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Farmers/Herders Crisis: FG insists on cattle colony

The Federal Government has restated its determination to establish the controversial cattle colonies as part of measures to end the persistent crisis between farmers and pastoralists.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, while receiving the formal report of the National Livestock conference, held on 25th September 2017, at his office , at the weekend in Abuja said federal government’s proposal to set up cattle colonies and ranches remain the best option.

In attendance at the conference held at the International Conference Centre were Commissioners for Agriculture from the 36 states and their representatives among other key stakeholders in the livestock sector.

Ogbeh described the initiative as capable of permanently checkmating the wanton killings, hatred and attacks between the herdsmen and farmers.

He expressed grief and serious concern on fatal dimension the issue is taking with assurance to solving the problem.

“We have listened to what people have said and we recognize people’s rights to freedom of expression: but let me reiterate once again that the government is not seizing land of any Nigerian to give to Fulani herdsmen for them to colonize. The Programme is also not an appeasement of Fulanis at the detriment of crop farmers either. If today, we as Government and citizens don’t find a practical solution to the problem as quickly as possible, it will get worse tomorrow.

“We didn’t envisage how much high voltage emotion and politicking this issue has generated. It is one of our characteristics as a country that we live with. We needed to educate the herdsmen, educate every one of us of the need to move away from what we were doing before that is bringing conflict for many reasons; avoiding crisis and making this industry more productive.

“I know that the average herdsman is more concerned about the number of his herds than perhaps the milk coming out, about the speed the cattle can grow and the value of the meat, which is why he needs education. More than this, we also have the leaders, the politicians; we all need education on this,” he said.

In a statement issued by the ministry’s Director of Information, Tolu Makinde, the Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, Dr. Gideon Mshebwalla, while presenting the report to the minister said the committee identified lack of access to land, low productivity, old practice of open grazing, lack of access to finance, inadequate water provision, inefficient landholding, poor infrastructure and support facilities including low level of extension facilities as being the major factors militating against optimal development of the sector.

The committee further recommended resuscitation of the grazing reserves, encouragement of private people to go into setting up ranches in addition to the federal government idea to setup cattle colonies.

The committee urged federal government to intervene in the provision of infrastructures and support services like roads, electricity, water, improved pasture and provision of extension services as well as empowering the Agricultural Research Institutes to invest on research that will be accessible to the end users.

Ogbeh, who lauded the committee for the job well done, announced that the committee will play a major role in implementing the decision of the government.

Other members of the committee includes Mr. John Taiwo of the Dept of Animal Husbandry Services, Alhaji Auwal Maidabino of Planning and Policy Coordination, Food and Agriculture Organisation representative, Mr. Hammed Sanni, a representative of Kogi State Government and Engr. Kola Owolabi of the Federal Department of Agriculture of the Ministry.

The Minister revealed that a Sensitization Programme to educate the herders, farmers and the communities including the politicians is underway.

January 28, 2018
16 states ready for FG’s cattle colonies

• Ogbeh sheds light on plan, blames past governors for herdsmen killings
• Says they wasted N100bn received from Jonathan

Sixteen of the 36 states have signified intention to be part of the cattle colonies initiative of the federal government, The Nation can now reveal.

More are expected to join, according to Dr. Olukayode Oyedele, Special Assistant to Agriculture Minister, Audu Ogbeh. Oyedele did not name the 16 states or those in line to join the initiative.

But Taraba, Benue and Abia states have categorically declared that they should be counted out.

Ogbeh, who has been holding series of meetings with stakeholders on the project, defined the ‘colony’ as “a place where many owners of cattle can co-exist, be fed well, because we can make their feeds; they can get good water to drink, cows drink a lot of water and we can give them green fodder.”

Government, according to him, will provide veterinary services for the animals and “protect the cows against rustlers.”

“By a special design, we have to make sure that rustlers can’t cross into the ranches and steal cows and walk away,” he said. Each colony will comprise between 20 and 40 co-located ranches.

The scheme is part of the strategy to check the incessant clashes between farmers and pastoralists whose animals often stray into cultivated farms and destroy crops.

Such clashes have claimed hundreds of lives across the country, setting communities and communities and endangering national security.

It was gathered that Kogi and Plateau states are among the enthusiastic supporters of the cattle colony initiative.

