For many farming communities across the country, the fear of Fulani herdsmen may as well, constitute the beginning of wisdom. From Benue to Plateau, Ondo to Enugu, the menace of Fulani herdsmen has taken such a dangerous dimension that may reduce the insurgency in the north-east to a child’s play.
The impunity with which they attack, maim and raze down communities virtually unchallenged has given cause for motives to be imputed into their activities. They take local farming communities by surprise, attacking in commando style with very sophisticated weaponry to advantage.
In the last couple of weeks, the Agatu local government area of Benue State has borne the brunt of these menacing attacks, ostensibly spurred by the lure of grazing lands for their cattle. So many lives have been lost with property of inestimable value destroyed. In their wake, more than 100,000 locals have been displaced from their ancestral homes while the invaders quickly brought in more than 500,000 cattle to graze on the farms of this predominantly agrarian community.
The people of Agwu local government area of Enugu State are now living in a very fragile peace due to the arrest and detention of 76 indigenes when they mobilized to rescue two of their women abducted by Fulani herdsmen while on their farms. Reports had it that Fulani herdsmen had abducted the two women on their way to the farms and when all pleas to have them released fell on deaf ears, some youth in the community mobilized to have them freed.
As they made to search for them, words were sent to soldiers who stormed the bush arrested and detained the villagers before handing them over to the police. They are still detained without being charged to court for whatever infractions they may be accused of. Ironically, the same soldiers showed scant regard to freeing the abducted women as their whereabouts remain mysterious.
And in Osun State, the House of Assembly has directed that a task force be set up to monitor the coming in and out of Fulani herdsmen. The measure became expedient to check the indiscriminate grazing on farmland and the destruction of crops by the herdsmen. By this measure, the two entry points of the herdsmen through the Iwo and Ila axis are to be properly manned to control the movement of cattle into the state.
These are just few cases in the orgy of violence associated with the activities of the herdsmen. They have also been fingered in the recurring cases of armed robbery, raping and kidnapping across the country. No less a person than the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase recently blamed much of this criminality associated with the Fulani herdsmen on those of them of foreign nationality.
He said with our porous borders and the ECOWAS protocols that allow free movement of citizens of member countries, most of the criminal elements in the Fulani herdsmen stock are foreigners. How that claim will be useful in taming the menace of the herdsmen is yet to be seen. And if Arase has found this statistic to be correct, it will be interesting to know how he intends to deploy that information to tame the monster.
The time bomb which the unrestrained violent proclivities of the herdsmen represent is further brought home by the lamentations of Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom. He had told reporters after his recent meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that “the security situation in Benue, especially Agatu is getting out of hand. Right now, several settlements have been razed down, an undisclosed number of people killed and my people are now refugees all over the place”.
Other people in Benue State have also decried the continued killings by the herdsmen even with the deployment of more military and police personnel to the flash points. Not unexpectedly, this has given rise to accusations of bias against security agencies in handling matters concerning the herdsmen. No less a person than the former governor of Abia state, Theodore Orji last week, lent his weight to this suspicion of bias in the way security agencies treat matters relating to the provocation of the local population by invading herdsmen. He said the way security personnel react when issues arise between the herdsmen and the local population tends to convey the impression that they are biased in favour of the former.
There is no doubt that the activities of the herdsmen have become the greatest threat to the security and unity of this country. Though the issue is not entirely new, it would appear it is everyday assuming such a dangerous dimension that something more serious has to be done to tame this monster.
There are serious grounds especially given the inability of our law enforcement agencies to pre-empt and quickly control such attacks that expansion and domination may be the latent motive behind the flashes of violence associated with the herdsmen across the country.
A number of suggestions have been floated as a way out of the situation. We have heard of grazing routes and grazing areas for the herdsmen throughout the country. There have also been suggestions for the establishment of ranches in keeping with global practices in animal husbandry.
Even then, the Senate is said to be working on a legislation to provide grazing lands for the herdsmen. Though the modalities for this arrangement are yet to come public, there exists some measure of discomfort with ceding ancestral lands of the local population to Fulani herdsmen just to appease them. Those in support of mapping out grazing lands for the herdsmen do so as a temporary measure given that herdsmen scattered all over the country must have to find some grazing land for their cattle. And given the itinerant nature of this business, there is bound to be regular conflict between the herdsmen and the local farmers as long as their cattle go in search of pasture.
The idea may sound plausible but it is not as neat as it is being proposed. Soon the issue of ownership will set in. Soon also demands for self-determination and all manner of agitations will crop up. And in a setting where Fulani herdsmen or their sympathizing armed militia wield sophisticated weapons with which to attack and dislodge the local population from their ancestral homes, ceding such vast land areas to them will further come with serious security challenges.
There is little doubt about that. If they can operate with the level of impunity that has now become their hallmark, one shudders what the situation will be when vast areas of land are now allocated to them just for grazing in all parts of the country. Will that not embolden them to further challenge the original owners of the lands? Will that also not amount to instituting Fulani hegemony all over the country?
It is therefore important that in putting together that piece of legislation, our lawmakers must clearly state that the ownership of those lands devolves on the original owners. One way to ensure this is to make those herdsmen pay regular rent to the original owners of the land. Rearing cattle is a very big business. Farming is also peoples’ means of livelihood. We cannot afford to sacrifice one for the other. With geometric increase in population given our census figures, our food needs have also grown by that same margin.
Our local farmers should not be denied access to their farming lands just to appease the herdsmen who by all accounts have proved to be unfriendly visitors. The ultimate solution is in embracing the establishment of ranches. Then and only then would we have found permanent solutions the constant frictions between the herdsmen and their host communities.
Before then, the federal government must do something urgent about the sources of the sophisticated arms and ammunitions at the disposal of the herdsmen. The inability of the security agencies to disarm them, fuels the festering impression that there is an official dimension to the impunity of Fulani herdsmen.
NATION
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A farmer in Ayetoro, Ogun state once told a chilling story that appears to confirm that security agents are indeed taking side. The farmer told a local community meeting that he reported two fulani herdsmen who encroached on his land to the police in the town, even providing proof. The answer he received was ‘baba farmer, do you have the money to pursue a case with fulani herdsmen’ … and another answer came from the Police when the farmer questioned the first answer he got. Then came ‘do you have the money to replace the cow if anything happens to it’
That’s the situation in many parts of the southwest and it is indeed unfortunate.