OPEN LETTER: To The Office Of The President
To: President Mohammadu Buhari,
The President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Dear Sir,
RUGA: STATE OF THE NATION.
Your intervention on the RUGA controversy was timely, for that, do have my appreciation on behalf of all peace loving Nigerian.
The intent of this letter would have been left with the office of the Vice-President, 
without the need to write you having written the Vice-President. Your shocking revelation to the Nation that you didn’t know anything about RUGA, neccesitated the need to bothered you, so you can be duly informed of our engagement with the office of the Vice-President on the National Livestock Transformation Plans, to guide against the repeat of the unfortunate occurrences of keeping vital information that could help you fulfil your duty to the Nation.
National Livestock Transformation Plans, is a lofty idea, given the content of the project, but the programme would have been better driven, focusing on the humans components from whom the crisis emanated.
National Farmers and Herders Transformation Plans NFHTP, would have been the appropriate nomenclature for the project.
However, the following available statistics, I believe will assist your office and that of the supervising office of the Vice-President on the need to concentrate on States having the needed resources (land) in abundance for the successful implementation of National LIVESTOCK TRANSFORMATION Plans.
NIGERIA’S 36 STATES & FCT, RANKED IN ORDER OF LAND SURFACE AREA.
RANK STATE KM²
1 Niger State 76,363
2 Borno State 70,898
3 Taraba State 54,473
4 Kaduna State 46,053
5 Bauchi State 45,837
6 Yobe State 45,502
7 Zamfara State 39,762
8 Adamawa State 36,917
9 Kwara State 36,825
10 Kebbi State 36,800
11 Benue State 34,059
12 Plateau State 30,913
13 Kogi State 29,833
14 Oyo State 28,454
15 Nasarawa State 27,117
16 Sokoto State 25,973
17 Katsina State 24,192
18 Jigawa State 23,154
19 Cross River State 20,156
20 Kano State 20,131
21 Gombe State 18,768
22 Edo State 17,802
23 Delta State 17,698
24 Ogun State 16,762
25 Ondo State 15,500
26 Rivers State 11,077
27 Bayelsa State 10,773
28 Osun State 9,251
* Federal Capital Territory 7,315
29 Enugu State. 7,161
30 Akwa Ibom State 7,081
31 Ekiti State 6,353
32 Abia State 6,320
33 Ebonyi State 5,670
34 Imo State 5,530
35 Anambra State 4,844
36 Lagos State 3,345
Do note sir, that Anambra, Enugu, Abia, Imo and Ebonyi States, put together equal, 29525KM², while Kogi alone is 29833KM², meaning the entire South East is a little less than Kogi State in land mass.
Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti States put together equal to 76320KM², Lagos is 3345KM².
Niger State is 76363KM², meaning Niger State alone is more than the entire Southwest States, excluding Lagos.
Sir, it is very obvious from the statistics provided that the north has more than enough land to take care of NLTP projects.
The focus of your government should be, how to make the North more habitable, which has always been your desire, so that your people can live and do their businesses, with limited exposure to risk. This I believe all Nigerians will readily support.
I need not remind you of your passion to have this done, which has never been hidden, I must commend your integrity, which drove your open request to the World Bank Group to CONCENTRATE on the North, a statement made public by Jim Yong Kim, the group President, in October 2017.
Quoting Kim “you know in my very first meeting with President Mohammadu Buhari, he said SPECIFICALLY that he would like us to SHIFT our focus to the northern region of Nigeria and we have done that”, (emphasis mine).
Though, Kim must have had a different professional opinion as the use of the word SHIFT, do suggest, he further clarified this when he said “but very, very much important is the need to FOCUS on what the DRIVERS of GROWTH in the FUTURE will be”, (emphasis mine).
Whatever those drivers of today’s growth should have been when you took over government in 2015, had focus SHIFTED from them and were jettisoned for your unalloyed commitment to your people.
Sir, may I appealed to you, to use the veto power exclusive to your office to initiate NLTP as a project to make the North habitable for Herders and their flocks through NLTP programmes, to further realised the need to give your people their needed upper hands over others in the Federation.
Do have the highest regard of my person and the support of all well meaning Nigerian as you do all within your power to suspend the drifting down South of herdsmen you once informed us are not all Indigenous to Nigeria but from nieghbouring countries, infiltrated by militia trained by Gaddafi.
The security of the Nation is in your hands, may, good health and wisdom be yours to provide it.
Yours, in search of a better and greater Nigerian.
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi.
President,
Project Victory Call Initiatives,
aka PVC-NAIJA
E-mail: president@pvc-naija.com.ng
PVC-NAIJA! It’s a change of order!!