Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose took the bull by the horn when last week, he banned grazing and rearing of cattle in the state. In their stead, he wants all those interested in cattle farming to get their own private ranches. A bill will soon be sent to the State House of Assembly to make the movement of cattle from one location of the state to another a criminal offence.
Apparently irked by incessant attacks in the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen which peaked with killings and maiming in Oke Ako in the Ikole Local Government of the state, Fayose promised to confiscate any cattle seen anywhere in the state, except the ranches created for them by their owners.
For those who have followed the murderous activities and criminality of the herdsmen in parts of the country and the seeming inability of the federal government to find a handle to them, Fayose’s therapy would seem a desperate solution to a degenerate problem.
Before now, tempers have been high across the country due to the relative ease with which heavily armed Fulani herdsmen attack, kill and destroy villages ostensibly to settle disagreements with their host communities. From Benue to Kaduna, Enugu to Oyo states, their activities have left in their trail, sorrow and awe as host villagers are murdered and rendered refugees in their ancestral homes by an invading insurgent group that operates with near invincibility in the face of the inability of law enforcement agencies to apprehend them.
Day after day, week after week, the scourge has refused to abate despite the outcries of the most vulnerable communities of the herdsmen onslaught. As things stand, it would seem the fear of Fulani herdsmen has taken the toga of the beginning of wisdom. Why not? Not with the dexterity and near invincibility with which they operate. Not with the inability of the local population to match the superior gun power of the invaders. And when you add these to the inability of law enforcement agencies to apprehend them in action or abort their plans, the situation becomes that ugly. Not unexpectedly, this has encouraged the herdsmen to take laws into their hands in the style of the atavism of the state of nature.
Even in cases where villagers had prior information of impending attacks and promptly reported to the law enforcement agencies, nothing was done to forestall them. That was precisely the case with the killings in Enugu State where even after the governor was given copious assurances that security agencies were on top of the situation, the worst still happened.
Events in the latest attack in Ekiti State curiously followed the same predictable pattern. There were reports that even when the villagers reported the attack as it was going on, no respite came their way as the police refused to go into the bush with them.
Given the foregoing, the frustrations that led Fayose to these rather drastic measures can be understood. It is a desperate effort to protect his people from the frequent killings that are now consequent upon cattle rearing and movement of cattle from one place to another. It also underscores most poignantly the inherent contradiction in the seeming high premium cattle breeders now place on that animal over and above human life.
If the measures succeed to checkmate the clashes between his constituents and the herdsmen thereby saving valuable lives, the end has justified the means. It is not a matter of whether one likes Fayose or not. We all do not have to like him anyway. That is hardly the issue now.
We may also not like the messenger. But it is not a matter of taking the message and discarding the messenger. No! Both the message and the messenger are very relevant and useful in the instant case. After all, is it not said there is sense in nonsense?
The measures stand as Fayose’s solutions as chief security officer of the state to the clashes between the herdsmen and the local farmers. They may seem radical; they may appear harsh and capable of creating difficulties for genuine cattle breeders on the short run. There is also the difficulty of immediate enforcement in view of the fact that the herdsmen are already in the bushes in the state. For now, that is his response to the wanton slaying of his people by an invading insurgent group that places higher premium on cows over and above human lives and it cannot be faulted. Those who criticize his approach to this debilitating problem should come forward with their own solutions. He could ill-afford to sit by while his people are slaughtered by an invading insurgent group that has scant regard for human lives.
He wants to get at the source of this crisis and stem subsequent attacks. And in this, he sees controlling the movement of cattle from one place to another as the appropriate starting point. He is interested in saving lives and any other consideration should count less when it comes to the first law of nature – self preservation. Those were the issues of prime concern to the governor especially given suspicions that there are other motivations for the resurging onslaughts of the Fulani herdsmen.
It is difficult to fault the decisions irrespective of the difficulties they will create for cattle breeders in the interim. There could be the issue of where breeders will house their cattle between now and the time such ranches are established. All these immediate problems are to be admitted. But they have arisen because those whose duty it is to provide solutions to the drift to the precipice have failed to take action. They have become relevant in the face of the failure of the state to rise to its basic function of guaranteeing law and order.
So it is not enough to fault the strategy adopted by Fayose. He saw a yawning vacuum and sought to fill it. Those who created that vacuum should take vicarious liability for whatever shortcomings there are in Fayose’s therapy to the looming conundrum these attacks have come to represent. It may turn out the most dramatic way of drawing attention of the authorities to the potent danger in the senseless killings by Fulani herdsmen across the country.
And if the measures succeed in challenging the federal government to the reality of finding lasting solutions to this debilitating ill, then they have achieved their purpose in a teleological sense. Responses from the government have centered round the creation of grazing reserves. It has set aside N940 million in the current budget for the creation of such reserves across the country. There have also been denials over a purported bill before the National Assembly for the creation of grazing routes.
But whereas grazing reserves can be created for states in the north that are traditional cattle rearers, it makes no sense to talk of such reserves in the south. For Oyo State governor, Abiola Ajimobi, his state has no land for gazing reserves. Not only is the proposal against the Land Use Act, Ajimobi contends that it is also against the “law of natural justice to grab someone’s land to cater for another one’s cattle”. He spoke for many.
The other idea of grazing routes is also a contradiction of sorts as evidently dramatized in a recent interview by the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbe. He underscored the contradiction in the proposal when he said you cannot create a grazing route to someone else’s farmland. So we are left with the ranches which Fayose prescribed for those interested in cattle breeding in Ekiti State.
More seriously, this government must act quickly to diffuse the time bomb which these attacks have become. Resurging feelings by communities that they have no alternative than to resort to self-help in the face of the inability of the government to rein in the insurgents can only lead to anarchy. Fayose’s action should be a sufficient signal to the degenerate level the situation is inevitable sliding.
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