Inside Fulani Settlements in Kebbi
From the Gayawa Fulani settlement in Birnin Kebbi local government where I encountered more than 200 children of school age whose parents are desirous that they be educated but seem helpless; to Ruggar-Era, another Fulani town in Argungu local government—where more than a hundred women gathered to receive me along with their young children who also have no school to attend—I came face to face with the contradictions of the Nigerian condition on Monday in Kebbi State. The visit also opened my eyes to the danger that confronts our nation if we continue to ignore what has become the class dimension to the ‘Fulani crisis’ as well as the endless possibilities of what can be gained if we do the right thing.
The Permanent Secretary, Kebbi State Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Alhaji Usman Umar Dakingari, who served as my tour guide and interpreter, had with him a few other government officials as well as the Financial Secretary of the Kebbi State Miyyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Alhaji Demgiya. It helped that in every of the Fulani settlement, I was introduced not only as a journalist from Abuja but also as the spokesman to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a Fulani man whose name still evokes good memory. But then what was I doing in Kebbi State?
In July 2015 when Governor Atiku Bagudu was just in his third month in office, I had visited Kebbi at a period the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) team was inspecting the rice paddies and Fadama planes for their Anchor Borrowing in support of the governor’s efforts to use agriculture for empowerment. Following that visit, I wrote a column titled, “Kebbi Rice and a Nation’s Tragedy”. At that period, I could see the prospects of the state in agriculture and the conversation I had with Bagudu suggested that he might be serious.
In that piece, I argued that agriculture presents the most viable alternative to an oil dependent economy in our country and that Kebbi was on the right path. Agriculture, I wrote, would “feed our multitude, employ most of our young people and thus quicken the end of Boko Haram and other death-wish militia. It will also feed processing industries and salvage many of our mismanaged and cash strapped states”. I added that “the Kebbi State Governor is right in his bid to seek the support of his Lagos State counterpart in the rice project. Purchasing power and investable capital reside mostly in the south while the land and natural resources which agriculture needs to thrive is more abundant in the north.”
Meanwhile, what was no more than a wish by the Kebbi Governor to strike a partnership with Lagos State, when we spoke almost three years ago, has resulted in LAKE Rice; additional rice processing mills with bigger capacities have also come on stream in the state where thousands Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu of young men are now fully engaged in farming not only rice but other crops, including wheat, cocoyam and sugarcane. But efforts to make me come back to Kebbi had failed until Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah ‘moderated’ the agreement between me and the governor last Thursday at the Kukah Centre Symposium in Abuja where the President of Ghana delivered a moving lecture. So, on Sunday, I was back to Kebbi.
Blessed with Fadama land of about 400,000 hectares and huge water reservoir from its many tributaries, farming in Kebbi is an all-year round activity and Bagudu’s intervention programmes have empowered several people in the state.
Despite the setback in January, when a sugarcane field of about 30 hectares was destroyed by fire in Mai-Ramu village, Koko/Besse Local Government Area, the next project on Bagudu’s mind is the production of ethanol. The state is already partnering with the NNPC and some private investors to produce from its vast sugarcane resources the organic compound used as automobile fuel. Farmers in Kola, Raha, Zuru, Bagudo and other communities within the sugarcane belt are already expecting a new lease of life once the project takes off. But the highlight of my visit was the interactions with Fulani people live in Kebbi State, for obvious reasons.
On Monday, my first port of call was the 60,000 hectares Moccyho Grazing reserve where we met the Lagos State Auditor of MACBAN, Alhaji Mohammed Ladda who hails from the Gayawa community located within the reserve and was just visiting home. But for the Fulani of Gayawa, there is a bigger problem, a microcosm of what has become a national challenge. “Here, we have herds of more than 10,000 but we have a problem with farmers. Although we have arrangement with them on when they would leave the Fadama for us to graze, with dry season farming, we are sometimes left without any route to graze”, said Demgiya who painted a picture of helplessness by the herders not only within Kebbi but all over Nigeria.
