Mr. Osita Okechukwu, the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria and a founding member of the Progressives Action Congress has described the development of N6.25 billion Katsina cattle ranch as being more important to the survival of the nation than the electronic transmission of results, which was rejected by the National Assembly this week.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Sunday, Okechukwu said that developing the ranch would bring an end to the constant conflict between herders and farmers in the country.
Okechuwu requested President Muhammadu Buhari to hasten ranch development across the country, and pledged to donate his community land for the project.
According to him, the “Katsina Ranch is a poster boy of the National Livestock Transformation Plan,” which should be embraced by all.
Okechukwu asked other states in the country to follow in the footsteps of Kastina by providing land for the establishment of ranches as a solution to the recurring but avoidable clashes between cattle breeders and farmers.
“For me, the flag-off of the N6.25 billion Katsina ranch is the end-game for the incessant and controversial herders/farmers clashes in Nigeria and hence the foremost news of the week.”
Asked why he rated ranch development as more important than the transmission of election results electronically,
Justifying his preference of cattle ranching over electronic transmission of polls results to secure fair and secure elections Okechukwu said Nigeria has lost more souls to herdsmen/farmers clashes than anything else.
“I doubt if there is any farming community in Nigeria, especially in the Middle Belt that did not lose one person.
“What of food insecurity unleashed by herders/farmer’s clashes? And you talk of polarisation of the country; methinks the clashes polarised our dear countrymen more than elections? It regrettably promoted our fault lines.
“The truism is the rise of separatist non-state actors like Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho is fueled by Herders/Farmers clashes. Their supporters are mostly victims of the clashes.
“Even us the Buharists are at pains on how the herders/farmers clashes more or less blurred the unprecedented Buhari’s Agrarian Revolution and rendered irrelevant Mr. President’s strides in physical infrastructure.
“Please, I am not saying that electronic transmission of results is not important but we should not forget that democracy is in recession worldwide and going by local parlance, APC and PDP are the same coins.”
