Northern leaders should sit together and design solution to farmers/ herders conflict – Elder John Mamman Says: Confab report has solutions to agitations in Nigeria
Elder statesman and former Divisional Officer in the old Wukari Divison during the colonial era, Elder John Mamman, from Taraba State, was a member of the 2014 National Conference. In this interview, he bared his mind on the confab, the grazing reserve co
There are indications that the Senate is about to take a look at the confab report. As a member of the 2014 confab, what are your thoughts on this development?
As far as I am concerned, I think it’s the best constitutional report this country has ever produced. It was debated openly, and this is normal in any political discussion. I believe interested areas were canvassed and discussed, and allowances were made here there, compromises were made, and at the end it became a possible working document for the progress of this country. I believe if we had seriously looked at the report without throwing the baby away with the bathwater, we could have got something reasonable from the report.
Some of those at the conference met recently and submitted a report to the Senate. Did you review what they submitted to the Senate?
I consider some of them as being inclined toward regionalism. The northern group met without calling some of us who consider ourselves as northerners. It was after they had done a report that they sent me a copy and asked me to adopt. I rejected it because I could not adopt what I was not a party to.
At the same time, the John Dara Group met and wanted to counter what was said by the northern group. It was all wrong. If we want to stand as a northern group, which is what they wanted, it’s for all of us to have come together and take a position on the issues at the confab. It’s not a few persons who would come up with a position and impose it on the whole northern states. We have been divided into 19 states and considered as three zones in the North. All the zones should have been consulted before taking a position on issues discussed at the National Confab. That of the Middle Belt, which I was an active member, I didn’t attend because I was not informed early, so I also didn’t append my signature to it. I can’t approve any resolution which I was not involved in making.
Apparently, the northern group is already divided. How do we now present a common position as a North to the Senate?
The confab report is different from what the groups are trying to canvass. Let’s go back to the original report of the confab as adopted by all of us, both the North and the South.
Is the North afraid of fiscal federalism?
Nobody, I think, in his right senses, would say anybody is afraid of fiscal federalism. But the issue is: how much of the fiscal federalism do we want to deploy here? Is it the type anchored by SouthSouth activists, which says every resources should go to the states where they are obtained and only pay taxes, or only those who say the higher percentage (derivation) should go to the producing states and the others should also benefit? Most of the people in the National Confab agreed that the middle way is the better option, than paying taxes to the Federal Government as revenue earned. The argument here is that when the resources were being developed it wasn’t only the resources for only those areas that were used to develop those resources. Monies from other parts of the country were used to develop those resources. In the North, we had the tin mining, the agricultural resources, etc that were also producing revenue for the country. The revenue from these was deployed for the development of the country. I told Edwin Clark that if we sit on the table and you are eating pounded yam and snails, etc and I’m here drinking garri, and when it comes to the time of defending the resources which you are enjoying, you expect me to defend the resources, I would not venture to offer any support to you. I would rather you enjoy your resources and defend it. Since we are living as a nation and have produced the country’s commonwealth, we should all be sharing in the resources that accrue to the nation. As for the percentage, we agreed that those that produce the resources and suffer most should gain more than areas without the resources. But we should have in mind that these things don’t last. The next in-thing might be anything that we have not anticipated. After all, oil is getting out of vogue because cars to use steam and other energy sources have been developed. Very soon, nobody would buy oil. The peak period of oil is now declining. We should not put premium on oil as the mainstay of the economy. We should begin to consider other natural resources to develop this country. As far as I am concerned, resource control is not acceptable to anybody. Even those in the South-South know that it is too greedy to take such a position.
There is the problem of herders/farmers conflict, which has led to mayhem across the country.
