Pastoralists in Nigeria have said the National Ranches Commission Establishment Bill 2024 is a replication of the existing anti-grazing law set up by former Governor Samuel Ortom against pastoralists, and therefore would not address the protracted farmer-herder clashes in the country.
They made the declaration after the bill scaled second reading on the floor of the Senate, adding that the bill was a recipe for disaster.
In place of the bill, the National President of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Baba Ngelzarma told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to implement the recommendations of the Livestock Reforms and Mitigation Committee headed by a former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, set up to seek a lasting solution to the perennial farmers-herders conflict in rural areas.
Ngelzarma said former Governor Ortom of Benue State used the anti-open grazing law against the pastoralists and farmers in the state, adding that “it is an attempt to replicate what happened in Benue State.”
“The bill is coming from a senator from Benue State, that is why we are suspicious. If you study the bill, you will realise nothing has been said about the creation of grazing reserves. I don’t think even livestock is mentioned in the bill,” Ngelzarma said
Senator Titus Tartenger Zam (Benue, APC, Benue North West), sponsored the bill which among other things seeks the establishments of ranches for herders in their states of origin; five-year jail term and N50, 000 fine for defaulters, bars pastoralists from moving out of their states; as well as relocation of herders to their various states, provisions which many have said undermined the rights of the herders to move freely and do business in any part of Nigeria of their choices which the 1999 constitution guarantees.
Other provisions of the bill said the National Ranches Commission would oversee the management, preservation and control of ranches nationwide.
Ngelzarma said rather than establishing a ranches commission, the ministry of livestock and fisheries should be established in the interest of all.
