Pilot Ranching on The Graves of Victims of Mass Atrocities
FORUM OF AYATUTU PROFESSORS (CAC/IT/No.7373018), a not for-profit and non-political organization was incorporated on 28th February 2024 with corporate office located at No. 7, New Bridge Road, Ashby Building, Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. It is a body of academic leaders, intellectuals, of Tiv extraction dedicated to the preservation, advancement, and socio-economic protection of the Tiv nation and the broader Benue community.
The Purpose of the Press Statement:
On August 11th, 2026, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Minister for Livestock Development, Alh. Idi Mukhatar Maiha announced the selection of Benue State amongst five states and the FCT, designated for the pilot implementation of its National Ranching Policy. According to the Minister, the announcement was made after consultations with 34 pastoral groups and pastoral leaders, not the indigenous people or the community host of this proposed pilot ranching policy.
Benue citizens at home and in the diaspora received this announcement with disbelief and shock. Accordingly, Benue citizens, individuals (private and intellectuals), the religious, socio-cultural and civil society organizations in Benue, other parts of Nigeria and in the diaspora, have countered without delay their total discontent and rejection of this policy. Citizens from other affected Middle Belt states have also rejected this policy. By this pronouncement, the Federal Government has manufactured discontent and resistance, and there are consequences. Rather than celebrate the policy, the pronouncement has moved citizens from gratitude to resentment and resilience.
Given all the public outcry from Benue Citizens with conscience, and across the Middle Belt States, the Forum of Ayatutu Professors (FAP) commends all the citizens and groups that have stood up to be counted in this struggle.
To this end, FAP also, totally and comprehensively rejects this misguided and mischievous policy of pilot ranching in the Middle Belt States in the manner and time it is designed and proposed for implementation. FAP equally rejects and describes as fabricated propaganda the Federal Government’s reason for the choice of States for the Pilot Ranching Programme. According to the Minister, the selection of the pilot states is ‘based on the preponderance of herder-farmer conflict.’
FAP wishes to state unequivocally that this organized conspiracy, mischievous and prolonged narrative of the annihilation of a people as “farmer-herder conflicts” must end now. There is no conflict between farmers and herders in Benue State. Instead, it is a case of fully armed invaders, some coming from outside the country, that attack communities in their sleep, kill their members, destroy their farms and take over their lands. The decades of humiliation and displacement have made a huge population of Benue people homeless and destitute in dehumanizing IDP camps. Rather than help with the unpleasant memories and look forward to the future, the Federal Government in collaboration with the state is facilitating strategies for new graves.
The global outcry already suggests that a fierce fight against a humiliating and dehumanizing political and economic policy that threatens our collective existence and survival is raging. The hidden architecture of this policy is to systematically write people of the targeted states and their cultures away from history. It is of land grabbing, stealing people’s land to feed the animals of the wealthy and the caliphate.
Historical Background to Ranching and Grazing Reserves (GRs)
Building on a solid historical foundation, this Press Statement offers a comprehensive treatment and its position on the planned pilot ranching especially in Benue State. FAP begins with the clarification of certain assumptions. It is significant to establish and emphatically state that ranching is not particularly a new phenomenon to Benue Citizens. For the avoidance of doubt, material and historical facts exist on the trajectory of ranching policy in Benue State dating to 1953 when a Livestock Investigation and Breeding Centre (LIBC) was established in Raav in the present day Gwer West/Gwer East, where investigations were carried out on disease entities within the region. The civilian administration of Mr. Aper Aku is also known to have established the Ikyogen Cattle Ranch in Kwande Local Government between 1982 and 1983. In 2017, the Government of Dr. Samuel Ortom enacted the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Establishment law. These initiatives confirm that ranching is not a new phenomenon to Benue citizens. It also clarifies that Benue citizens are not oblivious of the importance and economic values associated with ranching. These initiatives also defeat any misconception or misinterpretation that, the public outcry and the outright rejection that have followed the Ranching Policy pronouncement are targeted at the economic values of the policy.
In 1965, the Northern Region enacted the Northern Nigeria GRs law to provide the legal framework to acquire, demarcate and gazette specific tracts of land primarily in the Northern Guinea Savannah zone. The law also provided for Fulani amenities in the designated grazing reserves. The GRs nationwide are 417. Of these, only 140, covering a land mass of 4.5 million hectres were officially gazetted as grazing areas. The remaining so-called GRs have not been gazetted.
It is significant to bring to the attention of the public that there are no gazetted GRs or designated grazing routes (DGRs) in Benue State. The Benue State government has consistently maintained that no lands within the State have been officially gazetted, allocated or approved for GRs, grazing routes, Cattle Colonies, RUGA (Rural Grazing areas) settlements or National Livestock Transformation Programme (NLTP).
The National Livestock Transformation Programme (NLTP)
This emerging land grab policy demonstrates the relentless conspiracies and tyrannies of the past and current political landscape to ranch and spit on the graves of the victims of annihilation and mass atrocities in the Benue territory through the NLTP. The arguments in favour of this policy are not in doubt. However, like other previous attempts, this policy also suffered similar fate for the same reasons of the violation of certain provisions of the Land Use Act, 1978. Its reintroduction clearly confirms the insensitivity of the Federal and State Governments to the plight of the victims of decades of annihilation and displacements. Theirs, is the fate of forgotten suffering.
