Ebonyi state government, yesterday told Federal government that the State has no land for cattle ranching.
The federal government had some days ago listed Ebonyi as among the ten states that have provided land for cattle ranch.
But addressing journalists after the state Executive Council meeting, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Barrister Ikechukwu Nwobo told the federal government that there was no vacant land for cattle ranch in the state.
Nwobo said “the state executive council frowned at the news making rounding that the State has directed or provided for a cattle ranche in Ebonyi State.
The highest organ of Ebonyi state is the state executive council and the state security council and any decision taken by this council is the last bus stop for the people and government of Ebonyi state. Whether the federal government consulted us, we are not aware of that. The State Executive council has decided and made sure that there is no land for ranching in Ebonyi State.
“We never provided land for ranching in Ebonyi State and it is still our position and that those land they said is for ranching is for those Northern state that have always been doing ranching which have been gazzeted before now.
“We have no idea that we were included in the ranching, we were not gazzeted. There is no land for any ranching in Ebonyin state and we are not aware that we are among those mentioned as ranching states.
“The Ebonyi State through the executive council wishes to state that the government has not provided or released any land for ranching, it has no plan to do that. The ranching programme being done by the federal government does not include Ebonyi State and it has been redirected to those states in the North where the farmlands have been gazetted and have ranching ground which they will now revitalized”.
