The Peoples Democratic Party House of Assembly candidate in Benue State for the 2027 election, Bemgba Iortyom, has called on the Federal Government not to bear the burdens of investing in individual businesses by establishing ranching for herders.
Iortyom, who made the call in a statement issued on Saturday and made available to journalists in Makurdi, advised the Federal Government to rather encourage livestock owners to establish ranches by acquiring land legally on their own.
The former state publicity secretary of the PDP was reacting to the Federal Government’s plan to select Benue among the five states to implement pilot ranching as a panacea for farmers/herders clashes.
The statement read, “As livestock farming is a legitimate private business, those who engage in it must shoulder the burden of acquiring land lawfully and ranch their animals just as crop farmers and other private entrepreneurs bear the burden of acquiring land and the facilities required for their businesses.”
The former state PDP spokesman asked why, if the problem was truly a farmer-herder conflict, the proposed solution focused exclusively on herders and livestock.