When I asked him whether he was aware of the notorious reputation of Fulani people as trouble makers who are going about the country, killing people, he replied in the affirmative. In a tone that was emotional, he said, “I am quite aware that Fulani people are now being killed in several places in Nigeria. If a criminal who happens to be a Fulani man kills one person, it will be big news and all Fulani would be held responsible but in a situation where one hundred Fulani men are killed, it doesn’t matter again in Nigeria. It is as if we are no longer human beings.”
Demgiya believes that Fulani people are being profiled across the country because of their way of life yet when I asked him what he would like government to do for the community, he did not hesitate to say school for their children. He took me to the community school whose roof had been blown off. It has only four small classrooms, each of which cannot take more than about 15 persons. But Demgiya said the children would like the school to be fixed and for teachers to be available. They also need water since the borehole in the community has since stopped functioning as well as health facilities.
The challenge became rather vivid at Ruggar-era, another Fulani community in Argungu local government that has been hemmed in by farm settlements. Leader of the community, Buda Gomna, not only spoke of their challenges, he said he would get the women to speak to me and true to his word, more than a hundred women in the community were gathered to interact with me. Many of them came with children of school age who only have access to some form of Islamic education.
Even though Gomna said Governor Bagudu has promised them a school, I asked for how long they have been in the community. “I was born here and so were my parents and it is the same with all the people in this community so we are talking of more than 100 years”, said Gomna. Yet, the big settlement has neither a school nor a health centre and I wonder why none of the civilian administrations since 1999 has bothered about this. But what seemed to concern him the most is that they now have no route for their cows with their community practically hemmed in by farm settlements. “There is no stock route anymore as we are now surrounded by farms. There is no exit from here. Everywhere is blocked. Every day, we worry about our future. To be honest, I am no longer sure of what the future holds for us in this place but where do we go? It is crisis upon crisis every day”, said Gomna in a note of resignation, before he directed me to go and speak to their wives.
With more than a hundred women surrounding her, the women leader, Hajia Hawau Neabi, also spoke passionately about their greatest concern: the education of their children who have no school. “They just attend Islamic school here. We want them to go to a proper school to have real education” said Neabi who added that “security has become a big problem. We trek for several hours to hawk dairy products. We want help”.
The take-away from my interactions with the Fulani men and women at the settlement is not only that pastoralist societies face more demands on their way of life than at any previous time in history, but also that in our country, the real Fulani people, as opposed to some political opportunists who use them as canon fodders, are also victims of the way we have mismanaged our affairs. While it may suit some reckless individuals to propound nonsensical theories of how Fulani people are ‘born to rule’, majority of their people are living in deprivation and want.
Those fat-cat Fulani politicians who send their own children abroad to school yet argue that it is the tradition of Fulani men to roam the bush must be called out for what they are. They are not speaking for the ordinary Fulani people nor do they care for them. As Dr Chidi Amuta always argue, it is one of the tragedies of modern Nigeria “that we have come to accept the category ‘nomadic’ as a permanent description of a vital segment of our populace” which, according to him, explains why “we have effectively denied these citizens the benefits of settled human civilization which include the right to a place to call home, the right to own land and other property and above all the full citizenship rights enjoyed by other Nigerians.”
The greater danger is that in the process of allowing these hapless Fulani men to roam, we unwittingly encourage the violation of the rights, as well as lives and livelihoods, of other Nigerians, especially settled landowners and farmers. The consequences are what we now witness in Benue, Taraba, Adamawa and other theatres of violence.
It is unfortunate that despite the economic importance of livestock to the nation’s economy and its huge contribution to the GDP, there is as yet no federal government programme for pastoralists the way we have for farmers. That exposes the lingering deceit of the ruling class in Nigeria who uses ethnicity and religion primarily as tools for the promotion of private interest. Whether in the North, East or West, the rural majority is neglected because they have no voice. Yet, it is that neglect and deprivation that serve as catalyst for the violence that has become a transnational language of protest across the country today.
NOTE: This is an abridged version of the column. Interested readers can access complete text on www.thisdaylive.com