By James Aduku Odaudu, PhD
The Federal Government’s description of Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Adamawa and the Federal Capital Territory as conflict-affected areas should actually strengthen the case for caution, consultation and reconstruction. These are not serious livestock-producing territories. They are communities that have experienced some of the country’s most severe and prolonged disputes involving land, farmer-herder relations, displacement, communal violence and insecurity. In parts of Kogi, particularly the border areas with Benue, similar challenges have also created deep concerns over the security of farming communities and the protection of ancestral lands.
It is therefore legitimate to ask why the pilot phase of a supposedly national livestock transformation policy is so heavily concentrated in the Middle Belt. If the objective is genuinely to modernise Nigeria’s livestock industry, Nigerians are entitled to know the objective criteria by which these locations were selected, the alternatives considered and why the pilot cannot be distributed more equitably across the country’s livestock-producing regions.
The concentration is sufficiently striking to raise legitimate suspicion among affected communities that the programme may have implications beyond livestock development—particularly the permanent acquisition, reclassification or occupation of land in territories already weakened by insecurity. This is not to assert, without evidence, that the Federal Government has a predetermined programme of land grabbing. Rather, it is to insist that government must explain why a policy presented as national livestock reform is disproportionately being located in territories where communities have already suffered displacement and insecurity.
That explanation is particularly important because of the sequence of events. Where a community has experienced prolonged violence and displacement and the same territory is subsequently identified for large-scale livestock infrastructure, ranching or settlement, the government must demonstrate that there is no connection between the two processes. Otherwise, an extremely dangerous perception could take root: that insecurity has effectively created an opportunity for the permanent reallocation of land.
Nigeria must never allow violence to become an indirect instrument of land acquisition.
A farmer who has been driven from his farm does not lose his legitimate interest in that land because he has been forced into an IDP camp. A family whose ancestral home has been destroyed does not surrender its inheritance because insecurity prevents its return. A village emptied by violence does not become vacant territory available for a new economic purpose.
This is why the Middle Belt’s concern goes beyond opposition to ranching. The central issue is the protection of land rights, citizenship, security and the future of communities that have already borne the consequences of prolonged violence.
The Federal Government must therefore publish the maps, land titles, ownership structures, beneficiaries, financing arrangements and legal instruments underlying each pilot project. It must identify the status of the land proposed for ranching and establish whether it is occupied, communally held, privately owned, subject to customary interests or affected by unresolved claims. Most importantly, it must establish whether displaced Nigerians formerly occupying or cultivating such lands are expected to return.
Before any land is permanently committed to a ranching or livestock settlement programme in a conflict-affected area, government should establish the identity and historical occupation of the affected communities; the status of displaced residents; existing land rights and legitimate claims; the security conditions necessary for return; the extent of destruction suffered by the community; and the mechanisms for restitution and compensation where applicable.
This should form the basis of a “return-before-allocation” principle. The displaced farmer should not have to compete with a newly established livestock project for the land from which he was violently removed. Let the displaced return first. Let homes be rebuilt. Let farms become accessible again. Let schools, clinics, markets and other community infrastructure be restored. Only thereafter should government contemplate permanent alternative land-use arrangements, and even then only after genuine consultation and lawful agreement with affected communities.
The Middle Belt therefore needs more than a livestock project. It needs an integrated Middle Belt Recovery and Reconstruction Framework encompassing security, resettlement, agriculture, roads, schools, healthcare, markets, water infrastructure, livelihoods and justice.
The farmer who has lost his farm needs security to return. The child who has lost access to school needs a functioning school. The community whose clinic was destroyed needs healthcare. The family whose home was burnt needs reconstruction. The farmer whose crops were destroyed needs agricultural support. And the victim whose relative was murdered needs justice.
A ranch cannot substitute for any of these.
Indeed, livestock development and community recovery should not be presented as competing objectives. They can proceed together if government adopts a comprehensive approach that modernises livestock production while simultaneously restoring communities affected by violence.
This places an enormous responsibility on the governors of the affected states. They cannot remain spectators while decisions affecting the future use of land within their territories are made. They should demand full disclosure of proposed land-use arrangements, detailed maps of proposed ranching areas, information on ownership and tenure, environmental and social assessments, and clear assurances concerning the return and resettlement of displaced citizens.
Except where they are complicit, governors should insist on answers before allowing their states to become the testing ground for a policy whose long-term consequences may extend well beyond livestock production.
The same responsibility extends to members of the National Assembly from the affected states. They should demand a full briefing from the Ministry of Livestock Development and scrutinise not only the projected economic benefits of ranching but also questions of land ownership, community consultation, security, resettlement, financing, beneficiaries and accountability.
The Federal Government should understand that the anxiety in the Middle Belt cannot be dismissed as opposition to development or hostility towards pastoralists. There are peaceful Fulani Nigerians who are legitimate cattle owners, farmers, professionals, businessmen and victims of insecurity themselves. They are entitled to the protection of the Nigerian state like every other citizen.
The issue is not ethnicity. It is law, land, security and citizenship.
Those who kill, invade farms, destroy property, kidnap, rustle cattle or participate in organised violence must face the law regardless of their ethnic or regional identity. Equally, no community should be collectively blamed for crimes committed by individuals or criminal groups.
The Middle Belt’s legitimate demand is therefore neither the exclusion of peaceful pastoralists nor the rejection of livestock modernisation. It is the insistence that development must not come at the expense of communities that have already suffered displacement and violence.
The Federal Government can eliminate much of the suspicion surrounding its ranching policy by demonstrating that it is genuinely an economic reform rather than a territorial project. It can do so through transparency, verifiable land records, published maps, clearly defined beneficiaries, community participation, protection of displaced persons and strict adherence to constitutional and statutory requirements.
The Middle Belt does not reject development. It does not reject livestock transformation. It does not reject peaceful pastoralists or national integration.
What it rejects—and what every responsible Nigerian should reject—is any development model that places economic objectives above the security, rights and legitimate interests of citizens.
No development policy should make the victims of insecurity feel that their suffering has made their land more valuable to somebody else.
That should be the central test of the National Ranching Policy in the Middle Belt.
- Dr James Odaudu is a development administrator and can be reached at jamesaduku@gmail.com
