Resolve Farmers-Herders Crisis Through NLTP- Gov. Lalong

Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, has said if the National Livestock Transformation Plan NLTP is fully implemented, the farmers-herders crisis would have long been resolved in the country.
The governor stated this on Tuesday during an interview on Channels Television breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily.

He noted that the National Livestock Transformation Plan was birth during President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure and has been partially used in managing the farmer-herders clash of which Plateau State adopted.

“When we came and we realised that what was really very prevalent was the Boko Haram issue and farmers-herdsmen issue, that was why the national livestock policy was introduced. But when we got to the period of implementation, there were a lot of problems here and there, even from some regions of the nation. Some who said they don’t want the national livestock plan or anything related to ranching because they don’t have the land,” he said.

“At that time, if the policy was well implemented, today we would not have been talking about the farmers-herdsmen crisis because that policy was well-drafted,” he said.
The governor, who doubles as the Chairman of, Northern Governors Forum, said most people pay little or no attention to reading the plan because they believe it is for a particular ethnic group. He added that as part of the policymakers who understand the plan’s effectiveness, he had adopted it in his state.

“Now people don’t even care about reading it. By the time ranching and grazing is mentioned, people believe it belongs to a particular ethnic group. So we don’t even want to read what is contained in the policy to even talk about accepting it to be implemented in our various states. Now you can see the menace everywhere,” he said.
“The policy is still there, why don’t we go back and address this issue because it was specifically not only about grazing. It was to assist the farmers-herdsmen crisis and also empowering the farmers and also empowering herdsmen to be kept in one place in the process of implementation,” he added.

It is worthy to note that NLTP was proposed by the former minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, in 2018 and was adopted by the National Economic Council (NEC) headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
The plan allows state governments to implement whichever aspect they feel comfortable with.