Plateau already has a few ranches which may grow into colonies

However, the support of the governors for the project is not without opposition from some communities and opinion leaders in their states.

In Kogi State for example, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and Institutions, Mr. Teejay Yusuf, asked Governor Yahaya Bello to tread cautiously on the matter “in the interest of coming generations.”

Yusuf said the governor should shun the temptation of taking unilateral decisions on the scheme.

Another member of the House of Representatives from the state, Mr.James Faleke, berated the governor for buying into the initiative without proper consultation with the people while a group called Igala Project from the Kogi East Senatorial District has commenced compiling signatures in support of a petition against the establishment of any such colony in the senatorial district.

The group is objecting to Bello’s alleged designation of part of the district as a cattle colony, saying its position follows “the multiple acts of war and mayhem being unleashed daily, on our innocent farmers and hapless law-abiding citizens, in their villages, homes and farm lands , by rampaging Fulani herdsmen.”

It adds: “between June 2015 and December 2017, Igala land has witnessed several incidences of killings as a result of herdsmen violence in several areas including Ebeje where eight people were killed and farms set ablaze, Agbada/Agojeju where 19 people were slaughtered, Edede – two persons were killed, six people killed in Oganenigu, three people killed in Ojapata, five people killed in Ojuwo Anawo. All these happened in Dekina Local Government Area.”

Audu is quoted as saying: “once the colonies begin, we are also going into large scale artificial insemination to improve the breed of cattle so that the yield of milk can increase.

“As at today, our cows deliver just about one beer bottle which is a litre of milk a day but in East Africa, cows do 15 litres of milk, and in Europe, they do averagely 50 litres of milk a day.

“Somebody said to me in a text, very angry at this policy, that the word colony means that we are trying to use the Fulani to colonize their state, and that it reminds them of colonialism.

“Well, we don’t really want to take anybody’s land to give anybody.”

“We won’t come to a state, take land and give Fulani or Hausa or Itsekiri or Idoma or Tiv and say this area has been seized and given to an ethnic group. That’s not the idea but we’ll also tell the herdsmen: ‘If you are passing through a state, you can only go to the colony and stay there, feed your cattle and, when you are moving off, agro -rangers will follow you and make sure you don’t destroy anybody’s farm.’”

And speaking to reporters in Zaria, Kaduna State yesterday on the sideline of his tour of facilities of research institutes in the university town, Ogbeh blamed state governors during the Jonathan administration for the farmers/herdsmen clashes in the country.

He claimed that the governors received N100 billion to solve the crisis without anything to show for it.

His words: “In 2014, President Goodluck Jonathan gave N100 billion to state governors to solve the farmers/herdsmen crisis once and for all.

“Though, I don’t have the details, it doesn’t appear anything was done.

“If the money went to the states and they have done nothing, what do you expect?

“Let me ask: we have three tiers of government, why does everybody blame Buhari at the centre all the time? Why don’t we ask our state governments questions? ”

January 21, 2018
No final word yet on cattle colonies
There were indications yesterday that the Presidency is weighing four options on how to end killings by Fulani herdsmen and their constant clashes with farmers nationwide.

Also, the government has dug up a 1998 report by the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF), which made far-reaching recommendations on herdsmen-farmers relationship.

It was learnt that the report has been sent to the 10-man committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, which was set up by the National Economic Council (NEC) on Thursday.

The late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, had established the PTF in 1994, which was headed by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Executive Chairman.

Investigation by our correspondent revealed that the Presidency has been looking at four options in order to find a permanent solution to the perennial crisis of herders-farmers clashes.

It was gathered that the options on the card are as follows:
- creating grazing reserves through the Grazing Reserve Law as the case in the defunct Northern Region in 1965;
- establishing grazing / stock routes nationwide for herdsmen
o possibility of having cattle colonies
- Establishment of ranches
A top source in the presidency, who spoke in confidence to avoid interference with the assignment of Osinbajo’s committee, said: “As at this moment, the Presidency is weighing at least four options, and the alternatives could be more depending on the findings of the panel

being led by the Vice President.

“The options are having grazing reserves, ranches, grazing/stock routes, and cattle colonies. Contrary to insinuations, the government has not opted for cattle colonies.

