Government of Niger State has said that the Northern states have the potential to accommodate the Ruga settlement plan of the federal government.
The federal government designs Ruga settlements to solve the country’s ongoing conflicts between peasants and herders.
The Secretary to the Government of the Niger State (SSG), Ahmed Matane, said in an interactive meeting with newsmen on Monday in Minna: “the North had the biggest land mass in the nation with a larger part mainly untapped.”
He added that Northern state governors, in collaboration with the federal government, should put the land into judicious use through the Ruga settlement initiative.
He said the initiative could look at the possibility of reactivating the structures already put in place by the defunct Northern Region government through the many grazing reserves that abound in the North.
According to him, most of the reserves had been gazetted with already developed structures but abandoned.
Matane added that they should be rehabilitated and upgraded for use, pointing out that the ongoing discontents over the proposed settlement were needless.
He said, “Bringing the nomads together would end the conflict thrown up by the struggle for space. The Ruga initiative would lead to the development and enhancement of the livestock value chain.”
“Livestock development is big business. The value chain is enormous and will attract huge foreign exchange for the country. The leather alone is a multimillion naira business and in the ongoing diversification drive of the federal government from oil to agriculture; livestock subsector could be the key flagship,” he explained.
The SSG said Niger State had already taken the lead through the rehabilitation of the 45, 000 hectares Bobi Grazing Reserve in Mariga local government area.
According to him, the present administration, under the leadership of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello, would expedite action towards promoting pasture development for Pastoralists at the Grazing Reserve.
He explained that the settlement of Pastoralists at the Grazing Reserve would turn nomadic Pastoralists into mixed Farmers who will take up crop farming to supplement livestock farming.