We have been victims of the herders/farmers conflict. We have known the Fulani cattle breeders since I was a child. We have always been with them. They travelled on foot from Taraba to Onitsha, Lagos, everywhere. They were peaceful. They would come after harvest and negotiate with the farmers on how much to pay for the leftover grass and for grazing. Now it is no longer the case. They come brazenly with guns; they threaten you, go into your farm to feed their cattle, and if you complain, they would kill you. I have been a victim. I have over 700 stands of plantain. A Fulani man came into it and grazed the thing to the ground. The cattle uprooted the plantain from the ground. I didn’t mind if they ate the plantain and left the root to the ground because it would still grow, but they uprooted them. That shows there is malice. When my cousin challenged him and asked why he did so, the Fulani man told him not to be bothered because his own cow was bitten by snake in my farm and the cow died. So how does the plantain compare to his cow? This kind of thing brings up a lot of problems.
At the national confab we raised the issue of grazing. As at 1965 when we had grazing reserves, the population of Nigeria was at most 40 million. There were vast areas demarcating for grazing.
Now, hospitals, universities, schools, airports have been built all over these places. Farmers have encroached all over these places. You can’t have the grazing reserves and grazing routes as you had in those era. Even if you bring out your gazette now and survey to trace them, it will be difficult to actualise them.
The fact is that the Fulani, as individuals, are the richest Nigerians per capita. So, he can apply for certificate of occupancy and get land for his ranch. In fact, why the Nigerian cow meat is not exportable is because it’s very tough. They have to travel for thousands of kilometres and develop muscles. If we have ranches, the conflicts will no longer be there. Secondly, we can produce beef that could be exported to other parts of the world. The farmer could bring his leftover shaft and sell, and the Fulani could sell his cattle dung to farmers. There will be a symbiotic relationship between the two groups.
Ahmed Joda is a retired permanent secretary. When he retired to Yola he got a large farm. Instead of planting corn, he planted alfa-alfa grass. People laughed at him. They said how he could plant grass instead of maize. But he knew that alfa-alfa gives him more milk and meat. Now he is in big money. He knows it. He should educate more people to do the same. In Gembu, the plateau of Mambilla, they don’t do open grazing, everybody has their own ranch. So why must the Fulani here insist on moving from one place to another?
Why do you think the Taraba State governor is signing the grazing law?
I think some people are being mischievous. The law is not intended to cause any problem. The government says anyone who wants land for grazing should apply for it. The government would give such persons land. What is wrong with owning land for grazing? If everybody should insist on lands reserved for them, we’ll have rice reserve, maize reserve, yam reserve. If I apply for land for grazing and it is given to me, it becomes my property. I can transfer it to my children; it is perpetually within the family for 99 years. I will keep it and develop my resources there instead of moving from one part of the country to another, destroying people’s farms and causing problems here and there.
Can’t northern elders come together and reach a consensus on the farmers/herders conflict in order to educate the people on how to avoid these constant clashes, deaths and destruction of properties?
It is the political will that we have not demonstrated. Some people feel they have more influence when such problems come up, so they don’t take a serious look at it. But we believe it is wrong to play with people’s lives. Do you know how many lives have been lost in Benue, Taraba, Plateau and other parts of the country? It’s a problem, if we all agree, we can solve it. Land is fixed and the population is expanding.
The idea of the Fulani moving from one part of the country to another is no longer realistic. The other suggestion, which is more practicable, and which we thought Buhari would give quick attention, is the channelling of River Niger from Congo, through the Lake Chad basin. That will divert the water that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, which is of no use, back to Lake Chad, which is drying up. The grazing area, which was lost as a result of the drying up of Lake Chad is vast. That is why most of the grazers are now going down South to the Benue valley, which is now the centre of conflicts.
That would be a billion dollar project. Does the country have the money?
It’s not about the country. The United Nations and the World Bank would come in. Under former President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria invested over $500 million on the feasibility study of this project to reclaim Lake Chad. I would expect that Buhari should have continued the project from where Jonathan stopped, with more seriousness. Nigeria would not only benefit from reclaiming the lake, we would produce fish, and there would be land for irrigation, farming and grazing for the people.
It is apparent that the confab report will no longer be given consideration.
