As the Federal Government mulls over an enduring panacea to the worsening deadly farmers-herders clashes, elder statesmen, civil society and socio-cultural groups are urging state governments not to cower, or bat an eyelid, but to resist any attempt by the government to undermine their authorities in favour of the herdsmen.
While a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Olu Falae, who described open grazing as a threat to national security, and kicked against the idea of herdsmen enjoying patronage from government as they engage in their private businesses, the Yoruba World Assembly (YWA) warned that the Apotheosisation of Fulani herdsmen by the Federal Government would have dire consequences on the polity.
On their parts, accomplished educationist and Professor of Archaeology, Zacharys Anger Gundu, and the Secretary-General of the National Association of Public Affairs Analysts (NAPAA), Jare Ajayi, carpeted the Federal Government over the way and manner that it has poorly managed the crises, and creating room for clashes with the current one having inter-tribal connotations.
A security scholar at the University of Ibadan, Prof. Oyesoji Aremu, and professor of International Law, Prof. Jehu Onyekwere Nnaji, respectively urged the Federal Government to come up with sustainable policies to address the menace. According to the dons, the level of intimidation that is associated with the open grazing conducted by herders justifies the apprehension that ranches, if established at the state borders, will still be avenues of restiveness and occasional attacks going by previous experiences.
EIGHTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD Falae who was kidnapped by Fulani herdsmen on his 77th birthday in September 2015, and whose farmland has been attacked by herdsmen on a few occasions, in an interview with The Guardian, kicked against the idea of herdsmen enjoying certain privileges from the government since the cattle rearing is a private business.
The former SGF insisted that open grazing remains “a threat to national security because the height of it is to make the farmers, including someone like myself, subsidise the cattle activities for the herdsmen.
“Herdsmen bring their cattle to my farm, eat up my maize, cassava and rice free of charge; that feed their cattle, which they sell at a very high profit. So, the rest of us are farming for them. This is totally unacceptable.
And when you put it in ethnic context, the herdsmen are not Yoruba people; they are largely Fulani from the North. How can it be the case that I, Olu Falae, and other Yoruba farmers will be farming for the cattle of Fulani? If they want to rear cattle, they can do it anywhere, but let them acquire plots of land from landowners, fence it round, and create cattle ranches.
They can then feed the beasts with cattle feed, which they can manufacture themselves, or buy. That is the way it is being done in the rest of the world; that is the way it has to be done here,” he said.
He decried the sentiments attached to herdsmen/farmers’ rift across the nation by the Federal Government, lamenting that, “the Federal Government reacts to cattle issues as if the cattle belong to it.
“Cattle belong to the Fulani, and the Federal Government is not Fulani. It should be reminded that it is Federal Government of Nigeria, and not of Fulani of about 10 million people.
Since the cattle belong to private individuals, and not to the government, what’s government’s interest? When cattle and the Fulani went to my farm to destroy it, why didn’t the Federal Government show concern? This is absolute nonsense.”
GUNDU, in reacting to MACBAN’s demand for the provision of land for ranching nationwide, stressed that the Federal Government cannot compel states to provide land for ranching. “No! The Federal Government has no right. But why on earth would they compel a state to provide land for ranching, or for grazing?
On whether states are obliged to allow herders establish ranch within its borders, he responded: “Not at all! We are a federation and agriculture is in the concurrent list. So, you cannot sit in Abuja and say that every state must have a ranch, or cattle reserve. If Benue State, for example, decides that it doesn’t want ranches, so be it. If Enugu State decides that it doesn’t want ranches, so be it. Each state goes towards its own priorities.
The academic, who said that the Federal Government talking to herders amounts to talking to the wrong people, explained that until the cattle owners are brought to the table, clashes with farmers would be far from over because “any time these ones in the bush have a problem, they don’t stay there to start fighting immediately; they actually retreat and report to the owners.
It is the owners that give them the logistics, plan the reprisals and then, invite their standing army, because the Fulani have a standing mercenary army that cuts across the entire West and Central African countries. It is this standing army that they go back and invite to come and attack, and it is those who own the cattle that can order those reprisal attacks.”
Asked who to blame for the level of incursion and destructions going on across the country, he said: “Well, we blame the Federal Government…”
NAPAA scribe, Ajayi while berating government’s handling of the clashes said: “It is very unfortunate that the government largely creates room for clashes. The current one has inter-tribal connotation. We are in an age, where cattle rearing is no longer done through open grazing, but by ranching. If the government sets up ranches for MACBAN members as being called for by the Southeast MACBAN, what then happens to other categories of farmers?
Culled From Guardian News media
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