Middle Belt Forum Rejects Ranching In Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Others

The Middle Belt Forum (MBF), has rejected the Federal Government’s renewed cattle ranching policy, describing the proposal as a forceful land-grabbing scheme by the government dressed up as livestock development.

MBF said hundreds of thousands of hectares of Middle Belt land have already been forcefully abandoned or occupied following unrelenting attacks, killings and displacement attributed to armed herdsmen.

In a statement issued by the MBF spokesman, Luka Binniyat, the forum maintained that instead of restoring the occupants of those lands to the displaced owners and securing them against further attacks, the government is considering taking more land for cattle settlements, “This is unfortunate and unacceptable.”

The statement demanded the immediate suspension and cancellation of the ranching policy in the Middle Belt.

MBF called on affected communities to use every lawful and constitutional means available to resist its implementation.

The statement urged legal practitioners across the Middle Belt to mobilise and challenge in court any unlawful land acquisition, “or allocation of land to those who seek our annihilation.”

“We demand that National Assembly members from affected states to defend their constituents lands and summon the Minister and inform him about the negative result of this policy at a time that all indigenes of proposed states are wary of Fulani presence.

“The Middle Belt Forum (MBF), after carefully studying the federal government’s renewed cattle ranching policy, unequivocally rejects the proposed allocation of Middle Belt lands for ranching and the disguised establishment of settlements for Fulani pastoralists.”

According to the statement, “Adamawa, Plateau, Kaduna (Southern Kaduna), Benue, Taraba States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are all lands of the Middle Belt which suffered the worst atrocities carried out by Fulani Militia. Attacks are still ongoing in some of these areas.

“Jigawa, Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, Zamfara Northern Kebbi have thousands of square Kilometres of empty, unused lands that are not inhabited and there is no justification for why none of these states is in consideration for the pilot scheme of the ranching project.

MBF said, “Also, we are alarmed by the changing list of proposed locations. When the minister announced the initiative in January 2026, Kano State was among the six proposed locations. Kano has now been replaced by Nasarawa State, placing another Middle Belt state at the centre of the programme.

“A policy imposed without the genuine consent of every stakeholder – not only politicians and elites – after exhaustive consultation and security assurance guaranteed the owners of the land, can only breed conflict. It will deepen resentment and could trigger serious problems.

“The MBF will not stand by while our ancestral land is taken from their owners.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must realise the danger of this policy and its negative electoral consequences ahead of 2027 Presidential election.

“Governors who surrender ancestral lands for this programme must know that their people will remember, especially those seeking re-election,” the statement added.