It’s good to be with you again this week, dear reader; thank you for asking if I’m ok. I am. Right now, I’m feeling very let down by the fact that President Buhari’s government seems to be tired already. Do you remember how we all rooted for the man as The One? Obviously, the man seems to have sunk beneath the weight of the ropes of responsibility we tied around his neck. Solve boko haram problem; tackle economy; solve boko haram… face security challenges… solve my housekeeping fund problem… As he himself once said, he is but a tired old soldier. So, whatever steam his government may have had seems to be evaporating already because its actions and inactions are as baffling to me as they are to him I’m sure.
The country’s electricity problem is as bad as ever with no solution in sight. With the swashbuckling entrance into the power fray of the power minister, Babatunde Fashola, one thought that by now, I should have enough electricity and to spare to power my house and garden. Now though, I’m lucky if I get four hours in a day. That’s my reality. Pipe-borne water is still a mirage for many of us urban dwellers. I think rural dwellers are not holding their breath on either one of them. Add to it the fact that people are massively hungry. The list of our expectations could just go on.
The one that flabbergasted me most was the herdsmen crisis. This government’s new approach to the problem had me doing some mental summersaults. I could not understand nor believe that it actually intended to take about fifty-thousand hectares of land from each state just for herdsmen alone! So, if we were to grant that wish, what would traders take? What would road transporters take? What would corporations take? What would I take, eh?
There are millions of southerners doing business in the north, but I have never heard of the government asking their host state governments to dedicate any mass land areas to them for their business. Indeed, I have heard of instances where they were denied housing on account of their being different in race, creed, religion, etc. How come then that state governments were asked to give land for cow herding in the form of colonies? If cows take all that land, what will I get? I also need land for my writing business, with plenty of trees and grasses and rivers flowing gently by and housing fish of all tribes like Nigeria … The list goes on.
Worse still, the government went ahead post-haste to deposit some herdsmen sans their cows in my backyard in Kogi State, Bunu-land to be specific, where I come from by marriage! Why the Kogi State government was so quick to accept this, I’ll never understand. I have prayed for him. I prayed that one day I’ll be able to forgive him. Nevertheless, I consider this to be an insult and an injury! You can therefore understand that I have been fuming from all external orifices since last week. However, I have learnt to be polite. This is why I am politely asking that they be asked to go back to their own land asap, before I close my eyes now.
In saner democracies, this would amount to the government shutting itself in to devise plots against the people it swore to protect; and that’s a sign it has lost it. For a while, the whole nation was not sure if the government was not of the president’s people by the president’s people and for the president’s people. Not that we’re any surer now anyway. Otherwise, whoever was responsible for that colony idea should have lost his job by now and would forever have to wear the scarlet letter of ignominious idea! Even more unfortunate was the explanation on the Benue killings credited to a serving minister who was said to have tied it to the state’s anti-grazing law. Tch! Tch!
I sincerely regret that there was not much consultation on that cattle colony proposal before the government went into action, and I think it has found this out by the people’s reactions to its proposition. Even though the government appears to have soft-pedalled, I suspect it has to do with the forth-coming elections. This means it may be ready to pick up the idea should it find itself in the saddle again.
Yet, there are bigger problems in the land. Believe me, things are bad; people are finding it difficult to get by. So, for the government to attack herdsmen or hate-speech problems and leave weightier matters amounts to the dissipation of energy which can otherwise be more usefully spent on nation building. We need electricity to power every house in the land twenty-four-seven; it will give people jobs. We need pipe-borne water flowing into every house; we need good food on every table with or without cow meat in the land. Let the government spend energy on those.
Let the government spend energy on making me happy; but it should not waste energy fighting my ‘hate’ speech or sending herdsmen to my backyard. In any case, who is to determine the hatefulness of a speech? Surely, if a speech is ‘hateful,’ has it not flowed from a soul made bitter by suffering? Should a family deprived of its breadwinner by heinous herdsmen bring out sweet words for the government that failed to protect it? Remove suffering and there’ll be nothing but sweet words from the soul. But those who are comfortable have little right to berate the bitter tears of suffering or grief.
There are alternative ways to solving the herdsmen problem more humanely and permanently, and this column has joined many others in advancing some of these which we are not about to repeat here. One thing is clear. The government must now become proactive in the matter. It must firmly take in hand the system of modernising the herdsmen. It is not enough to say that herdsmen have been roaming around for centuries, so we should leave them to continue destroying people’s lives or livelihoods.
Now, as we all can see, herdsmen have no designated cattle routes anymore; their routes are everywhere there are greens. So, what happens to our agricultural programme? Or, God forbid, we run out of greens? And, are we all going to feed on cows forever? Do the herdsmen have enough cows to feed one hundred and twenty-million people for as long as Nigeria remains? I’m guessing no to all these.
Ranching is the modern alternative to cattle wandering that needs to be embraced. Herdsmen need to be broken into the system through education. Education will bring out all its advantages, as good wine needs no bush. Let them be encouraged to begin slowly; as individuals owning their own farms or as cooperatives of owner-occupiers. This is different from the government forming colonies for herdsmen from lands forcefully taken from others. Colonies on others’ lands is the worst form of retrogression possible.
Clearly, the government must begin to inculcate the systematic education of herdsmen and their children into the school system. Education is one of the surest things that has tied all the tribes in Nigeria together. The government must use that resource judiciously to give them a chance to live at peace with all men. Through education, I believe herdsmen will get to understand that all men strive to live at peace with their neighbours not because they want to but because they have to. It is the surest guarantee to survival.
