Before it is over, the controversy over whether to execute a Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) programme for herdsmen or serve it in the somewhat more inoculated version of National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) will have cost jobs, denuded political influence and prestige, and stoked pain, anger and suspicion all over the country.
RUGA, which is hated in some parts of the country for its provocative and culturally flagrant acronym, was to be anchored by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in ways that stupefied many. NLTP on the other hand, though still viewed with extreme suspicion, emanated from the National Economic Council (NEC). Who first conceived it? It is not clearly stated. For now, flowing from the acrimonious debate over the relevance and security implications of RUGA, the more inclusive NLTP appears to be on the ascendancy, with a hefty budget of about N179bn proposed for its execution over a 10-year period.
Neither NLTP nor RUGA is devoid of controversy, and may not even be the best scientific approach to solving the so-called herdsmen-farmers clashes. Both programmes came out of many decades of slovenly approach to tackling climate problems and desertification, which pushed herdsmen contentiously farther afield in search of grazing lands, and the increasing conurbation and population explosion that have constricted grazing lands. Unable to find the antidote to a fast-growing and menacing problem, the federal government simply watched, sometimes with futile gestures, as herdsmen and farmers locked horns. Now the problem has reached epidemic levels, and is demanding for a solution whether the government likes it or not.
But rather than look at the problem carefully and cautiously and weigh every suggested solution against the backdrop of the country’s cultural sensitivities and political complexities, the government has made a fairly conventional assessment of the causes of the problem, stunted the need to seek more modern and efficacious solutions, and is now attempting to impose a solution whose future ramifications are unpredictable. RUGA was the more insensitive of the two solutions, but there is also no proof that even the NLTP has met with anything more than cautious and reluctant acceptance from so-called willing states. Indeed, there is no proof that governors, who are members of the NEC, have all confidently signed on to the sanitised variant of the two programmes, especially with the ongoing subterranean and contentious attempt to settle Fulani herdsmen in some unwilling parts of the country.
To further muddy the waters, the declaration by the Bauchi State governor Bala Mohammed that the Fulani of West Africa have a transcendental identity, and must willy-nilly partake of the NLTP, has stoked controversy and imbued the programme with a suspicious hegemonic quality. The NEC is proposing an initial N100bn budget, fully funded by Nigerian taxpayers. According to Mr Mohammed, however, it would be pointless to attempt to exclude Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring West African countries, because you couldn’t tell the difference: they are all one and the same. They migrate seamlessly and share the same nationality. The governor was, in other words, declaring that the Fulani everywhere see themselves as Fulani first and foremost rather than through the lens of the countries of their birth. This is hugely controversial, ignorant and provocative.
According the governor: “I think there is a lot of mistrust and misconception as regards the Fulani man. The Fulani man is a global or African person. He moves from the Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani. As a person I may have my relations in Cameroon but they are also Fulani. I am a Fulani man from my maternal side. We will just have to take this as our own heritage, something that is African. So, we cannot just close our borders and say the Fulani man is just a Nigerian. In most cases, the crisis is precipitated by those outside Nigeria. When there is a reprisal, it is not the Fulani man within Nigeria that causes it. It is that culture of getting revenge which is embedded in the traditional Fulani man that attracts reprisal…We are already accommodating them. Do you delineate and really know who is not a Nigerian Fulani man? They are all Nigerians because their identity, their citizenship is Nigerian even though they have relatives from all over the world. So, presumably they are Nigerians because they move all over and have relations all over. That is why our population in Nigeria is fluid.”
If Governor Mohammed is right, nationals of Arab countries, for instance, can move without any restraints across borders in the Middle East once they share the same economic identities. They would neither need passports nor visas and are at liberty to enjoy the resources of any country they choose to migrate to whether they were born there or not and whether they pay taxes there or not. It is a hard theory to swallow. The governor made this explosive argument on a Channels Television programme on September 16, 2019. He was obviously persuaded about the reality and logic of his arguments, and managed no doubt to pass on that argument most persuasively to his listeners and other Nigerians who read the report. The National Economic Council meeting days after the Channels programme, however, attempted to douse the controversy triggered by that outlandish argument that suggested that Nigerian resources could be put at the disposal of non-Nigerians, and that in any case borders are needless and fruitless. According to the NEC, the NLTP is to be implemented in seven pilot states of Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba and Zamfara — not the 13 originally proposed, nor of the RUGA 11 — and it would not involve putting the resources of the country at the disposal of foreign herdsmen.
But overall, Governor Mohammed has been the more believable. He insists that no one can tell the difference between local and foreign Fulani herdsmen, and that it even makes no sense to attempt to tell them apart or to isolate one from another. While the implementation of the programme is some way off, and funds are still merely proposed, it remains to be seen how the pilot states will implement the programme. Will it be at their say-so, or will it be a federal programme that is implemented in their states? With the federal government providing 80 percent of the funds, it remains to be seen how they could cede control to the states or to the private sector participants envisaged by the plan. Furthermore, it is at the point of implementation that Nigerians will know whether the Nigerian government is willing and able to draw the line of differentiation.
It is also not clear yet why states which have shown the keenest interest were not included in the pilot programme, while initially sceptical states such as Benue and Taraba where extreme hostilities have sometimes been recorded between natives and pastoralists, have been included in the short list of seven states. Nor has the federal government, which has embarked on interminable schemes to placate herdsmen much more than any other economic group, fully explained why it has not simply encouraged the formation of herdsmen cooperatives and restricted itself to backing them with access to low-interest loans. Many critics have suggested that the government’s lethargic approach to mediating herdsmen-farmers conflict is indicative of a collusion with violent herdsmen or at best connivance at the violent seizure of lands.
If NLTP finally takes off, it is unlikely to bear out the reassurances given by the federal government. As the Bauchi State governor has said, few states implementing NLTP will bother drawing lines between Fulani herdsmen, local or foreign. Indeed, nothing says the NLTP will not eventually transform into RUGA, the original intention of the herdsmen scheme’s creators. From all indications too, with so many questions left unanswered, the government may be unwisely laying the seeds of future conflicts whose repercussions and trajectories may be extremely difficult to manage. It is also predicted that judging from the manner the government has been handling the issue, they may never be able to accurately define or gauge the problem or conceptualise an acceptable national identity for Nigerians capable of sustaining economic planning and promoting internal security. Too many issues are left in flux, and too many alien identities are unfortunately superimposed on the imperfect Nigerian identity.
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Unable to find the antidote to a fast-growing and menacing problem, the federal government simply watched, sometimes with futile gestures, as herdsmen and farmers locked horns.