In a resolute show of unity and political will, the National Assembly has thrown its weight behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ambitious livestock reform agenda, a bold strategy designed to defuse Nigeria’s long-burning farmers-herders conflict and confront the spectre of looming food insecurity.
The emphatic pledge came from Senator Saliu Mustapha, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture Production Services and Rural Development, who spoke in Ilorin, Kwara State, on the sidelines of a landmark Distinguished Personality Lecture held in his honour at the University of Ilorin.
The lecture, themed “The Political Economy of Livestock Development in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects,” was delivered by none other than former INEC Chairman and current Special Adviser to the President on Livestock Reforms, Professor Attahiru Jega, a man whose name evokes both intellectual gravitas and political reform.
Marking the university’s 50th anniversary, the event carried a sense of urgency and national purpose. Senator Mustapha, representing Kwara Central, declared unequivocally that the National Assembly stands ready to legislate sweeping, evidence-based reforms to modernise Nigeria’s livestock industry, end bloody communal conflicts, and ignite rural prosperity.
“We are fully aligned with President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly its transformative agricultural vision,” Mustapha stated. “Professor Jega’s lecture has laid out a powerful intellectual blueprint that will shape our legislative commitment in the months ahead.”
In his piercing address, Jega didn’t mince words. He warned that Nigeria teeters on the brink of a nutritional and economic disaster unless it overhauls its decrepit livestock sector — a sector crippled by antiquated systems, inadequate veterinary care, and decades of neglect.
He drew a direct line between the deadly clashes ravaging the countryside and systemic failures, including worsening land scarcity, the ravages of climate change, and chronic mismanagement of natural resources. His message was unmistakable: livestock reform is no longer just an economic imperative; it is a national security emergency.
“To feed our people by 2050, when Nigeria’s population may surpass 400 million, we must ramp up poultry production by 253 per cent, beef by 117 per cent, and milk output by a staggering 577 per cent,” he declared.
The high-profile event drew a cross-section of Nigeria’s academic elite, students, lawmakers, and policy minds.
Among them were the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Adedoyin Omeda, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Management Services), Fawole Adisa, who stood in for the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Wahab Egbewole.
Both hailed Professor Jega’s return to the intellectual stage, describing him as a rare breed, a public thinker whose scholarly rigour is matched only by his deep experience in governance.
