The Nation Newspaper

Tag: ranches

  • Ranches and deaths and government-inspired tradeoffs

    PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Femi Adesina will hope that the controversy surrounding his latest gaffe will blow over very quickly. He had misspoken on a television programme last Tuesday when he appeared to suggest that to avert the killings perpetrated by herdsmen it would not be a bad idea for besieged states to provide land for ranching as advised by the National Economic Council. It did not occur to him that he seemed in the same breath to have suggested that herdsmen could continue the killings until ranches were provided.

    Mr Adesina had been asked how easy it was for landowners to part with lands with which they had ancestral attachment. Here is his incredible answer: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter? The National Economic Council that recommended ranching didn’t just legislate it, there were recommendations. So, if your state genuinely does not have land for ranching, it is understandable; not every state will have land for ranches. But where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?”

    The presidential spokesman very clearly did not think his response through before venturing an explanation that suggested land could be used as ransom for people’s souls. It is unlikely that Mr Adesina’s view does not reflect the thinking of the presidency. As a spokesman, he is sensible enough to know that he could offer no private views on national issues. Taking the job implies that he had agreed to subordinate his views to his employer’s view for the duration of his national assignment. But he has a responsibility to make it easier for his media colleagues not to keep criticising him on account of some of his indefensible opinions.

    Examined closely, Mr Adesina’s views are atrocious and difficult to rationalise. How can he make light of people’s ancestral attachment to their lands? Does he not know that he seems to justify the killings on account of states failing to provide land for ranching? Even if someone is dead, his family survives him and sustains the attachment to their lands. So, dead or alive, the attachment goes on. And given Mr Adesina’s horrifying explanation, which is even crueler than the bewildering explanations given by the president and his appointees, it is not surprising that the problem has defied sensible and lasting solutions. Astonishingly, the president is now going after politicians whom he said are sponsoring the killings. But which of the killings? The ones masterminded by herders who boldly but indifferently claim responsibility? or the ones masterminded by landowners resisting the appropriation of their lands and the killing of their people?

    Well, it is now clear that the sum of all what the federal government is saying is that to avoid deaths at the hands of herdsmen, states should offer land ransoms. Although he qualifies which states should offer ranches by suggesting that only those with lands to give should give, that qualification is meaningless and provocative. It is enough to know that the federal government has taken sides with herders, and caused a link to be established between donation of ranches and peace. It is also clear that the federal government will do little to curb the killings going on especially in the Middle Belt. Having made their position known, the federal government has passed the buck to Nigerians to determine how to proceed in this gory and maddening situation, whether to buy their lives with donation of ranches or to defend their lands. This is truly depressing.

    • First published July 8, 2018
    • Palladium returns next week

  • Ranches and deaths and government-inspired tradeoffs

    PRESIDENTIAL spokesman Femi Adesina will hope that the controversy surrounding his latest gaffe will blow over very quickly. He had misspoken on a television programme last Tuesday when he appeared to suggest that to avert the killings perpetrated by herdsmen it would not be a bad idea for besieged states to provide land for ranching as advised by the National Economic Council. It did not occur to him that he seemed in the same breath to have suggested that herdsmen could continue the killings until ranches were provided.

    Mr Adesina had been asked how easy it was for landowners to part with lands with which they had ancestral attachment. Here is his incredible answer: “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are talking about ancestral attachment, if you are dead, how does the attachment matter? The National Economic Council that recommended ranching didn’t just legislate it, there were recommendations. So, if your state genuinely does not have land for ranching, it is understandable; not every state will have land for ranches. But where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?”

    The presidential spokesman very clearly did not think his response through before venturing an explanation that suggested land could be used as ransom for people’s souls. It is unlikely that Mr Adesina’s view does not reflect the thinking of the presidency. As a spokesman, he is sensible enough to know that he could offer no private views on national issues. Taking the job implies that he had agreed to subordinate his views to his employer’s view for the duration of his national assignment. But he has a responsibility to make it easier for his media colleagues not to keep criticising him on account of some of his indefensible opinions.

