President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has told governors to make grazing land available for pastoralists.
The president made the call on Monday when he flagged off the agricultural mechanisation revolution for food security and commissioned the remodelled domestic terminal of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Airport in Minna, Niger State.
Tinubu said providing grazing land for herders would resolve the persistent violent clashes between farmers and herders leading to the loss of lives and farm produce.
He also appealed to the governors to pay wage awards to workers as to relieve them and their defendants of hunger and hardship.
Tinubu said, “You must care for our people, and re-orientate our farming population including the livestock programme. I don’t see why Nigeria cannot feed all the pupils in our schools with one pint of milk daily if our dairy system is well harnessed.
“I know what it means as an economic sabotage for roaming cows to eat up the crops and vegetation of our lands; it could be painful but when we re-orientate the herders and make provision for cattle rearing, the problems will be solved.
“The governors should provide the lands and I, as the president, am committed to giving you a comprehensive programme that will solve this problem towards banishing hunger from the land.”
He said the student loan scheme, social security programme for the elderly and the vulnerable, and other interventions would soon start to cushion hunger in the land
President Tinubu said the Federal Government would work with states to mitigate hunger and hardship, adding that the state governments should do the jobs and work the talks.
“We have seen the level of commitment here, from the state level. We have seen leadership. The success story of any leader will depend on their ability to do what they ought to do at the time it ought to be done,” he said.
Earlier, the Niger State governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, said agriculture is a key step of his Government with the intent to address the economy and engender prosperity for the people of the state and the country.
He said with government determination to cultivate ungoverned spaces, bandits would not have the power to control any part of the state
He said his government is rehabilitating and constructing major roads across the state to ease the movement of agricultural produce to markets.
Bago said the Minna airport, named after President Tinubu, had been in a deplorable condition for the past 13 years with a failed runway, dilapidated terminal building, lack of fire and safety equipment and runway lighting system.
He said the domestic terminal had been under construction for more than ten years because past governors abandoned it.
Bago praised President Tinubu for approving the airport as a special agro-processing free zone, adding that the zone has 3,000 hectares of land where 1,000 hectares each is dedicated for greenhouses, dairy and meat processing as well as agro-processing storage.
He said the state would explore over 3 million hectares of arable land, water bodies, 23 grazing reserves, and 94 forest reserves to improve the living conditions of people as part of its contribution to agricultural development.
