MACBAN urges northern governors to provide water, grasses in grazing reserves

The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has urged northern governors to provide water, grasses and basic social amenities in the “400 grazing reserves’’ located in the region for herders.

Alhaji Othman Ngelzarma, the National Secretary of MACBAN, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that providing these needs would serve as an interim measure herder/farmer clashes, pending the establishment of ranches across the country.

According to Ngelzarma, the designated grazing reserves covered an area of about five million hectares in the region.

Reacting to the southern governors’ ban on open grazing, the MACBAN scribe said that their position must not be ignored.

He called on the northern governors to open discussion with their southern counterparts on the policy to come up with solution to the security and socioeconomic issues around open grazing.

Ngelzarma also appealed to the Federal Government to assist each of the 19 states in the north to establish two or three ranches.

“We are never opposed to settlement of pastoralists throughout the country.

“To achieve this there has to be a model of settlement for the pastoralists to see and emulate because there was no any attempt by past administrations to modernise animal husbandry in the country.

“The pastoralists we have practice the primitive system they inherited as the only option available for them. This system is no longer sustainable considering the growing population, and demand for land that do not increase.

“The pastoralists are also bonafide citizens whose rights and privileges deserve protection.

“As a solution, the northern governors must open discussion with their southern counterparts on the matter in order to come up with an acceptable position for both farmers and herders in their respective states,’’ he said.

The MACBAN general secretary, however, urged the southern governors to consider the plights of the pastoralists while agitating for anti-open grazing policy for the sake of peace and unity of the country.

He advised them to temper justice with mercy in view of the prevailing “fragile’’ security situation in the country.

He noted that some of these herders were born and brought up in those states that open grazing had been banned.