These are people that need no introduction nationality. They are to be found in every state of the nation – defacing towns and cities all across the federation, where they “dump” their stuff everywhere. Clean, green cities, playing fields, major streets, highways and byways; they dump all over!
Painfully, it costs many state governments a lot of money monthly to keep those states clean. But after everything would have been neatly done, these herdsmen would appear literally from nowhere and make nonsense of the greenery and the cleanup, as their cows trample it all underfoot, then they litter the place with their waste products.
A lot of these grasses are imported, transplanted and tended. It means nothing to the herdsmen. For them, it is just: Grass Is Food for Our Cows. This bad picture gets uglier as the cattle rearers take their cows into farmlands and completely destroy economic crops which are the livelihood of farming communities.
Many farmers are not even landowners, and so have to pay for farmlands from the sale of cash crops. But after laboring for many years, their crops are all either eaten up or trampled upon by herds of other people’s cows.
Every attempt to resist this cattle invasion on private property attracts terror and murder. Yes the herdsmen will kill again and again for daring to prevent them from trespassing. The bloodthirstiness has escalated from sharp knives and daggers used for killing people in the bush, they now roam the land with AK 47 rifles and pistols. So, the herdsmen stick which was strictly for the cows is now replaced with AK 47 rifles – strictly for the people. They have gone further. Now, whole villages and communities are razed by these herdsmen leaving many more internally displaced persons, (IDPs) than we already have from insurgency.
And by this deadly dimension, it is clear to see that the Herdsmen have morphed to Henchmen. All across Nigeria, their visits leave a trail of “Sorrow, Tears and Blood” which all but the security operatives can see. Strange! Just as strange to find that people who can afford a heavy armoury of sophisticated, imported weapons, stockpiling enough to attack a nation of over 100 million defenseless people – still cannot afford land for grazing their cows which they breed for commercial purposes.
The herdsmen have been a menace to the Nigerian society since ever. But now Nigerians are finding their voices, calling for an end to the murder rape, carnage and destruction by these cattle rearers and rustlers.
Not done with Agatu village massacre in Benue, the Southern Kaduna killings to kick off this year and still ongoing up to this month has just been the last straw. Nigerians are crying out, asking that something be done urgently. Last year, the Federal Government proposed a Grazing Bill to the National assembly, where states will give large expanse of land to cattle herdsmen to come and GRAZE FOR FREE. The Sokoto State Government said that the bill would only be for the North and indeed, 14 Northern State Governors have indicated willingness to provide land, but it is still not smooth sailing in that region. However, having been cowed by the Agatu massacre which was one too many, Governor Ortom has now given out the Adapati Island, still in Agatu LGA to the rampaging herdsmen , as their grazing ground. Over in the Niger Delta, in Bayelsa, the State has already given out a huge portion of land for cattle grazing. But in actual terms, any land required for commercials purpose ought to be purchased through the relevant ministries in line with the laws of the land.
Now, I have the simplest of solutions to this national problem, solutions that are not only easy but absolutely fool-proof.
Solution Number 1:
Boycott The Beef. If in Nigeria we buy and have it at the cost of our brothers’ and sisters’ blood – it is absolutely not worth it. In Vom, Plateau State and Akwa Ibom have heifers and bulls native to their land. The current clime is tilted towards agricultural development. And animal husbandry is just as much to do with agriculture and ensuring food sufficiency as rice and wheat production. I would suggest that those state governments that have native bulls create the enabling environment for the husbandry of their livestock and encourage their local production.
Why not be like me – I don’t eat beef except when outside of our shores. When I think that a woman was raped and slaughtered in the bush by the herdsmen who sold that beef… nothing would make me touch it.
Ironically, the beef from these herdsmen reflects the life of the cows on the palate-tough, dry, stringy and unpalatable. It scores a big thumbsdown when compared with beef from cows that have been kept, grown and tended.
And dairy products? We can continue to import all dairy products, to add to those that come from dairies such as we have now in Plateau. That is only until such a time as local production might have been beefed up.
So then, what will happen to all the scores of herds of cattle and their herdsmen we currently have in the country?
Solution Number 2:
Create a Central Grazing Area for them in SAMBISA FOREST. Oh yes! Their cattle can feed to their fill and there they may embark unrestrained on their erstwhile National Killing Spree. And it would only be fire-for-fire between two bloodthirsty camps, both heavily armed with sophisticated weapons apiece. On the one side would be the Unit of the Hardened Herdsmen and the Boko Haram Sambisa Unit would be the other.
‘Shikena.’
