Herdsmen crisis: Blame FG, commend Ortom

The transition from subsistence agriculture to modern commercial farming requires more than the adoption of modern inputs and technologies. It primarily requires a change or modification in the age-long valued cultural practices. I will add my voice to the discussion of traditional livestock rearing, where there is much human killings and destruction of property, especially from 2009, and which escalated since 2013. At the centre of the crisis is the nomadic Fulani herdsman who faces increasingly limited space for ‘free’ grazing of his cows. Most Fulani, settled or nomadic, see the ongoing crisis not just as an affront to the nomadic culture, but also an existential threat to the Fulani tribe. Cow and culture are inextricably tied, and one cannot survive without the other.

State governors from the middle belt region and the south of Nigeria are confronted with the herdsmen, swelled in their ranks by hardened terrorists. And because the Federal Government has not shown much interest in capturing and prosecuting the terrorists, the terrorist and the herdsman become synonymous in the minds of the victims. This juxtaposition is accentuated by insensitive statements from high officials of the Federal Government that tend to denigrate a state government for using constitutional authority to design a framework for a long-term solution to the crisis.

Myopia

Supporters of permanent cultural right for pastoralists, point to the fact that before independence, there were official grazing routes that traversed the country. These grazing routes, for many reasons and in particular, the growth of human population, have been blocked to the detriment of Fulani herdsmen. High public officers who lament the blockage of the grazing routes insist, with nostalgia, that they should be re-opened, without concern for growing human population. The current population estimate for Nigeria is 180 million. If population size is the major reason for the blockage of the grazing routes today, it does not take a rocket scientist to know that even if you forced open the grazing routes in 2018, they would still close even before 2050, when Nigeria’s population is expected to hit 450 million. The idea of grazing routes, is rooted in policy myopia. It should never have been initiated. The practice of grazing routes is already in the dustbin of history. It should be left there!

Ineptitude

There were about 415 grazing reserves in Nigeria, mostly in the north, which is home to cattle rearing. Some were gazetted, others were not. The crisis facing the cattle herder, is not so much lack of legal documentation of the grazing reserves, but the appropriation of such lands by men of influence. Government knows where these grazing reserves are. Why do we not identify them for a start and see which ones amongst them are reclaimable? The reclamation of the existing grazing reserves, especially in the north where 412 out of the 415 of the grazing reserves are located, should pose less of a challenge than opening new colonies.

Conspiracy theories

One conspiracy theory states that the descendants of Usman dan Fodio are intent on conquering the rest of Nigeria, and that the conquest was put on hold by the colonialists. There is a quote credited to Sir Ahmadu Bello, after Nigeria’s independence, as a renewed call for the conquest of the rest of Nigeria. The Fulani herdsmen are the foot soldiers of this elite enterprise. A recent posting by a professor even claimed that Benue state belongs to the Fulani by right of conquest. Such drivel keeps this conspiracy theory alive to the chagrin of many across the country. The Federal Government should follow the great example of the Sultan of Sokoto who has called for the arrest and prosecution of all criminals, be they Fulani or not. Respectable analysts complain that the Federal Government has not listened to this voice of reason.

The other conspiracy theory states that majority of the cows under the care of the herdsmen, are owned by some wealthy Nigerians without distinction to tribe or religion. Wealthy Fulani are among them. Majority of them are in government or are connected to government at all levels. The traditional herdsmen, who own less than ten percent of the animals under their care, are grazing the over 90% of the cows for a modest fee from the wealthy and influential owners. These owners have trained and armed foreigners whose job is rapid response to complaints of their hired herders through horror killings and maiming of civilians, mainly crop farmers in targeted territories. The objective is to instill fear and subdue communities for free grazing. This is one reason people oppose the establishment of colonies. The establishment of colonies seem to signify to them cruel subjugation, one that will enable land occupation and eventual usurpation of the land by the cow owners through the instrumentality of the government.

Ortom’s forward looking law

The change to a modern ranching must start someday, somewhere. Ortom has chosen Benue as the birth place of the change, albeit at high cost to his people. The weak clauses of the law can be identified and negotiated, but the law must remain. Ortom has put out a challenge to those with superior alternative to his law. Nomadic herders will never be voluntarily ready to change. They just must transit into the law rather than demanding its suspension. The process of transition can be made less stressful through negotiation over time.

There are differences between Ortom’s law and the colony stance of the federal government: Ortom has a law, the federal government has not. A second and more important difference is on ownership. In Ortom’s law, individuals or families with identifiable faces will apply for ranching space; the colonies will be established and ‘owned’ by the Federal Government. When these colonies will transit into individual ownership through privatization, traditional herders will be caught on the wrong side of the track and will become impoverished like their crop producing counterparts. They will discover that the Federal Government is not working for them.

Let the killings stop. Let’s commend and embrace Gov. Ortom for his foresight, rather than isolate and criminalize him. Ortom’s law may be painful to Fulani herdsmen today, but it is forward-looking and can end primitive pastoral practices without denying the traditional herdsmen the ownership of their livelihood. It is the superior alternative to the painless drift into a colony, where eventually both crop and livestock farmers will be deprived of their cattle and land through a policy of privatization. Ojowu wrote this piece from Abuja.