Nigeria’s newly created livestock ministry will receive 75 billion naira from the 6 trillion naira additional expednditure approved in the 2024 budget
The newly created federal ministry of livestock development has been allocated 75 billion naira as take-off funds in the 6 trillion naira additional expenditure approved for the 2024 appropriation act.
This is contained in the breakdown of the revised budget approved by the national assembly last month before it proceeded on its annual recess.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu’s decision to create the livestock ministry is as a result of the report received from the national conference on livestock reforms and mitigation of associated conflicts in Nigeria. Chaired by the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, the conference presented the president with 21 recommendations, including the creation of a ministry of livestock resources to bolster the livestock and dairy industries.
Recall also that on July 9 2024, President Tinubu inaugurated a presidential committee on implementation of livestock reforms to address obstacles to agricultural productivity and open up new opportunities which benefit farmers, herders, produce processors, and distributors in the livestock-farming value chain. This was an apparent follow-up to the unveiling, in August 2023, of a livestock master plan to guide the development of the country’s livestock sector which accounts for a third of the 21 percent of agriculture’s contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While President Tinubu chairs the committee on livestock reforms, a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, is the deputy chairman. The committee is expected to propose recommendations aimed at fostering a peaceful co-existence between herders and farmers, thereby promoting the security and economic well-being of Nigerians.
Take-off funds approved…
Moving things forward, the government took the step of seeking budgetary allocation for the new ministry to kickstart in earnest through the recent 2024 appropriation act amendment and allocated the sum of N75,000,000,000.00 (seventy five billion naira) accordingly. In July, the president requested the national assembly to amend the 2024 appropriation act with a budgetary increase of ₦6.2tn. The national assembly considered the request and expeditiously passed the amendment to the 2024 budget in less than a week. Recall that Tinubu had on January 1, 2024, assented to the N28.7 trillion 2024 appropriation bill passed by the national assembly.
The president said the activation of opportunities in the livestock sector under the newly created ministry of livestock development is to further explore the potentials in the sub-sector and facilitate peace-building. According to him: “When we have great opportunities in our states, why should Nigerians continue to experience conflicts? To enable Nigeria to finally take advantage of livestock farming, we have seen the solution and opportunity for this adversity that has plagued us over the years and I believe the prosperity is here in our hands.”
Details of the N75 billion on the livestock development
Effort to get the breakdown of the N75 billion allocated for the new livestock ministry was unsuccessful as the minister of finance did not make such details available while briefing the national assembly joint committee on appropriation and the lawmakers did not also deem it necessary to ask for the details of the funds earmarked for such an important project.
Nigeria’s perennial farmers/herders clashes…
Nigeria has been locked in years of conflicts between farmers and herders. Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria have deep roots and date back to pre-colonial times (before the 1900s). However, these conflicts have lingered on to become far more severe in recent decades due to population pressures, climate change, and various other factors. These attacks which used to be mostly in the middlebelt region have spread to other parts of the country. Thousands of people have died in the attacks. Benue, which is one of the states worst hit by the farmers/herders crisis, had enacted the open grazing prohibition and ranches law in 2017. But this has not addressed the crisis as substantial loss of lives and livelihoods continue.
