The Middle Belt Forum’s 17 August 2026 statement on the Federal Government’s cattle-ranching policy is troubling not because concerns about land acquisition, consultation, compensation or security are illegitimate, but because it frames them within a doctrine of ethnic territorial ownership. At its core is a claim that must be rejected: that parts of Nigeria belong exclusively to particular ethnic groups and that other Nigerians may be treated as outsiders regardless of citizenship or constitutional rights. This is inconsistent with the Constitution and with the region’s complex history. It seems to have been a page extracted right out of a Stone Age Manuscript!  2. The portrayal of Adamawa, Taraba and parts of Plateau State as exclusively indigenous Middle Belt territory from which Fulani people are historical outsiders is a historical and political revisionism. The Fulani are not strangers to these areas any more than other ethnic groups. In Adamawa and Taraba in par...