    Examined closely, Mr Adesina’s views are atrocious and difficult to rationalise. How can he make light of people’s ancestral attachment to their lands? Does he not know that he seems to justify the killings on account of states failing to provide land for ranching? Even if someone is dead, his family survives him and sustains the attachment to their lands. So, dead or alive, the attachment goes on. And given Mr Adesina’s horrifying explanation, which is even crueler than the bewildering explanations given by the president and his appointees, it is not surprising that the problem has defied sensible and lasting solutions. Astonishingly, the president is now going after politicians whom he said are sponsoring the killings. But which of the killings? The ones masterminded by herders who boldly but indifferently claim responsibility? or the ones masterminded by landowners resisting the appropriation of their lands and the killing of their people?

    Well, it is now clear that the sum of all what the federal government is saying is that to avoid deaths at the hands of herdsmen, states should offer land ransoms. Although he qualifies which states should offer ranches by suggesting that only those with lands to give should give, that qualification is meaningless and provocative. It is enough to know that the federal government has taken sides with herders, and caused a link to be established between donation of ranches and peace. It is also clear that the federal government will do little to curb the killings going on especially in the Middle Belt. Having made their position known, the federal government has passed the buck to Nigerians to determine how to proceed in this gory and maddening situation, whether to buy their lives with donation of ranches or to defend their lands. This is truly depressing.

  • Going back to the archives: Neither grazing reserves nor ranches in the south

    Beyond Danjuma’s Taraba, Benue and Plateau, is there anywhere else that is not feeling the pangs of Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri elite destruction? I call their abode the Core-North which is not interested in catching up with anybody. Its interest is in dragging everyone else to where it is – on ground zero. It sees beauty in the millions of untrained children milling its streets, maiming and killing for their sport. Northern Nigeria is the death of Nigeria and its destiny – we better be ready for the obsequies, the funeral rites” – Lasisi Lagunju in: ‘Danjuma: Ugliness is the beauty of Northern Nigeria’.

    Like to hear it or not, the north has become a land of anguish, spewing nothing but sorrow, blood and tears. It oozes nothing but tension and sadness – the very consequences of centuries of feudalism.

    Just imagine today how many of the criticisms being levelled against President Muhammadu Buhari like hunger, and insecurity, would have had no basis if he had even just a quarter of what is being spent fighting Boko Haram today to devote to the care of our millions of IDPs, or as additional funds for the government’s social security programme. Just imagine a northern Nigeria that,  like Awo and Zik, provided  quality mass education for its people, rather than the almajeri system which turned future doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, professors in various fields  to worse than hewers of  wood and drawers of water, all for the comfort of their stinking rich. Would Nigeria be grappling today with over 10,000 out of school children or have a ready source of recruitment for the infernal Boko Haram? Imagine then, the cheer irony of the Northern Elders Forum telling us they want to give Nigeria a president when every segment of the northern elite, its intellectuals, in particular, should be ashamed of its inability to effect any meaningful change in a society like theirs.

    And make no mistake about it, I am a friend of the north, as well as an unapologetic Buharist. Long before he became the APC presidential candidate at the primaries in 2015, I wrote on these pages that Nigeria needed him more than he needed Nigeria. And my likeness for the north did not start today or why else would Ahmadu Bello University had been my first choice in ’68, even if, for some reasons, I had to leave for Ife after a week? I still have some of my Congo campus friends, and a certain Dr Muth was the Dean of my Faculty of Public Administration. So this is no put down, by whatever name. Rather, it is telling it as it is. For many of us the north has, unfortunately, become a source of great agony, and to imagine it has not always been like this.

    Something just has to change, therefore.

    And it must start with finding a permanent, and durable solution to the Fulani herdsmen’s killings which, if unresolved can completely destroy Nigeria as we know it – that a normally taciturn Gen T. Y Danjuma could say all he did this past week should be proof positive of that, for here is a man who has always warned that no country can survive two civil wars. Also, the north must not make President Buhari, a patriot, and a good man of impeccable integrity, look ugly. They must not mess up Muhammadu Buhari in the annals of history for he means well for this country.

    He needs the help of every Fulani leader to immediately kill off this misbegotten belief that open grazing, which has been principally responsible for several mass burials in North-central Nigeria, is not only a Fulani culture, but their hobby. Culture is dynamic, and open grazing is archaic. It has been the burial ground of too many innocent souls, right on their own God-given soil – one on which uncountable generations had lived and luxuriated before this mortal debacle of a Fulani herdsman. That done, the president and his security chiefs would have to do the rest lest he goes down in history as choosing ethnic solidarity over Nigeria.

    I now proceed to list the way forward.

