Dear President Buhari,
I would like to draw your attention to three issues, which the people have been talking and writing about, often as separate issues. They are: (1) the Fulani herdsmen’s atrocities; (2) the shortage in power supply; and (3) the shortage in fuel supply. Your handling of each of these problems is already affecting the people’s perception of your governance style and your administration’s change agenda. About each one, the people are already saying “This is not the change we voted for”. They may be wrong, but you have to prove them wrong by your action, realising that the combination of these three problems could potentially bring down your administration, if left unresolved or if the resolution is unsatisfactory or perceived to be so.
The three problems have four things in common. First, each of them has serious economic implications, which directly affect the people’s lives. Second, the problems are wide-spread enough to be classified as national problems. Third, the solution to the problems is beyond the capacity of individuals, communities, or even states. Yet, fourth, each of the problems is perceived to have suffered from delayed, tepid, or unsatisfactory response from your administration.
Let me use the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen as a point of reference for the other problems, partly because the perpetrators are identifiable and partly because of the direct impact of their atrocities on human lives and property. There is no geographical zone in the country in which Fulani herdsmen have not killed, maimed, robbed, kidnapped, raped, or destroyed farms or whole villages.
Their atrocities are second only to Boko Haram’s in intensity. Indeed, they have covered more territory than Boko Haram, having struck in virtually every state of the federation. It is estimated that, since 2010, Fulani herdsmen have killed over 3,000 people, raped hundreds of women, and destroyed property worth billions of naira. They have also been involved in robbery and kidnapping across the country, especially in the south.
A chronology of the attacks reveals that early intervention by the administration could have saved further destruction of lives and property. Yet, the press was sufficiently loud and clear in advocating the government’s intervention after each and every attack. Unfortunately, nothing was done, and still not enough has been done.
Today, the implications of the repeated attacks on the economy and national security have attracted global attention. For example, in a recent report by Mercy Corps, a British-based humanitarian group, Nigeria is said to be losing about $14 billion annually in potential revenues due to conflicts between farmers and herdsmen in the North-Central zone alone. By the same token the Global Terrorism Index has included Fulani herdsmen in the list of terror groups.
These developments do not bode well for food security and your administration’s proposed investment in agriculture. Similarly, the investment in cultural tourism will be wasted if the present trend continues as no tourist would want to visit an insecure environment. Moreover, because of the confluence of ethnicity, religion, and region in the identity of the Fulani herdsmen, which coincides with yours, there are insinuations that the lethargy in your intervention is motivated, more so that you are yourself the declared owner of 270 heads of cattle.
It is not the case that you have not been attending to these problems one way or the other. We know that work is going on with regard to power and fuel supply. The problem is that no one knows exactly how much work is going on and when significant improvements will come. All we know is drastic reduction in power supply and soaring pump prices of petrol. The doubts are intensified by conflicting signals in both energy sectors of the economy since the inception of your administration.
As for the herdsmen’s attacks, the people are dissatisfied with the distance being maintained between you and the families of the victims of the attacks and their plundered communities. They wonder why you have not physically visited any of the communities and directly expressed your sympathy live and on the spot. They wonder what you learnt from how other world leaders respond to domestic disasters involving fatalities.
Of course, they are aware that you have ordered the military and the police to secure the communities under attack and arrest the perpetrators. At least, you went one step further than you did in the case of Chief Olu Falae, who was abducted by Fulani herdsmen in September 2015. You ordered the police then to rescue him but forgot to defend his farm, which was again plundered a few days after his release.
Nevertheless, the people’s impression this time round is that you have either been too slow in your response or that your proposed solutions are inadequate. Securing communities under attack is not a defence of communities yet to be attacked. An initial step towards defending such communities is to disarm the herdsmen in order to render them incapable of attacking other communities with lethal weapons.
Delayed response has also affected the people’s reaction to your proposal for the establishment of grazing reserves across the country.
Resistance is mounting against the proposal in the southern parts of the country, reflecting the degree to which the people’s anger has boiled since such an idea was muted seven months ago, following the abduction of Chief Falae by Fulani herdsmen. Had you acted on various proposals then, the disasters that followed would have been averted.
The fact of the matter, Mr President, is that there is no need to federalise cattle rearing by establishing grazing reserves with taxpayers’ money, just as cocoa, goat, and poultry farms are not so federalised. Let each cattle farmer establish his own ranch and rear his own cattle within the ranch.
What the government should do is to assist in providing loans and high yield grass to the cattle farmers just as the old Western Region government assisted cocoa farmers with loans, seedlings, and insecticides.
Since cattle farmers are concentrated in the North, southerners, who want to eat beef, should be prepared to pay for the cost of transporting the cows to their states in trucks. It is a sacrifice they should be willing to make to secure their own farms from destruction by cattle, while also securing the safety of their lives and property from incessant attacks by Fulani herdsmen. Of course, if any cattle farmer wants to settle in the south and set up a ranch there, all well and good. It should be left to him to negotiate land with the locals and the state government. The Federal Government should stay out of it.
Let me close by drawing your attention to Uruguay, a small country of just over three million people in South America. In this country, cattle outnumber people by four to one, and farming is the mainstay of the economy. Yet, there are no clashes between cattle farmers and crop farmers. How do they do it? Every cattle farmer has a ranch within which the cattle are herded and reared.
What the government has done is to assist the cattle farmers by standardising their practices. For example, the government has spent over $3 million in developing and implementing a programme by which all cattle in the country are electronically tagged at birth. Today, Uruguay is the only country in the world with a traceability system by which consumers at home and abroad know exactly where the beef on their table comes from and how it was raised.
I trust that one or all of Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity; and Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, will bring this letter to your attention.
PUNCH
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