Editorial
AT the prompting of Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, Southwest state governors early this week held a meeting with the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN), in which the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) took interest and therefore participated. The meeting in Akure, Ondo State capital, was called following the expiration of a seven-day notice issued by Akeredolu for unregistered herdsmen illegally occupying Ondo’s forest reserves to regularise their status by registering or vacate those forests, in the state’s bid to tackle the challenges of insecurity linked with criminal herdsmen.
On the heels of Akeredolu’s order early last week, the Presidency had swiftly snarled back: ruling the governor’s directive unlawful and a violation of the constitutional provision granting all Nigerians the leave to reside and do business without inhibition wherever they choose across the country. But the Ondo State government doubled down, saying the order was not for all Fulani to leave its domain but one directed at herdsmen who were irregularly occupying its forest reserves and posing security hazards to state residents. By an alchemy of circumstances – that is, either by direct inspiration from the governor’s order, or possibly in indirect spite of government for its hasty blowback, or both – a Yoruba rights activist named Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, stepped up to issue a localised variant of Akeredolu’s directive by ordering out criminal herdsmen in Ibarapa, Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State within seven days. He accused the herders of killings, kidnappings and serial rape of the natives, and asked them to vacate the Igangan community or be expelled – a spurious threat that he made good at the expiration of the quit notice.
At the Akure meeting of governors with Miyetti Allah, it was jointly agreed that “free-range grazing (by herders) must be stopped to avoid conflicts between farmers and herders.” Other resolutions include that: “MACBAN should embrace and be committed to modern breeding process by creating grazing reserves and practising ranching to prevent cattle roaming about,” and that a standing committee comprising farmers, herders and government agents be constituted in every state to ensure harmonious relationship. The meeting also resolved that underage herding be banned because it is inimical to security. And the communiqué further reads: “The order of the Ondo State governor was misconstrued and misrepresented by a section of the media. He only ordered those occupying the forest reserves in Ondo State illegally to quit. The meeting agreed that criminals should be apprehended and punished, no matter their origin, class, or status, and that security agencies … must step up their efforts in the fight. There is the need to build a partnership for peace and security with MACBAN and jointly wage war against criminality.”
The governors and herders’ association pledged commitment to the unity and indivisibility of Nigeria, describing insecurity as a national challenge that isn’t limited to any tribe or region. The decisions are significant because, besides host Governor Akeredolu and NGF Chairman, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State who presided, others in attendance included Governors Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun), Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), for the Progressive Governors Forum) and Abdulkadir Badaru (Jigawa). The MACBAN team had National President Muhammadu Kirowa at the head, while security chiefs were led by the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 11, Olufemi Agunbiade.
But despite that participants at that meeting struck a deep chord of harmony, which is highly commendable, their resolutions came long on wishes and short on action plans by which the nation could move from declaration to implementation. To begin with, it is unlikely that meeting would ever have held but for Ondo State government’s high hand in issuing and standing by a quit notice to herdsmen irregularly occupying its forest reserves. Herdsmen criminality that bedevil the Southeast, Southsouth and North central zones, among others, and accounted for many deaths had not attracted the intensity of media attention that forced stakeholders to the dialogue table as happened in Akure. But it wasn’t the media that fuelled the tension as was alleged; it was more of the rash verbal exchanges between centres of power at the federal and state levels.
Even then, the Akure meeting, in our view, seems like some missed opportunity, because its communiqué did not articulate cogent action plans that could be adopted across board in addressing the security challenges that warranted the directive which necessitated the meeting. Besides, the meeting willfully or inadvertently ignored many elephants in the room. For instance, how do you engage the Presidency that has ostensibly refrained from coming strongly against herdsmen criminality – which, to be sure, is not representative of all herdsmen as many lawfully ply the trade? How does MACBAN hope to hold its members to the ethical and operational standards agreed upon at the Akure meeting; and how do state governments as well as security agents isolate and apprehend the criminal herders? Moreover, how does the nation tackle down the kind of security challenges that threw up the Sunday Igboho phenomenon in Oyo State, especially against the backdrop of many incidents of killings and kidnappings in the past, for which no suspect was brought to justice? These are some of the posers to which the Akure meeting attempted no answer.
Meanwhile, whereas all stakeholders agree that free-range grazing isn’t the way to go, The Nation lately reported about some Ketu-speaking communities in Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State where residents, including the traditional rulers, were reportedly brutalised by soldiers for refusing herdsmen to graze in their domain. The report said the soldiers from the 35 Artillery Brigade, Alamala in Abeokuta, escorted the herdsmen to force their way on the communities after they were initially resisted by community folk, owing to alleged killing of some of their members and destruction of their farmlands in recent times. In one of the villages, the soldiers headed straight to the traditional ruler’s palace and called out the villagers, warning them against further preventing the herdsmen from returning to graze, and when some community members insisted on not allowing the grazers because of previously suffered hazards, they were manhandled by the soldiers at the behest of the herdsmen. The Army has not officially commented on that story, and neither is the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the brigade reported to have fished out the culprit soldiers for punishment. These are abusive tendencies for which a policy framework for redress is necessary, but which the Akure meeting merely skirted around.
