During his interaction with farmers in Akure, Ondo State on the recurring attacks by Fulani herdsmen, the Inspector-General of Police (IG), Solomon Arase dropped a lead that should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. For, in that disclosure could be located the complex dimension clashes between local farmers and Fulani herdsmen have assumed in recent times.
Perhaps also, that hint may proffer partial explanation for the increasing resort of Fulani herdsmen to such violent activities as armed robbery, kidnapping and the sacking of whole villages with sophisticated weaponry. Arase had in answer to a question from a farmer said, most troublesome herdsmen were not Nigerians but foreigners who entered the country with their cattle due to the porous borders.
In his words, “Most of these herdsmen are not Nigerians. They are people from Mali, Chad who came into our system. So that is why we have to be careful. Our borders are porous. Predominantly, our own herdsmen are law abiding people”. He further said that when people come from outside with their cattle, we should not deny them entry because of ECOWAS protocol but at the same time, we should not allow them to embark on criminal activities
The issues raised by the IG are as weighty as they are controversial. Though he may be hard put when tasked on statistical evidence of the correlation in the violence index between foreign and local herdsmen, nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that many of these herdsmen are foreigners from neighbouring countries. It will therefore amount to an undue dissipation of valuable energy to venture into the veracity or otherwise of which of the two classes of herdsmen are responsible for the rising criminality as corroborative data may not be readily available. For now, it is safer to presume that both share responsibility for the criminal activities that are now associated with Fulani herdsmen.
However, there is no denying the fact that unhindered migration of foreign herdsmen and others into the country is not new. There are also issues of sanguinity, religious and cultural affinity which impose serious constraints in differentiating between Nigerian herdsmen and their foreign counterparts from Niger, Mali or Chad. All these have had the combined effect of levying serious security challenges on this country. It is for the same reasons that we were encountering so much difficulty confronting the Boko Haram insurgency resulting in the formation of a multi-national military taskforce.
It is hoped after the conclusion of the current war against insurgency in the north-east which shares borders with some of these countries; our government should undertake serious identification, demarcation and policing of the nation’s borders. A nation that does not know what happens at its various borders cannot in all seriousness, lay claim to sovereignty and inviolability of its territory.
The IG attributed the relative ease with which foreigners including the herdsmen enter our country to porous borders and the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of peoples of member countries. But he went off tangent when he sought to convey the impression that the protocol allows foreign herdsmen or any other citizen of member countries to cross into our country with cattle or other items of trade without passing through some formalities. It is not exactly so.
If they have been doing so, they operated illegally. For, no article of that protocol allows such unrestricted movement. Article 3(1) stipulates that “any citizen of the country who wishes to enter the territory of another member state shall be required to possess a valid travel document and international health certificate”. And this is further amplified in Article 3(2) which makes it mandatory for such citizens to enter the territory of that state through the official entry point free of visa requirement.
What this implies is that those herdsmen from Niger and Chad have been entering the country illegally and therefore not covered by the ECOWAS protocol as the IG would want us to believe. It is one thing to admit that they entered the country illegally on account of our porous borders and entirely another thing to contend that we cannot deny them entry because of ECOWAS or that its protocol covers such illegal entry. It does not. If they must enter this country, they must satisfy the conditions laid down by the protocol for that purpose. In this context, we expect them to pass, together with their items of trade (cattle) armed with the stipulated documents through the official entry points into this country.
For one, it enables member countries to keep a tab on all those who enter their territory. In these days of the transfer of all manner of communicable diseases (human and animal) from one country to another as was the case of the Ebola virus, no country can afford the fatal consequences of such unrestrained influx of aliens within its territories. Moreover, it comes with serious security repercussions as we are witnessing with the Boko Haram insurgency.
Again, the ECOWAS protocol has yet to abolish tariff among member countries. So a lot of revenue that should accrue to this country in the form of duties on the herds of cattle ferried into it by the herdsmen is lost to the government. After all cattle rearing is a big time business. Those who bring their cattle into the country, apart from satisfying the veterinary standards required of their animals, must also be made to pay the necessary duty on them. All these will be in their breach if foreign Fulani herdsmen continue in their uncontrolled influx into this country on account of unmanned borders.
Beyond these however, there are wider security dimensions to the revelation that most violence and criminality associated with the Fulani herdsmen are in fact perpetrated by their foreign Fulani kinsmen. In this wise, the unprovoked kidnapping of elder statesman, Chief Olu Falae right in his village and the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the Obi of Ubulu-Ukwu in Delta state may have been masterminded by foreign herdsmen. These incidents speak volumes on the mortal risks we now face.
By the same inference, constant clashes in Benue State and many other parts of the country in which dangerous weapons were freely deployed and many killed with their villages sacked are largely the handiwork of these foreigners. It is really interesting to hear this. It will imply we are really at the mercy of these herdsmen. If they could freely operate in the manner they have done in this country, then nobody is really safe. Not with the sophisticated weapons they now wield. Not with their presence in bushes at the nooks and crannies of the remotest villages of this country.
The revelation will also bring to serious question some of the suggestions that have been put forward to resolve the main cause of friction between local farmers and the herdsmen- right over grazing land and destruction of crops of local farmers. Conceived this way, one will have issues with the suggestion that grazing routes or land should be mapped out for the herdsman from other peoples’ ancestral lands.
Are we now going to make our ancestral lands available to Chadians or Malians to appease them not to attack and kill our people? What business do we have with their commercial business of cattle rearing which rakes in huge sums of money for them? Is it not a commercial venture for which the herdsmen should acquire land for that purpose? If the government and the police are working out an arrangement to build ranches as the IG hinted, such ranches should be run as purely commercial businesses.
Before then, our law enforcement agencies must apprehend herdsmen who enter the country illegally since they have been fingered as purveyors of the criminality that has smeared the image Fulani cattlemen.
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