What I told Ortom and Darius Ishaku about herdsmen and the anti-grazing law - Governor Lalong

macfranc007 January 12, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Nigerian newspapers 24/7 Eromosele Ebhomele

Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau has declared that his administration will not enact the anti-grazing law in the state explaining that this was because grazing areas for cattle ranching have yet to be developed.

Governor Lalong stated this on Thursday, January 11, when he spoke with State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Lalong said that he had earlier advised the governors of Taraba and Benue against implementing the anti-grazing law in their respective states, even though he agreed that ranching remained the only way to guarantee peaceful farmers-herdsmen coexistence in the country.

He said: “When the governor of Benue was doing the law, I told him: 'Just be careful, take other steps before you start implementation’.

“But he said that states are different, that his own concept is different and for us in Plateau, it is different. I said I will not do the law before the implementation of certain things.

“I have not seen rangers; I have not yet developed the ranching areas. So, I cannot go and say I put up a law to stop who? If I stop people (herdsmen), what is the alternative?"

Lalong said that he had been convinced on the usefulness of the concept of cattle colonies being advocated by the agriculture and rural development ministry.

The governor said that the state government had already earmarked two large areas as sites for the grazing of domestic animals in the state.

He expressed the hope that the creation of cattle colonies would check the persistent farmers-herdsmen conflicts across the country.

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Lalong announced that Buhari would be visiting Plateau in February, 2018, and thanked the president for his intervention via the disbursement of bailout funds to states.

NAIJ.com earlier reported how Darius Ishaku said the state’s anti-open grazing law is not enacted to punish any religious group or tribe.

The governor disclosed this in a statement issued in Jalingo by his senior special assistant on public affairs, Emmanuel Bello.

The Taraba state’s Anti-Open Grazing and Ranches Establishment Law was enacted in June 2017 and it will take effect from Wednesday, January 24, 2018.

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