One thing that has remained amazing about Nigeria in my adulthood is the country’s readiness to create tension and distraction from the most important job at hand for the country’s political and administrative leaders. If it is not sudden introduction of Sharia jurisprudence to rattle secular governance; it is popularization of militants committed to obtaining some measure of social justice for a few beneficiaries of petroleum amnesty. If it is not Boko Haram forcing the country to spend (or steal in the process) about one-quarter of its annual budget on fighting a few Islamists desirous of a having an Islamic caliphate, it is some inexplicable fixation on the part of government leaders and their pundits on how to manage nomadic cattle ‘farmers.’ One thing that is clear about the ongoing crisis arising from periodic killing of tree, shrub, herb farmers in the central and southern part of the country by cattle farmers from the northern part is the unflagging enthusiasm of leaders and their supporters to chase shadows.
Fulani nomads have been raising cattle for centuries. As a person raised in colonial Nigeria, I grew up to see Fulani nomads (referred to then as Darandaran(shepherds) in my part of the country) bring cows to our town to be sold and killed for festivals and regular consumption. It was rare in the 1950s to see itinerant cattle farmers go through villages and towns with their cattle without any concern for the health and integrity of their hosts who were plant farmers. Even during the short period of Awolowo’s cattle farming with Erinla/Kete and similar breeds imported from Argentina, nobody saw those animals unless he or she went to the farm settlements to buy eggs or milk. Farmers raising the southern tsetse fly-resistant cattle were fully ‘sedentarized’. But the story changed radically in the last few decades, especially during the military era. Just a few months into the post-military tenure of Obasanjo, General Buhari had to lead a delegation to late Governor Lam Adesina to discuss the problem of fight between Fulani herdsmen and Yoruba farmers.
It was during the administration of late President UmaruYar’Adua that the federal government threw its weight behind policy discussion about creating cattle grazing zones in different parts of the country to facilitate the work of nomadic cattle farmers. This column joined the debate then and said that such policy was tantamount to preferring in the 21st century a mode of agriculture that was the most pragmatic in the 18th century. This column also cried foul when the 2014 Jonathan Conference recommended creation of cattle grazing zones, calling it a poster boy for retrogressive thinking with respect to agricultural-extension services in a country that should be in a hurry to join the comity of modern nations practicing modern methods of agriculture: ranches and feedlots powered not by grass but by soy, corn, and wheat.
All of these interventions were before Fulani herdsmen started to carry K-47 to kill, abduct, and even rape tree and vegetable growers, and before it became fashionable for police and even senators to quibble about number of Fulani herdsmen from other West and Central African countries. If the herdsmen had access to corruption funds, one would have argued that the recent killing of Agatu and Igbo farmers must have been stimulated by corrupt leaders who wanted to embarrass President Buhari as a Fulani man. Even if all the herdsmen involved in the recent murders in Benue and Enugu states were foreigners, it would still have been insensitive on their part as Fulani to act in the way they had acted, knowing that it is one of their own that has just been elected to govern the country on the platform of change. But that is a subject for another time. Let us get back to harping on distraction as a strategy to prevent Nigerians from asking the right question about how to sustain a multicultural society.
This is not to say that those accusing the president of keeping quiet unduly on the volatile matter of Fulani nomads killing Agatu and Igbo farmers or those thanking him for ordering in unequivocal terms that those involved in the recent murders be identified and brought to just are off the cuff. There is also need to avoid focusing on effects at the expense of causes. Why should the police need to feel the heartbeat of the president before preventing Fulani herdsmen from other countries from entering the country with their cattle and guns? There is nothing in the ECOWAS protocols that allows citizens of another country to enter any country with herds of cattle and weapons on their shoulders. Why should the Nigeria police (as federal as it is) need to know how the president feels before stopping Nigerian cattle farmers on the prowl with guns and arrows on their shoulders?
Furthermore, why should any minister or government leader think that the country should deal with the menace of Fulani nomads for another eighteen months while political leaders search for solutions that are available in most cattle producing countries of the world? Our leaders and pundits must know by now that there is nothing in our constitution that says the federal government should create grazing zones to assist one set of farmers at the expense of another set. Even though agriculture is on the concurrent list, there is still nothing that authorizes the federal government to create policies to help animal husbandry at the expense of those involved in plant and vegetable farming. Our constitution does not even allow the federal government to seize land from states for the purpose of assisting private business of any form. Cattle rearing is carried out by private businessmen and does not qualify for reserved land in states for nomads that raise cattle for their overlords.
The reasonable thing to do at this point is to look for why it was not necessary for Fulani herdsmen (from Nigeria or Niger/Mali) to bring their cattle from their communities to destroy the farms of other communities in the days before the first military coup d’etat. There is no doubt that the Sahel has been expanding in the last few decades, thus limiting the amount of space available traditional livestock pasture. But it has been possible in the same northern states to embark on irrigation that has enabled significant vegetable farming in okro, tomato, pepper, beans, maize, millet, soybeans, etc., that Fulani herdsmen coming from the far north are not allowed to destroy, because they are also considered to be economic crops that are as profitable to their growers as cattle to their farmers. How would it sound to Fulani cattle owners if people in aquaculture in southern Nigeria starting digging fish ponds in northern communities, particularly in the areas that have accessible groundwater at the expense of those who need the land to grow grass for cattle?
The way out of this mess is not to temporize on when to start modern animal farming. Canada is a beef exporting country. Yet it is hard for people to see cows running around cities, towns, and vegetable farms in Canada as they do in Nigeria. Our political leaders should realize that modern agriculture has gone beyond creating grazing to encourage nomadic cattle farming. Most countries that export beef, milk, and cheese today, do not have nomads that move across countries with bows and arrows to assist cattle or goats to forage for food. Most modern countries create ranches which employ workers and make such workers members of settled communities. In addition, this is the time to implement policies that can mitigate desert encroachment: afforestation and shift from use of firewood to gas. These are some of the policies that need to be embarked on now, while those responsible for murdering hundreds of farmers in different parts of the country are probed and punished for criminality.
NATION
END
Be the first to comment