Christian leaders and community representatives in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are warning that the Federal Government’s proposed ranching programme could create new disputes over land and potentially prevent displaced farmers from returning to their ancestral communities.

The concerns follow an August 11 announcement by Minister of Livestock Development Idi Maiha that Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Adamawa states, alongside the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), had been selected to participate in a pilot ranching programme.

Maiha said the initiative would begin at the Wase Grazing Reserve in Plateau State as a “proof of concept” for the government’s proposed ranching model.

The announcement has drawn opposition from church leaders, traditional representatives and sections of the Benue State Government, which has questioned whether the state has sufficient land for large-scale ranching.

Critics also fear that introducing ranches into communities already devastated by years of violence, killings, kidnappings and displacement could intensify existing tensions.

‘We Cannot Reward Our Killers With Our Land’

Air Commodore Titus Agbecha (retd.), President-General of Tiv Union Worldwide, said Benue's traditional and community associations were opposed to any arrangement that could allocate land to herders before displaced residents are safely returned.

“We cannot reward our killers with our land,” Agbecha said while speaking on behalf of Benue's tribal associations.

The debate comes against the backdrop of years of deadly violence between farming communities and armed groups in parts of Nigeria's Middle Belt.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) has reported that armed Fulani militias were responsible for a substantial number of civilian deaths during the period covered by its research. The organisation has described the violence as one of Nigeria's most severe ongoing security crises.

However, the identities, motivations and affiliations of armed groups operating across the region vary, and allegations linking all Fulani herders to militant activity remain disputed. Herders and farmers are not synonymous with armed militias.

Community leaders argue that the government's immediate priority should be restoring security and facilitating the return of displaced residents before committing land to new ranching projects.

‘Return the Displaced Before Building Ranches’

John Anthony Ikwulono, a former Deputy Chairman of Agatu and former State Assembly candidate, said Benue had limited land available for additional grazing reserves and ranches.

He argued that many communities had already lost farmland and homes as a result of prolonged insecurity.

“Fulani militia, who are mostly from Northwest, Northeast and neighbouring countries, have been attacking our communities for more than ten years, displacing more than two million of our people from their ancestral homes,” Ikwulono told Globalvoice.

He questioned why ranching initiatives were being proposed in predominantly farming communities in the Middle Belt rather than in areas traditionally associated with pastoral communities.

“The main focus of the government should be how to return, rehabilitate and reintegrate the IDPs before talking about ranches,” he said.

Ikwulono also alleged that the ranching policy could become a mechanism for acquiring farmland, a claim the Federal Government has not accepted.

Scale of Displacement Remains Difficult to Establish

There is no authoritative national dataset that separates displacement caused specifically by attacks attributed to Fulani militias from displacement resulting from Nigeria's broader security crises.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that Nigeria recorded approximately 5.7 million internal displacements between 2008 and 2025, including about 354,000 displacement movements in 2025.

The figures encompass multiple causes of displacement, including armed conflict, communal violence, criminality, flooding and other disasters.

Former Benue Governor Samuel Ortom estimated in 2023 that approximately two million people had been displaced within Benue as a result of attacks attributed to armed herders.

A senior Catholic cleric in the state, Rev. Father Remigius Ihyula, has also cited similar displacement figures in discussions about the humanitarian impact of violence in Benue.

Security and counterterrorism expert Pablo Williams Agada, Benue South Zonal Commander of the Civil Protection Guards, has put the number of Nigerians displaced by violence attributed to Fulani militias over the past decade at more than four million.

“More than four million Nigerians have been sent out of their homes by Fulani terrorists in the past one decade,” Agada told Globalvoice.

These figures represent individual estimates rather than a single independently verified national count.

Churches Raise Concerns Over Loss of Communities

Christian organisations in Benue have also expressed concern about the impact of violence on their members and communities.

Rev. Ta Targba, General Secretary of the Nongov Kristu Sudan-u-Tiv (NKST), also known as the Universal Reformed Christian Church of Nigeria, said thousands of church members had allegedly been killed and hundreds of worship centres destroyed in attacks attributed to armed Fulani groups.

“Over 5,987 of our members have been killed and 753 of our worship centres destroyed by Fulani terrorists over the past 10 years,” Targba told Globalvoice.

“We are either Catholic, Protestant or traditional worshippers and farmers. Why should we cede our land to the same murderers who are not from our state?”

The figures cited by Targba are church estimates and could not be independently verified.

For many Christian leaders in the affected communities, the issue is therefore not simply about livestock policy. They argue that land allocation cannot be separated from questions of security, displacement, ownership and the right of displaced families to return home.

Fears of Land Grabbing and Demographic Change

The proposed ranching programme has also raised concerns among some indigenous communities in the Federal Capital Territory.

Chief Bulus Nathaniel, a Gbagyi tribal leader in Abuja, described the proposed programme as a potential threat to indigenous land ownership.

“We are farmers and 98 percent Christians in Abuja and other Middle Belt states,” Bulus said.

He questioned why communities that have experienced repeated attacks would be considered for a pilot ranching programme.

“Why select our lands, which have been under ceaseless attacks by Muslim Fulani pastoralists who are not from our region, for the pilot ranching scheme?” he asked.

Bulus alleged that the initiative could facilitate land acquisition and demographic changes in the region, describing it as a possible “land grabbing and Islamization move.”

Such claims remain allegations and have not been established as the stated objective of the Federal Government's ranching policy.

The government has presented ranching as part of a broader effort to modernise livestock production, reduce open grazing and address recurring farmer-herder conflicts.

A Policy Caught Between Security and Agriculture

Nigeria's ranching debate comes at a time when the government is attempting to address one of the country's most persistent sources of rural conflict.

Supporters of ranching argue that designated livestock production areas could reduce clashes by separating farming and grazing activities, improving livestock management and providing pastoralists with more structured access to land and water.

Opponents, however, fear that poorly implemented ranching programmes could create new disputes over land ownership, particularly in areas where communities are already struggling to recover from years of displacement.

For displaced farmers in Benue and other Middle Belt states, the central question is straightforward: will they be able to return to and reclaim their ancestral farmland before new land-use arrangements are introduced?

Community leaders insist that restoring security and facilitating the return of displaced families must come first.

Until that happens, they warn, a policy designed to resolve farmer-herder tensions could instead become another source of conflict over the land that both communities depend upon.