“At the end of the day, the government and all stakeholders will agree on the best option which can guarantee peace and harmony between herdsmen and farmers.”

Meanwhile, it was learnt that the presidency has sent a 1998 blueprint, prepared by the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), to the Osinbajo Committee.

The top source added: “The PTF report on herdsmen-farmers clash has been dug up and made available to the committee through the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari.

“There are far-reaching recommendations in the 1998 PTF report which the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha could not implement before he died.

“This report is not imposed on the panel but as a reminder of past efforts which could assist the VP and others.

“The same PTF, which produced the report, was headed by President Buhari. This means that he foresaw the challenges at hand. Yet the crisis is seen as a personal thing instead of a national one.

“You can see that the crisis has been there for a long time. But this administration is determined to find a permanent solution to it.”

The source however confirmed yesterday that President Muhammadu Buhari did not visit the killing flashpoints in Benue, Taraba and other states because he “preferred to act to stop the killings than playing to the gallery.”

The source said the “President was conscious of being in a pre-election year and did not want to make political capital of such shuttles.”

The source added: “If you ask the governors of the affected states, they will tell you that the President acted swiftly by ordering the police and security agencies to stop the killings, protect the innocent Nigerians in the affected parts of the country, fish out the killers for justice to take its course and conduct thorough investigations on how to prevent reoccurrence.”

The Governor of Benue State, Dr. Samuel Ortom, last Sunday told THE NATION that he was not opposed to any solution which can stop the killings.

He said: “I am very open. I am a democratically elected governor. It is what the people want that I go with.

“So, if you are able to convince my people that we can tinker with the law or do whatever, I am ready to go. I have no hard feelings about it.

“I will do whatever can bring progress and stop these mindless, killings whether they are Fulani or herdsmen, Hausa, Igbo or Tiv, Idoma or Igede. Whatever can stop the killings, I am ready for it.”
January 20, 2018
Beyond the colonies of cattle

In those days, one of my lecturers was fond of making an issue out of Nigerians’ love for ‘high sounding yet meaningless patter’ in an endless attempt to show off. His words come to mind as I settle down to digest the latest solution that the Federal Government is proposing as a perfect answer to ending the perennial bloody clashes between herdsmen and farmers—colonies for cattle. Suddenly and from the blues, the government woke up to realise that it has done little or nothing to help the cause of these fully armed so-called herdsmen who have been on a slaughtering binge of human lives in the last few years. There is hardly any part of the country that these seemingly unknown killers have not inflicted pain and anguish with ferocious equanimity, especially in communities that dare question the impunity with which they allow their cattle to graze and destroy farmlands. That, if we must knock the truth on its head, is the crux of a crisis that continues to take lives daily with the latest being the mindless bloodletting in two local government areas in Benue State.

With over 80 lives lost to the pogrom and with tongues wagging that President Muhammadu Buhari, being a Fulani, was playing the ostrich without any signs that a decisive action would be taken to stop the dastardly act, it was not surprising that the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, an influential Benue indigene, would have to lend his voice to the raging debate one way or the other. But rather than douse the tension or erase the belief in some quarters that the President was passively shielding his kinsmen from arrest and prosecution over the killings, Audu’s intervention merely added to the confusion. Standing on the threshold of political correctness which oftentimes defers to vacuous prognosis, Ogbeh would pick his examples from Europe where every farmed cow gets, according to him, six Euros per day. He said while rice, maize and cocoa farmers in the country enjoy some sort of subsidy from the government, nothing significant has been done for livestock development. Unfortunately, that’s the category the herdsmen fall into.

And then, Ogbeh’s clincher: “We have done next to nothing for the cattle-rearer and, as a result, his operation has become a threat to the existence of our farmers. The government is planning a programme called cattle colonists, not ranches but colonists where, at least, 5000 hectares of land would be made available, adequate water; adequate pasture would be made available. We also want to stop cattle-rearers from roaming. The cattle will be provided with water and adequate security by rangers, adequate pasture milk collection even security from rustlers to enable them live a normal life. This has been done in India, Ethiopia and Brazil.”