Yes. That is because of politics. The All Progressives Congress (APC) said it was not consulted, and that it was a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) affair. That is what happens in most The only where we can get it right is if we go by the six geopolitical zones. I disagreed on the North-South rotation formula in the Confab and I still maintain that position. All the zones should be able to produce the presiden Nigeria programmes. We don’t lack ideas. If you go to our libraries you would find solutions to most of our problems, but they are not implemented. If you were not the one who produced a report you would not implement it because the credit would go to another person, etc. Now, the agitation for restructuring is gaining momentum. The only thing is that if they cannot use the confab report to tackle the agitations, perhaps, the APC government has to set up another confab to discuss and find a way of dealing with the situation.
You want the APC to look for another N7 billion to do another confab?
You don’t need so much.
Buhari claims the confab was a waste because the National Assembly is the body empowered to carry out such assignments?
What makes it illegal? I don’t think there is anything illegal about the confab. If it is illegal, somebody should challenge it in court. No two lawyers can agree on an issue. I think the government has powers to assemble people and ask for advice. If the advice is good, why look at how it was convened? Why not look at the content? Why look at the messenger instead of the message?
What kind of restructuring do you think would calm the agitations and allegations of marginalisation in the country today?
The complaint about marginalisation is as old as Nigeria itself, if not older. Marginalisation is psychological. In the former northern Nigeria, and First Republic, there were minorities crying that they were marginalised. The late Joseph Tarka was leading the group, and the Tiv people were in the forefront of fighting for the liberation of the minorities. Luckily, when Benue State was created, the Tiv became the majority. They refused to listen to anybody. An Idoma man could not aspire to be anything, except deputy governor. Even for that, they are only allowed to produce candidates for that position; it could be Tiv/Tiv. We cry because we are not the ones in power. What can be done is rotation.
In Taraba State, we are trying to solve the problem. We have three senatorial districts. If this time the North produces the governor for eight years, the next Central and the next South. That would solve the problem of marginalisation.
Coming to Nigeria as a country, the formula of North-South is wrong. In the North, the HausaFulani would never allow any other ethnic community to get the presidency, not about religion. Even the Kanuri will never dream of becoming president if the rotation is on the basis of NorthSouth. The only where we can get it right is if we go by the six geopolitical zones. I disagreed on the North-South rotation formula in the Confab and I still maintain that position. All the zones should be able to produce the president. The confab adopted this position. It should cascade down to the states, not only at the federal level.
Can’t we talk about the best persons ruling Nigeria, no matter where they come from?
I started thinking on that perspective a long time ago. In America, if you live in a state for five years, you become a citizen of that place. But in our own case, even if you were born in a state, or even if your father was born in that place, the mere fact that you are Igbo, Yoruba, Jukun or Tiv, you would be traced back to your roots. We’re the cause of it. I give you an example. In the former Wukari Region we wanted the best to come out, but we discovered to our shame that we were being exploited instead. In trying to get the best, four Jukun would come out and a Tiv man would come out as well. The Jukun would split their votes into four places, while the Tiv would be voted massively by his people. To make things worse, when the Tiv man gets there, he would support his own ethnic group in the National Assembly instead of the whole people he represents. Until we come out of tribal sentiments we cannot achieve the level of development that America has achieved. They don’t look at ethnicity. We have to think, first as Nigerians, not based on ethnicity.
How do we solve the Igbo question - this agitation for Biafra?
The issue is that the Igbo are making agitations because they think the Yoruba made much noise and got Obasanjo elected as president of Nigeria in 1999. If you seriously ask them to define the map of Biafra, you know there is no map. There is no map of Biafra. You can’t force the Ijaw or others to go with you. The Igbo believe they have been unfairly treated. This treatment may not be physical. It is psychological. They feel treated as conquered people. The bill that came up in the House on SouthEast Development could be used as part of the palliatives to keep them satisfied. At the same time, we should not forget that they have their problems. But with the issue of rotational presidency based on geopolitical zones, the agitation could be better handled. The Igbo can’t produce food or trade among themselves. I don’t think any serious-minded Igbo man wants to leave Nigeria because we all benefit from one another.
What should be done with the confab report?
I have always advocated that the Federal Government should look at the good part of the confab report and implement them. They could ask the National Assembly to look at the report and implemented the vital aspects. There has been a great debate before the report was written, so there are vital recommendations in it.