The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh , has made known the plan of the Federal Government of Nigeria to commence the reconstruction of grazing reserves across the country. The minister said this in Abuja when he was visited by the participants of the Executive Intelligence Management Course Twelve (EIMC12) and Institute for Security Studies, Usma Dam, Bwari.
The Director of Information at the ministry, Nakorji Mohammed on Friday 15th March, 2019 quoted Audu Ogbeh by saying the grazing reserves had become necessary due to farmers-herders conflicts which have become a security threat in the country. He further added that the reconstruction of grazing reserves across the country has become very crucial as this will help the Federal Government to reduce the high unemployment rate in the country as the grazing reserves will help in creating employment in the agricultural sector of the economy.
The minister added that the government is not going to any state that is not interested in the reconstruction of the grazing reserves and they are not going to collect anyone’s land. He therefore used the opportunity to call on individuals who are interested and have the ability to build grazing reserves to do so, adding that the government would support such individuals.
The minister also called on members of the institute to focus on addressing the security challenges facing the West African region and Africa in general.
The director of the Executive Intelligence Management Course Twelve (EIMC12) and Institute for Security Studies who was represented by the Deputy Director Studies, A.M.Wali, said the purpose of the visit was to commend the country’s achievements in the agriculture sector. He also praised the ministry for its efforts toward curtailing “agro-terrorism” whereby people hoard farm inputs to create artificial scarcity.
The institute has participants from 21 agencies in Nigeria with participants from other African Countries which include Sierra-Leone, Niger, Liberia and Benin Republic. The theme of this year’s course is “Transhuman and International Migration: Challenges on Governance, Peace and Sustainable Development in sub-Sahara Africa’.