    In my article of the above title, published in The Nation of 26 May, 2016, I quoted extensively from a report by the Chinua Achebe Centre for Leadership and Development (CACLD). I seek, hereby, to bring key areas of that report, specifically to the president’s attention. Titled: ‘Fulani Herdsmen Killings; Modus Operandi, Those Involved & Possible Solutions.’ It is a very damning report. The research, which predated General Danjuma’s speech, found that:

    1. For a long time Fulani herdsmen terrorists have operated under a predictable pattern of reconnaissance, attack and withdrawal, leading to several deaths and that the group is rated as the fourth most dangerous terrorist group according to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 Report.
    2. They are mostly non-Nigerians, living in the Hausa Fulani communities in Ama-Hausa and Garki’s in the Southeast, South-south and various other parts of Nigeria. They are employees of Fulani cattle owners, themselves, high Fulani political, military and business leaders, who recruit them from places like Chad, Niger etc adding that, rather than invest in ranches they opt for this cheaper alternative.

    3            Their primary duty, it also found, is to kill, protecting cattle.

    4            Lastly, there is a group of Fulani herdsmen who rear cattle from the north to the south but who only carry arrows and machetes to help them navigate the bushes on their way down to the South. .

    Fulani Herdsmen Attack.

    According to the report, in case of a disagreement with host communities, or farmers, they will locate the nearest Fulani settlement and, through them get to the Fulani Nigerian cattle managers who will inform the big owners. If an attack is sanctioned, top Fulanis in the military and police are notified and necessary logistics provided.  Confirming General Danjuma’s fears, the report says that: “Fulanis at the higher levels of the military and the police will then ensure that all commands under them stand down which, according to it, is why you never hear of arrests being made, no matter how many hundreds of them attacked or whatever the number of persons killed or villages burnt.”

    Solution

    The following solutions were suggested by the report:

    Ban open grazing, and establish ranches in the north. Let the cattle owners import grass from the south. This very simple solution, the report suggests, could generate about one million jobs in the south and not less than 500,000 in the north.

    That way, Fulani herdsmen’s terror will be history.

    What this report is saying is that herdsmen’s killings are meticulously planned by various segments of the Fulani nationality, including some of their members in the Nigerian security services. Unless the Fulani gives another narrative, which is credible, then President Buhari can no longer plead ignorance of this ‘industry of killings’, or have the good conscience to ask those being serially killed to cooperate with their killers. The following are suggested as the way forward. To show that the president is not a prisoner to ethnic affiliations, he must immediately rejig his security council. I personally salute his initial, overarching concern for regime security, and survival because, as they say, once beaten, twice shy. Those professional coupists who detained him for so long are not only alive and kicking, they still hold clandestine meetings. But the time has now come to have a new, truly national security architecture with a considerable number of non-northern heads of security agencies.

    Border policing should now be key and officers and men posted to this duty must reflect a national composition which should be enough to guarantee that things, especially vetting, are properly done. Government should stop, or reduce to the barest minimum, illegal entry into the country through our extremely porous borders. As things stand today, elements of the deadly ISIS WEST AFRICA, working in cahoots with Boko Haram, can very easily breach our borders and over run parts of the country. It is actually suspected that is already happening with the incessant killings some of which have included some of our hard working security people as victims.

    These killings have wreaked so much havoc in all parts of the country, and on the psyche of Nigerians, that the president must now think of creative ways to stop the importation of these deadly fellows from neighbouring countries. This could be through a carrot and stick approach. For instance, government can go out of its way to guarantee long-term loans for the establishment of ranches but in no circumstance must it fund the establishment of ranches for private business.

    A stitch in time can still save nine.

     

  • APDA rejects cattle colonies, opts for ranches, grazing reserves

    APDA rejects cattle colonies, opts for ranches, grazing reserves

    The Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA) yesterday added its voice to the opposition against Federal Government’s proposed cattle colonies in different parts of the country.

    A statement issued after a meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party advised the Federal Government to set up cattle ranches and grazing reserves as a step towards ending persistent clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

    Deadly clashes between the two groups in Benue, Kaduna, Taraba, Plateau and other parts of the country has resulted in the death of hundreds of people in recent times, promptint the Federal Government to moot the idea of creating cattle colonies in a bid to ease tension between herdsmen and farmers.