Honestly, I can understand the frustration of the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, when he said he couldn’t grasp what Ogbeh meant by colonies for cattle herders. I don’t too. If it is not ranching, what then is this colony slang all about? Would it be restricted to a particular geo-political zone or would the colonies be set up in whichever fertile ground or communities that these wandering and armed herdsmen pick as veritable grounds for ‘colonization’, in the interest of their cattle? What guarantee do we have that those who have based their continuous movement on tradition and customs would accept this offer of cattle colonies with rangers in charge of security when they have learnt to waste human lives in exchange for any rustled or killed cow as it was the case in Benue?

I have tried, without much success, to identify a marked distinction between Ogbeh’s colony of cattle and ranching going by Google’s description of the word. By definition, ranching is “an establishment maintained for raising livestock under range conditions” or “a large farm used primarily to raise one kind of crop or animal (Western USA and Canada).” If Ogbeh says 5000 hectares of land would be made available for the cattle colonists, shouldn’t it be commonsensical that this is ranching by another name even if the security personnel in the colonists would be addressed as rangers? How much longer will we continue to dwell on the dispatch of meaningless patter to describe our impotence in handling issues that require our immediate and urgent attention?

Possibly, cattle colonies as grasped by Ogbeh may just be an adoption of whatever stretch of land for cattle-rearers’ use without paying for same – just the way colonialists took up vast stretches of land across Africa and carved them up whimsically. Ranching may as well, imply paying for a determined size of land under the economic terms dictated by commerce, economics and the principles of capitalism – you pay before you own. We really don’t know how this would work for now.

Yet, beyond all the verbose even if sometimes mendacious arguments from both sides of the divide on what moniker to give the place where the excesses of these herdsmen would be curbed, the government in a seeming haste to placate the vicious killers in the midst of this set of people should summon the courage to deal with the criminality embedded in their action in accordance with the law of the land. Ogbeh’s tendentious excuse that many years of neglect of the herdsmen’s travails resulted in the harvest of blood in the land does not, in any way, vitiate the fact that these persons must face the full wrath of the law. It is, to say the least, sickening that these killer herdsmen have justified their insane action on the alleged rustling of 1000 cattle in Benue State. And then you ask, how many more lives would they snuff out that would equate the monetary value of the somewhat priceless cattle?

The Buhari government will continue to be peddled with stones, public odium and indecent flak if it keeps dangling the carrot before these demented killers instead of wielding the stick in response to ferocious attacks by the herdsmen. The same law should apply to anyone that takes the law into his hands by attacking the herdsmen. In this particular matter, the question has been asked: Where is the stick in Ogbeh’s intervention? In those years when rice, maize and cocoa were farmed without any subsidy, did the hapless farmers resort to any violence-induced self-help? Under whose authority did the herdsmen derive the power to ravage farmlands – all in the name of getting feed and water for their cattle? And what gives Ogbeh the assurance that these persons who have rejected all efforts to station them in areas where they wouldn’t have to trample on the constitutionally guaranteed rights of others would buy into his cattle colonies idea?

The riotous angst in the Presidential Villa notwithstanding, the uncomfortable truth is that the buck stops on Buhari’s desk. That’s what he signed for when he became President. And so, it is not enough for him to chastise those linking the conflict to ethnic cleansing or religious war. It doesn’t help either that he sees the barrage of criticisms against his action or inaction as “simplistic reductionism.” By now, we should be tired of blowing grammar to the wind as the cloud of gloom grips the land. Now that the herdsmen have turned their weapons against the officers of the law with the reported slaughtering of two police officers and inflicting life-threatening injuries on another, it is expected that the nation’s security apparatchik would carry out Buhari’s order to haunt these devilish men down with the same dose of viciousness they have visited on thousands of our citizens.

A change from eternal roaming of cattle herds across the country should be a welcome idea. Ranching is even a better option if those involved would freely subscribe to it without scrounging up extraneous factors and primordial fallacies that would frustrate efforts being made to implement it. But, in doing this, nothing should be done to gloss over the fact that the blood of those felled in the insensate tragedy deserves justice. It is the least the country owes them as we hope that, someday, the herds of cattle would be tamed within a colony under the firm grip of humane ranchers. In the end, what should concern us is that Nigerian lives, regardless of creed, colour or religion, matter. Is that now why we have a constituted authority in place?

January 13, 2018