20/08/2026
LETTER TO THE TIV TRADITIONAL COUNCIL: PLEASE TREAD CAREFULLY ON THE GRAZING AND RANCHING INITIATIVE
THE PRESIDENT OF THE TIV TRADITIONAL COUNCIL, HRM BEGHA U TIV, PROFESSOR JAMESE IORZUA ORTESE AYATSE TOR TIV (V),
We write this with utmost respect, but also with a heavy heart as Tiv sons and daughters of the IJOO AVE KA TAHAV DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION WORLDWIDE (JAKT) in Benue State who have witnessed the pain our people have endured over the years.
Your Majesty, the Benue people have suffered immensely from attacks, killings, displacement, and the destruction of farmlands associated with open grazing and armed herders. Many families have lost loved ones, homes, and their means of livelihood; our farmers have lived in fear on the very land that sustains them.
We therefore humbly appeal to you to tread very carefully with the Federal Government's pilot grazing and ranching initiative.
This is not a rejection of peace, development, or any genuine solution to the unwarranted attacks and killings of innocent people of Benue State. Rather, it is a call for caution and for the voices of those most affected to be placed at the center of every decision.
Your Majesty, before Benue accepts any arrangement that may involve grazing or ranching, Please let there be wide consultation with farmers, traditional rulers, community leaders, victims, internally displaced persons, and the people of Benue at home and abroad. Their fears, experiences, and opinions must matter.
We must also ensure that whatever policy is adopted does not undermine the Benue Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, threaten our farmlands, or create another avenue for displacement and insecurity.
Your Majesty, history will judge every decision we make today; please listen carefully to the cries coming from the people and ensure that no policy is implemented at the expense of the safety, land, livelihood, and dignity of the people of Benue.
We desire peace; we desire development; we desire coexistence. But above all, we desire a Benue where our people can live, farm, and sleep without fear.
Why does the federal government never see Sambisa Forest as a place to establish ranching?
Why does the federal government have so much interest in cattle rearing—a private business—yet show little interest in crop farming?
Why has the federal government never considered introducing ranching policies in the far north where livestock farming and business are preferred choices?
Why impose this policy on the people of Benue State without proper consultation? That conveys a different message to the people of Benue State: that the federal government wants to take over the land and enslave the people.
Your Majesty, the IJOO AVE KA TAHAV (JAKT) GROUP appeals to the traditional council to deeply consider the plight of its people, who are predominantly farmers, in light of a policy that is presumed to have a hidden agenda unknown to the Benue indigenes, as we unanimously say NO to the federal government's agenda.
Please, Your Majesty, tread carefully.
------Sign by------
Engr Pool David P. Aôndoyima.
president general 👇
IJOO AVE KA TAHAV DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (JAKT) WORLDWIDE.