    The NWC also resolved to set up a financial committee for the party for the purpose of raising funds.

    It reviewed the crisis in the Ekiti Chapter of the party and resolved to suspend working committee in the state while constituting a three-man committee to run the affairs of the party in the state until a congress is held.

  • Neither grazing reserves nor ranches: Let history be our guide

    Neither grazing reserves nor ranches: Let history be our guide

    “Nobody can stop the government from acquiring land anywhere. Government is government. If anybody thinks that he is violent, government has a monopoly of violence”. –Senator Abdullahi Adamu –Chairman, Senate/House Joint Public Hearing Committee.

    I sometimes think that if our governments, at various levels, would hearken unto the several suggestions of many a newspaper columnist, subject them to necessary, in-house process of decision making to distil their way forward on sundry issues, Nigeria would not be where it is today with thousands of needless, heartless killings, and  several flash points all over the country. I reproduce below, the article which appeared on these pages on Sunday, 15 May, 2016.

    History, it has been said, repeats itself as tragedy. This we ought to do everything to avoid as Nigerians but since successive Nigerian governments have only toyed with the idea of having a genuine, and honest national conference where we could tell ourselves the truth, I think it behoves concerned individuals to try their humble best to help the country out of this conundrum. Resolving the naughty issue of the herdsmen is one issue on which we must allow history to guide us, lest we further complicate our problems. Some of these truths have been coming out at the ongoing Joint National Assembly Public hearing where the representatives from Benue and Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Edward Ujege, President General of Mdzough U Tiv and Dr Paddy Njoku , respectively, as well as that of Southern Zaria, vehemently objected to the Grazing Reserve Bill. Beyond the public hearing, at least two governors from the Southwest have equally voiced their opposition. These objections are the result of the sad experiences Fulani herdsmen had inflicted on people in various parts of the country, the most recent being the Enugu killing of about 40 persons and the Agatu bloodfest which accounted for about 500 deaths but which Sale Bayari, Secretary-General of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN) rhapsodized as the consequence of the Fulani’s unforgiving spirit –”if they kill 10, we kill 100 in return”,  as he enthused in a Sunday Punch interview. What Nigerians are asking for is simply that whoever armed these people should  disarm them. The time has come for government to read the riot act to these murderous herdsmen and their employers who operate behind the mask. It is a lie to claim arrogantly that government has a monopoly of violence and one would have thought that Boko Haram has proved that beyond doubt. Let me, therefore, suggest two ways in which the big men who own the businesses, and are arming these vermins can reasonably do their business without constituting needless danger to others. First, they should blow their cover and come out into the open. They should then submit a list of their herdsmen to government, disarm them completely and promptly enter into  agreement with the various governments, affirming their vicarious liability for any of their employers’ transgressions, and pay compensation. Secondly, and for the long term, given the contribution of pastoralism  to the country’s  economic  development , the business owners should look solely  to the North for both their grazing reserves, and ranches. The North should be turned, essentially, to the country’s grazing zone. As to weather constraints, science and countries like Israel have proved  conclusively  that grass can luxuriate anywhere under the sun. And to effectively do this, they should approach either their banks for long term loans or their state governments for partnership. They should then exploit the entire value chain by establishing meat processing companies with incredible, and foreseeable possibility of a quantum economic leap. Not only would their animals be more productive and the business more profitable, massive employment opportunities will open up for all Nigerians and many of our currently under utilised airports doting the entire country could be reconfigured for cargo haulage as the entire West African sub region would easily become their market. Nor would there be a shortage of buyers coming from the South to buy cows and processed meat just as they go to the North today to buy yams, tomatoes etc.

    Sometime in the 80’s, I seriously considered exporting raw foodstuffs abroad, especially to both the U.S and the U.K where my children were then studying. Once I did the feasibility study, the first practical step I undertook was to go to Kuta in Niger State, where my inquiries had shown was the best source for yams. Rather than go in a car, the gentleman who accompanied me, Mr Omole, and I went by public transport for me to properly understand what I was getting into. After discussions with some yam sellers right in the market and speaking  to one or two  big  farmers introduced to me, we bought yams which my partner then brought  to a Medoya at Mile 12, Lagos, with whom I have  agreed  a sale arrangement for whatever was excess to my export requirement. At Kuta, I noticed that unlike in the South, farmers do not have to make big heaps to harvest huge yams. I narrate this personal story to show that buyers from the South will continue to go to the North to buy cows which will no longer have to be taken, months, through hundreds of kilometres down South, destroying farms as they go.

