How govt can resolve farmers/herders conflicts –Ugbor, Reps member

From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

In the past few years, farmers/ herders conflicts have been regular occurrence in different parts of the country, especially in Benue State. The seemingly endless conflicts have led to the death of several persons and displacement of many from their homes.

However, the deputy chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Environment, Terseer Ugbor, while blaming the conflict on climate change, says there is need for the government and stakeholders to take a holistic view of the crisis, so as to proffer lasting solution to the situation.

Ugbor, in this interview, in Abuja, also spoke on his plans to mobilize funds to resettle Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), from their communities as result of the herders/ farmers’ crises.

Recently, you organized a stakeholders forum on the impact of climate change on the farmers/ herders clashes in the country, especially in Benue. What informed that?

We convoked a stakeholders engagement few days ago to premiere a documentary called Behind The Valley. Behind the Valley, because, Benue as, you know, lies within the valley. When we say Behind the Valley, we mean, what are the issues that go on, where people don’t see every day on some of the crises, and the conflicts going on in Benue.

So, we came up with this initiative to showcase the challenges being faced by our people; showcase the challenges being faced by farmers, across Benue and North Central as a whole and ultimately attract supports and attract funding from international and local communities towards ameliorating the IDP issues, the conflicts.

Then of course, empowering the people on modern agricultural practices, climate smart agriculture, of course, empowering them with Better Homes where they can, start in their new lives. We talked about capacity building, peace building with engagement between farmers and herders, and traditional rulers and Community leaders to see how we can bring the issue of farmer header crisis to be a thing of the past.

. So, the event a few days ago was to launch this documentary, present the concept notes which we did. And it got very good reviews.

Already we have partnerships and are calls from several development organizations who have shown interest in collaborating with my office and to see that we can implement this programme and we can take this message to the International community at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly and upcoming Climate Conference, later this year.

So, we think that with what we have done so far, and the interest that our initiative has generated, we are on the right track towards at least making a mark on the issue of farmer/ header conflict in Nigeria.

The herders/ farmers clash has been blamed on climate change, are there plans to come up with bills to address the situation decisively?

There are a few bills in the National Assembly already in the work. I know my senior colleague, Senator Titus Zam proposed a bill on the establishment of a ranching commission to identify locations across the country specifically in the northern region, where the Fulani are indigenous to, mostly, and to see how we can invest in the animal pastoralism in Nigeria. So that, the source of our beef in Nigeria, which is majority from the headers, the Fulani, will not be cut short.

And we can also help them to improve the systems of animal husbandry; improve the practices, that they’ve been used to over the years. And help them to begin to consider ranching as an option for the management of their cattle.

The president has also proposed Ministry of Livestock, which we also think is a good initiative. We also believe that if this ministry is up and running, it will look at the issue of livestock, very holistically. And of course, in the long term help to reduce the issues of farmers /herders conflict in the country.

I will just point out, that if you look at the Federal Government investment in agriculture over the years; there have been a lot of focus on farming. There have been a lot of focus on entrepreneurship in the farming sector. Several years ago, we had a lot of entrepreneurship in fish production in poultry, in piggery and so many others. But there have been not much focus over the years on how we can invest more in our ranching industry in the country.

Benue State you know, used to have a ranch, which is in my constituency, in fact, that is my village. This cattle ranch was set up in the 80s. It was one of the most sophisticated ranches at the time. We used to crossbreed; some of the cows we found around Africa, which we eventually merged with what we call the Tor Tiv cows. Unfortunately, this ranch has been closed down

As a matter of fact, the ranch is currently occupied by refugees from Cameroon, who are escaping the Cameroonian separatist fighting. And so ithe aim of this ranch has been defeated. I made this point so that you know that the idea of ranching did not start today. It has been there for many years. Benue as a state has also contemplated establishing of a ranch.

So, we want to see a return to the ranching system. We want to see a situation where more enlightenment and more capacity building for farmers and herdsman in the country; to live in a mutual beneficial situation, where there’s little conflict and everybody flourishes in their own individual trade.

In the immediate, how do you think we can address this issue of herders/ farmers clash?

I think one of the immediate things that the government needs to do is the mediation between the farmers and the herders in the country. Of course, to improve security and protection for Farmers. So that they can return to their farms. Security is very paramount in achieving these things.

But we decided to look at it a lot from the humanitarian perspective, the displaced, persons angle, because when we did a survey of the situation, we found out, That over 100 thousand people are displaced so far in the last one year in Benue; statistics show that over two million people across the country have been displaced due to farmers / herders conflicts.

So, one of the areas that I decided to look at this issue is, how do we help these displaced people, to be resettled back to their communities and then, go back to their farming activities, with more security cover.

So, we are engaging with the state governments and the Federal Government. We recently engaged with the Nigerian Immigration Service in Benue to set up command and at the border between Nigeria and Cameroon. If you look at the Cameroon border in Benue State, there is no border post. There is no immigration. There is no security presence.

The next border post from Benue is in Adamawa, which I hear is over 2,000 kilometers. So, there is a wide range of space where there is absolutely no security. And so the herders, the bandits and traffickers and all kind of, have an easy flow into this farming communities and cause the destruction that we are witnessing.

So we are appealing and engaging with the relevant government agencies, to take the issue of security, very seriously to help to resettle our people back into their farmland. So that in the next short term 1, 2 years, people can return to their farms and begin to farm. We are also hoping that government can invest more in the storage and processing facilities in the country. Because we have also found that even in the situation of the farmers/herders conflicts, the little farming that is going on, almost half of the produce is wasted and there is very little value.

You have plan to attract 150 million dollars support for displaced persons, how do you intend to go about it?

Well, we are discussing with the Global Environment Fund. We are discussing with the Global Climate Fund under the United Nations. We are discussing with the Development Bank of Nigeria, the African Development Bank, we are discussing with the Nigerian government.

We intend to take this message to the International Community, to donor agencies across the world to see how they can intervene in the challenges that we are facing, as a result of climate change, leading to the herders/ farmers conflict.

Already, we have some commitments from several partners who are working directly with us and already. They’ve booked us to screen the documentary at some of the upcoming international, engagements, international conferences, where most of the global donors and partners will be present.

And so we hope that we can attract this international funding and we can also call more attention even from the Federal Government to see our concept notes as a viable mechanism towards achieving the objective of the federal government in reducing the farmer/herders conflict in Nigeria.

Our Target is 150 million dollars. It could be more; because the problem is far greater than even that amount. But we intend to start small, one home at a time. We want to build green homes to resettle people. We want to train them, and integrate them back into the communities.

And so, we will start with one IDP at a time. We start with building one home at a time. So, for states and local governments that are interested in partnering with us, and provide available land where we can build homes for displaced persons and train them and reintegrate them into society, we are willing and available to cooperate.

We are hoping that by the first quarter of next year, we would have began to attract some of the funding that we are anticipating, so that we can start the work along with stakeholders and to achieve the goal.

The post How govt can resolve farmers/herders conflicts –Ugbor, Reps member appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.

The post How govt can resolve farmers/herders conflicts –Ugbor, Reps member appeared first on Newsdaily.