El-Rufai to southern  governors: Your anti-open grazing law won’t work

OBIORA IFOH , Abuja

 

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, on Tuesday, said the state has embarked on a N10 billion cattle ranch project to centralise all herders in Kaduna.

 

El-Rufai, who spoke with newsmen shortly after a meeting with officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, said the project will be completed in two years.

 

The governor said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was assisting the state with about N7.5 billion for the success of the project.

 

He said the Northern States Governors’ Forum has already taken a position that open grazing is not a sustainable way of livestock production but ranching.

 

“But moving towards ranching cannot be done overnight. We have to have a plan; we have to have resources and we have to implement it sensibly. We have taken a position as northern state governors and we are implementing that.

 

“In my state for instance, we are developing a huge ranch to centralize the herders. And that is the solution a long time. But can it be done overnight? No.

 

“This project we are doing will cost us about N10 billion. The CBN is supporting us with about N7.5 billion. And it will take about two years to do.

 

“And I hope that the Fulani herdsmen, they will see that there are alternative ways of producing livestock instead of running up and down with cattle going to people’s farms to cause all kinds of problems. We want to solve the problem.

 

“What is unhelpful is politicising the situation and passing legislation that you know that you cannot implement. So, we have taken a position and we are working round the clock to implement that position.

 

“These herders emanate from the north and we are going to centralise them. We cannot do it overnight. We need billions of naira. This is just one ranch that is costing N10 billion.

 

“I have 14 grazing reserves in Kaduna State and I will like to turn them into ranches. Do I have 14 times N10 billion? I don’t have,” the governor said.

“This unpatriotic stance by the Buhari Presidency raises serious national anxieties of high-level complicity in the administration and further explains the reported compromising of our security system in the escalated killings and acts of terrorism in our country in the last six years under the APC.

 

“Nigerians can see why the APC-led administration has failed to take decisive steps to tackle terrorism, why it prefers to negotiate with terrorists and even makes case for them, instead apprehending and prosecuting them, as witnessed in the beheading of rice farmers in Borno state

 

“The PDP had always alerted of a connection between the APC and terrorists ravaging various parts of our nation and how the APC, as a party, had always failed to forcefully condemn acts of terrorism in our country.

 

“Nigerians can recall how the APC vehemently defended and still habours the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, a self-confessed terrorism apologist, despite national outcry and demand for his sack.

 

“Also, the APC has failed to account for the bandits, thugs and hoodlums it imported from neighboring countries to unleash violence on Nigerians and muscle the 2019 elections.

 

“If the APC and its administration have nothing to cover, our party challenges them to immediately publish the names of the sponsors of terrorism given to it by the UAE, instead of this vexatious desperation to provide official cover for them.”

 

 

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