    There is, however, another very fundamental reason which makes one believe that as a united country, under God, desirous of peace, and disavowing of all these unnecessary bloodletting, we should allow history to be our guide.

    That brings me to the following Whats app chat that has been trending for some time now. Titled: “WHY ANY GRAZING BILL MUST BE STOPPED”, the story is told of how King Yunfa, the Hausa Sarkin in Gobir (now called Sokoto) hosted a Fulani immigrant called Usman Dan Fodiyo and his group in February 1804. As a result of that act of hospitality, and the subsequent killing of Yunfa in 1808 by the immigrants, the entire Hausa kingdom was lost, a booty to the Fulanis, who promptly turned it to Sokoto Caliphate; an eventuality that happened simply because the Fulanis were given access to grazing land by their hosts ( though they claimed to have been fighting syncretism -additions mine.) Nor did the Fulanis stop there. In Ilorin they killed Afonja who had colluded with them and, in his place, installed the Alimis as emirs over a predominantly Yoruba kingdom till today. And had the Yoruba not defeated them in Osogbo in 1840, there would most probably be Fulani emirs all over Yoruba land today. Continues the story: “It is the descendants of these same Fulanis who are now angling for grazing reserves and a corridor throughout the entire federation. Such grazing reserves, if  allowed, will see history repeat itself , now  properly as the  mother of all  tragedies  because Fulani settlements  would  soon  become  communities and later  translate to  Local government areas with their own elected officials”. Concluding, the author wrote: “The grazing bill is a subtle continuation of the 1804 Fulani jihad by today’s fully-armed, and well protected Fulani herdsmen with the  same  age-old agenda to overrun and Islamise Nigeria. The grazing bill is not an attempt to solve the problem, it is a subterfuge to progress the agenda. It is an age-old political strategy: create a problem, come up with a “solution” that advances the cause, and then give it a legal backing to make it look like a win-win situation.”

    All these may look like hogwash to some but my Yoruba people have this  saying : ‘ina esunsun ki jo ni le e meji, meaning, you don’t make the same mistake twice. In reaction to the Whats app story, I have heard people say it is an attempt to dip the Quoran in the Atlantic Ocean as the Alhaji Ahmadu Bello once promised. It was further argued that whether it is a grazing reserve or a ranch, Fulani settlements would emerge everywhere in the country and given the Hausa/Fulani culture to always have a radio transistor  with/on  them, somebody, somewhere would one day just give the command  to attack, and  Nigeria, as we know it, would be history.

     

     

     

  • Govt to build cattle ranches

    Govt to build cattle ranches

    The Federal Government is to build ranches and grazing reserves to end incessant clashes between cattle rearers and farmers, it was learnt yesterday.

    Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal gave the hint yesterday when he received a delegation of the Tabital Pulako Njode Jam Foundation, led by its Chairman, Abdul Bali, in Abuja.

    A statement by the Press Director in the Office of the SGF, Bolaji Adebiyi, noted that nomads from outside Nigeria have infiltrated the country, and are perpetuating most of the crimes.

    He said the government would enlighten Fulani herdsmen on ways to make cattle rearing more profitable by utilising the ranches, as well as reap other social and political benefits such settlements offer.

    The foundation, he said, was set up to look into clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

    “The foundation, in its submissions, is also convinced that nomads from other lands are responsible for the senseless killings on the farms, and urged the government to strengthen control at our land borders. The foundation is ready to partner government to bring the situation under control,” the statement said.  The SGF has also assured the people that government agencies responsible for rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were not discriminating in the provision of relief materials.   According to him, relief items were distributed with equity and fairness and based on severity of victims’ hardship.

    Lawal made the clarification when he received another group, the Lardin Gabas Elders’ Forum, led by Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Captain Paul Tahir.

    He said rehabilitation in the Northeast, besides provision of food items, tents and building materials, included reconstruction of schools, hospitals, police stations and barracks.

    To streamline the rehabilitation activities and accelerate the return to normal life, Lawal hinted that a Presidential Committee on Northeast Initiative (PCNI) will be inaugurated.

    The Lardin Gabas Elders’ Forum was established as a reaction to the devastation of the Boko Haram insurgency on the Northeast.

