All through the two hour show, President Muhammadu Buhari struggled to answer the routine questions that Kadaria Ahmed, posed to him and his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
The Vice President regularly came to the defence of his principal, which prompted Ms Ahmed to, at some point in the debate, urged Osinbajo to allow Mr. President to answer his own questions.
Meanwhile, Kadaria has told President Muhammadu Buhari that whatever measures had been in place for the farmer-herdsmen encounters didn’t seem to have solved the problems.
She urged the President to provide cogent solutions to the problem.
Earlier, Buhari had argued that it was impossible to ask herders not to move through states.
The moderator responded that it was an old fashioned way of animal rearing.
Kadaria drew the attention of the President to the belief that his administration is perceived as being biased in mediating the problem because cattle rearers are ‘his people.’
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said the perception wasn’t true, and that the National Economic Council, of which he is the chairman, had approved a 10-year National Livestock Plan which will cost about N179bn, while all the 36 state governors are members of the NEC and are expected to provide land for ranching of their own volition.
While saying that the the Federal Government has no intention of seizing anybody’s land by force, the VPnoted that the current arrangement is a mixture of grazing and ranching, with government expected to build earth dams on river banks to take care of animals.
“Ranching will come as a long-term solution and to be built by private individuals,” the VP said.
