“The entire livestock value chain issues can be addressed holistically rather than what is going on now at the National Assembly, working to create a bill for animal husbandry or ranching,” he stated.
Ngelzarma opined that issues of production, processing, marketing, transportation and security-related issues can be addressed if there is a full-blown ministry dedicated to that purpose. He then called on President Bola Tinubu to implement the recommendations of the Livestock Reforms and Mitigation Committee, headed by the former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, which was set up to seek a lasting solution to the perennial farmers-herders conflict in rural areas.
“We submitted Jega’s report on livestock reform and mitigation sometime last year. We are looking forward to the President establishing the implementation committee so that implementation of that report starts in earnest,” he said.
Meanwhile, a bill for an act to ban open grazing and establish ranches as an antidote to the perennial clashes between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders in Nigeria scaled second reading after a slightly heated debate in the Senate.