    The forum, according to the delegation, will work with the Federal Government to bring succour to victims.

  • How ranches can stop herdsmen’s threats

    How ranches can stop herdsmen’s threats

    The Federal Government is facing the challenge of cattle rearers across the country. To solve the problem, stakeholders are advocating the establishment of cattle ranches, with the goal of modernising livestock husbandry and inducing pastoralists to settle in one place. DANIEL ESSIET writes.

    These are trying times for farmers who are threatened by the activities of nomadic herdsmen.

    These herdsmen, believed to come from the Fulani ethnic group with their large number of cattles, engage in nefarious activities, such as the destruction of farm crops, arable land, pollution of water bodies, as well as killing and maiming of farmers who dare to stand against them. It is said that they rape innocent women in the communities as well. In some cases, clashes between the herdsmen and farmers have resulted in loss of lives and properties.

    To address this growing tension and prevent its aggravation, stakeholders are calling for immediate action to prevent  the problem escalating to a full blown national crisis.

    Right now, there are two bills before the National Assembly. The Bill for an Act to establish the National Grazing Route and Reserve Commission, to establish and control Grazing Routes and Reserves in all parts of Nigeria; and for Other Matters Related Thereto (HB, 388), and the Bill for an Act to create a Department of Cattle Ranches under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, or any such Ministry Overseeing the Production and Rearing of Cattle; and for Other Matters Related Thereto (HB 323).

    But  some  stakeholders  do not agree with the  idea of grazing  routes and areas; rather,  they are pushing for cattle ranches as a means of ending recurring conflicts between herdsmen and farmers. Ranching is the practice of raising herds of animals on large tracts of land. Currently, ranching and livestock industry is growing faster than any other agricultural sector in the world. This is practiced in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

    Worldwide, private organisations and individuals establish cattle ranches. In most of the arrangements, a group of people jointly hold title to land, maintain agreed herd sizes, and own livestock individually, but herd them together.

    Speaking on the issue, the President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodities Association of Nigeria (FACAN), Dr. Victor Iyama, said that cattle raised within the ranches are well fed. Within a ranch, the managers ensure that livestock have grass to graze, good water to drink, and that they are in the right pasture that allows grazed plants time to recover and become highly productive.

    Iyama said Nigeria needs cattle ranches across major parts of the North as practiced in Australia.

    Such businesses, he said, will have   sheds, machinery, accommodation for workers, vegetable gardens. Cattle ranches will also house meat processing plants.

    Apart from reducing the problem of clashes with communities,  large-scale cattle ranching create jobs for farmers, veterinarians, mechanics, and engineers, he said, adding that moving cattles around is not the best for livestock management.

    He described the practice as ‘cruelty to animals, having to walk them for miles in search for grazing areas, stressing that there is no way in Australia with the largest number of cattle population in the world that cattle herdsmen would move animals around.

    Iyama said the absence of the law regulating movement of cattle has led to criminals masquerading as herdsmen and getting away with criminal activities such as destruction of farms.

    He said a lot of waste lands along the nation’s economic routes cannot be used by conventional agriculture, adding that the government can support private investors to take over those areas and convert them to cattle ranches. According to him, there are massive hectares of land along the Lagos –Ibadan axis  and the road to the north that are wasting that can be converted by private Nigerians into cattle ranches.

    He said Australia has been able to curtail cattle herdsmen and communal conflict because of its large cattle stations with cattle farms covering thousands of square kilometers.

    This ensures peaceful co-existence between crop farmers and animal farmers, particularly herdsmen.

    With drought conditions and high feed prices creating havoc for many cattle herdsmen. Feed costs have escalated in dramatic proportions, and in some cases farmers are struggling to be able to acquire feed at all.

    To address this, Iyama is launching a national initiative to help cattle herdsmen feed herds from hydroponically grown feed, saying that  the hydroponic feed will provide a highly nutritious and cost effective living feed for cattle on the ranches.

    The feed will be grown from barley and other seeds, which are placed in climatically controlled hydroponic unit.It takes 6 days for the seeds to germinate into a mat of nutritious fresh green barley shoots.

    He said it is his expectation that  the system will provide a consistent, daily supply of fresh feed. With this system, he explained that there was no need to move cattle around the country.