Legal Implications of the proposed Policy: Recognizing the existing constitutional provisions and the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Establishment law (2017), FAP hereby states that the proposed policy of pilot ranching is unconstitutional, illegal, unlawful, null and void at the very threshold, for the following reasons:
The Federal Government has no constitutional or legal right to confiscate native lands and hand over to pastoralists under any guise.
Nor may the Benue State Government lawfully acquire lands belonging to Benue natives and vest them in the hands of the Federal Government, for the purpose of being transferred to pastoralists. For, the law is well settled that land can only be lawfully acquired by any State Governor for a public purpose, thereby excluding acquisition for the purpose of transferring title/possession to private individuals or organisations.
It is also settled law that mere governmental policies do not and cannot override the express provisions of any written law, in this case, both the Land Use Act and the Benue State Anti-Open Grazing Law of 2017. For the avoidance of any doubt, while the Land Use Act enjoys constitutional flavour, the Benue State Law enjoys constitutional backing, having been duly enacted by the Benue State House of Assembly and signed by the then Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom.
Sections 43 and 44 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) have guaranteed right to property for the embattled Benue indigenes. No policy of any level of Government (in this case, the so-called pilot ranching policy of the Federal Government) has any atom of capacity to override the express provisions of the Constitution. The Constitution of Nigeria is superior to all other laws made in Nigeria, not to mention a mere policy of government.
People before Profit: The Priorities of the Benue People:
FAP’s intervention is based on government’s determination to dispossess Benue People of their only means of survival. FAP finds the decision to pilot its ranching programme at this moment insensitive, misplaced and unacceptable. Accordingly, FAP notes the following:
Conscious that Benue people are not opposed to ranching within the confines of the Benue State Anti-Open Grazing Law only;
Conscious that they are firmly opposed to any ranching exercise undertaken by the Federal Government;
Noting also with great concern the deliberate neglect by the Federal and State governments of the widows, orphans, and the dependents arising from the decades of attacks;
Noting the State Government unwillingness to facilitate the safe return of the displaced people to their ancestral homes;
Noting with greater concerns the fears of dispossessing people’s land for the occupation by their killers;
Concerned about the negative impact of land grabbing on human rights, on the uprooted and displaced vulnerable population of widows, orphans and dependents;
Cognisant of the importance of the cultural fact that our people do not abandon their dead, and the religious and traditional connection to their homesteads;
Reaffirming the people’s commitment to defend themselves from marauders and their collaborators;
Recognising government abdication of its constitutional responsibilities to protect its citizens;
Acknowledging the existence of several international protocols that guarantee the safety and protection of lives and properties of citizens; and
Benue People have the fundamental rights to approach appropriate international organisations and agencies to seek redress;
Accordingly, FAP recommends that the immediate priorities and responsibilities of the Federal and State Government should be:
1) Ensure non-negotiable justice for the over 1,000,000 uprooted and displaced population who are mostly widows, orphans and dependents across Benue State.
Ensure adequate security, provision of the required infrastructures and guarantee their safe return to their ancestral homes without further delays.
2) Pay without delay a minimum of 1 trillion Naira compensation to the victims of these terrorists across the state. This is the least any responsible government can do to its citizens that have suffered decades of deprivation, dispossession and displacement due to its failures to protect its citizens.
Immediate construction of at least 40 dams across the state to enable the returnees to walk away from their decades of misery in ill-conceived IDP camps and return to their agrarian activities with greater self-confidence.
3) To immediately commence the dredging of River Benue in Makurdi and Katsina-Ala for irrigation of farming activities to boost food production for food security.
4) Ensure the immediate and unconditional vacation of the Fulani from the swaths of land they have forcefully taken from communities in Benue.
Conclusion:
FAP rejects this repressive policy in all its ramifications and in whatever shape or form. FAP therefore calls on both the state and federal government as a matter of urgent priority, to respond to the recommendations above. FAP commends all those that have stood up to be counted on this ungodly policy.
FAP calls on all Benue citizens at home and in the diaspora to note strongly the attitude of their elected representatives. FAP demands that all the elected leaders and all political appointees must declare their position on this matter now. The moment for accountability and true representation is now. Benue Citizens will not negotiate their future with any collaborators.
FAP also calls on Traditional Institutions to courageously remain united and stand with their subjects. Traditional leaders must recognise that decades of attack and annihilation have destroyed the future and cultural heritage of their people. FAP has credible information on a clandestine attempt to acquire 500,000 hectres of the coastal line along River Benue for this purpose.
FAP recognises that there are no easy victories, but this is a movement of the heart. It is a struggle against the hidden architecture of land grabbing and resettlement plan for marauders and terrorists. It has been a struggle since 1804 that has remained unabated. Government and politicians must not take for granted the emotional charge around this repressive policy. The atmosphere is thick and the sky is cloudy, dark and pregnant.
FAP demands that the Federal Government suspends this policy until the issues raised in this Press Statement are adequately addressed.
Long Live Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Long Live the Good People of Benue State
Long Live the Dispossessed and Displaced People
signed
Tor Joe Iorapuu KSM, Simon Verlumun Irtwange
Chairman, Board of Trustees & Secretary, Board of Trustees Council of Management & Council of Management
Dated: Saturday, 22nd August 2026