    His thoughts are shared by  other stakeholders who believe  as   urban  consumers  became more  demanding,  especially  in  the  area  of  hygiene,  the  balance  of  the  market   will shift  against pastoralists and towards enclosed systems.

    One of them is the Chief Executive, Centre for Cocoa Initiative, Mr. Robo Adhuze.

    He believes the potential of agriculture is enormous. But there is a huge gap – at the moment agriculture contributes little to thenation’s Gross domestic product (GDP).

    He observed that the sector requires commercial farming, not only to provide the country but also to be able to export, so they can get the foreign earnings that they so desperately need.

    Adhuze noted that rangeland livestock production is an important form ofdiversified agriculture.

    He said the government needs to apply new development concepts to make agriculture more efficient, inclusive and environment-friendly.

    According to him, marked progress in livestock farming ensures food security and supply, while the urban-rural income gap must be narrowed.

    He said that a cattle rearing was private business.He said nomadic cattle rearing was obsolete and should be discouraged.

    He reiterated that establishment of cattle ranches is a lasting solution to the frequent clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

    Speaking with The Nation, a former Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ilorin(UNILORIN), Prof Abiodun Adeloye  said  the livestock industry  will do well with cattle ranches  established  with miles of fencing and  water supplies accessible to grazing land.  Cattle ranches, he explained,  will support  large pastures-grass vegetation in addition to cattle. Also, cattle will be handled in a more gentle fashion, while herdsmen will be allowed  them to move around  effectively and reduce long-term stress on the animals .

    According to him, investors will make efforts to create large feedlots and also establish  slaughter facilities.

    Cattle ranching,he emphasised is the best livestock management  to handle a greater number of cattle.

    The other issue is that Nigeria is yet to establish a completely computerised traceability system where consumers know exactly where their beef comes from and how it was raised.

  • Neither grazing reserves nor ranches: let history be our guide

     It is a lie to claim arrogantly that government has a monopoly of violence and one would have thought that Boko Haram has proved that beyond all doubt.

    “Nobody can stop the government from acquiring land anywhere. Government is government. If anybody thinks that he is violent, government has a monopoly of violence”. –Senator Abdullahi Adamu –Chairman, Senate/House Joint Public Hearing Committee. 

    History, it has been said, repeats itself as tragedy.  This we must try to avoid as Nigerians but since successive Nigerian governments had only been toying with the idea of having a genuine, and honest, national conference where we would tell ourselves the truth, and nothing but the truth, I think it behoves concerned individuals to try their humble best to help the country out of this conundrum. Resolving the naughty issue of the herdsmen is one issue on which we must allow history to guide us lest we further complicate our problems. Some of these truths have been coming out at the ongoing Joint National Assembly Public Hearing where the representatives from Benue and Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Edward Ujege, President General of Mdzough U Tiv and Dr Paddy Njoku , respectively, as well as that  of Southern  Zaria,  vehemently objected to the Grazing Reserve Bill. Beyond the public hearing, at least two governors from the Southwest have equally voiced their opposition. These objections are the result of the sad experiences Fulani herdsmen had inflicted on people in various parts of the country, the most recent being the Enugu killing of about 40 persons and the Agatu blood feast which accounted for about 500 deaths but which Sale Bayari, Secretary-General of  Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN),  rhapsodised as the consequence of the Fulani’s unforgiving spirit – if they kill 10, we kill 100 in return, he enthused in Sunday Punch  interview. All the opposition is asking for, is simply that whoever armed these herdsmen should please disarm them.

    Given the above circumstances, the time has come for the government to read the riot act to these murderous herdsmen and their employers who operate behind the mask. It is a lie to claim arrogantly that government has a monopoly of violence and one would have thought that Boko Haram has proved that beyond all doubt.  Let me, therefore, suggest two ways in which the big men who own the businesses, and are arming these dangerous herdsmen can, in the interim, do their business unmolested in spite of the massive objections from the other geo-political zones. First, they should blow their cover and come out into the open. They should then submit a list of their herdsmen to government, disarm them completely and promptly enter into an agreement with the various governments, affirming their vicarious liability for any of their employers’ transgressions. Secondly, and  for the  long term,  given  the  business’s contribution  to the country’s growth and development , the business owners  should look to the north for  both  their grazing reserves  and ranches. The north should be turned, essentially, to the country’s grazing zone. As to whether constraints, science and countries like Israel have proved copiously that grass can luxuriate anywhere under the sun.  And to effectively do this, they should approach either their banks for long term loans or their state governments for partnership. They should then exploit the entire value chain by establishing meat processing companies with incredible, and foreseeable possibility of a quantum economic leap. Not only would their animals be more productive and fetch more money,  massive employment opportunities will open up for all Nigerians and  many of our currently  under utilised airports doting the entire country could be reconfigured for  cargo  haulage as the entire West African sub region could readily become their market.  Nor would there be a shortage of buyers coming from the South to buy cows, as well as processed meat just like they come to the north today, to buy yams, tomatoes etc.

    I assure any doubting Thomas that these are things I have thought over very well. Sometime in the 80s, I seriously considered exporting raw foodstuffs abroad, especially to both the U.S and the U.K where my children were then studying. Once I did the feasibility study, the very first practical step I undertook was to go to Kuta in Niger State, where my inquiries had shown was my best source for yam. Rather than go in a car, the gentleman who accompanied me, Mr Omole, and I went by public transport to properly understand what I was getting into. After discussions with some  yam  sellers right in the market and  speaking  to one or two farmers introduced to me, we bought yams which my partner then brought to a Medoya at  Mile 12, Lagos, with whom I had agreed to help sell on commission basis. At Kuta, I noticed that unlike in the south, farmers do not have to make big heaps to harvest huge yams. I narrated this personal story to show that buyers from the south will continue to come up north to buy cows which will no longer have to be taken, months, through hundreds of kilometres from the north.

    There is, however, another very fundamental reason which makes one believe that as a united country, under God, desirous of peace, and disavowing of all these unnecessary bloodletting, we should allow history to guide us in these very dangerous times. That brings me to the following Whats app message that has been trending for some time now. Titled: “WHY ANY GRAZING BILL MUST BE STOPPED”, the story is told of how King Yunfa, the Hausa Sarkin in Gobir (now called Sokoto) hosted a Fulani immigrant called Usman Dan Fodiyo and his group in February 1804.  As a result of that act of hospitality, and the subsequent killing of Yunfa in 1808 by the immigrants, the entire Hausa kingdom has become lost, a booty to the Fulanis which has since become the Sokoto Caliphate; a venture that happened simply because the Fulanis were given access to grazing land as a result of the hospitality of their hosts (though they claimed to have been fighting syncretism -additions mine.) Nor did the Fulanis stop there. In Ilorin, they killed Afonja who had colluded with them and, in his place, installed the Alimis as kings over a predominantly Yoruba kingdom till today.  And had the Yoruba not defeated them in Osogbo in 1840, there would most probably be Fulani emirs all over Yoruba land today. Continued the story:  It is the descendants of these same Fulanis who are now angling for grazing reserves and a corridor through the entire federation. Such grazing reserves, if ever allowed, will see history repeat itself as tragedy because Fulani settlements,vlater,  communities and, finally local government areas with their own  elected officials will spring up all over Nigeria”. Concluding, the author wrote: “The grazing bill is a subtle continuation of the 1804 Fulani jihad by today’s  fully-armed, and well- protected, Fulani herdsmen with the age-old agenda to overrun and Islamise Nigeria. The grazing bill is not an attempt to solve the problem, it’s a subterfuge to progress the agenda. It is an age-old political strategy: create a problem, come up with a “solution” that advances the cause, and then give it a legal backing to make it look like a win-win situation”. Those interested in this story should Google WIKIPEDIA -the free encyclopedia for more information.

    All these may be hogwash, but my Yoruba people have a saying to the effect that: ina esunsun ki jo ni le e meji, meaning, you don’t make the same mistake twice. In reaction to the Whats app  story, I have heard people say it is an attempt to dip the Quran in the Atlantic Ocean as the revered Alhaji Ahmadu Bello was rumoured to have once promised. It was further argued that whether  it is a grazing reserve or a ranch, Fulani settlements would emerge everywhere in the country and given the Hausa/Fulani culture to always have a radio transistor on them, somebody, somewhere would one day just give the command or a fatwa to over run, and that would be all.

    If, therefore, there is no such ulterior motive behind the quest for a grazing bill, which, ab initio, presumes that the federal government immorally wants to fund some peoples’ private business, I would like to repeat that the suggestions earlier made in this article should prove reasonable and viable; indeed, it should be a silver bullet to the herdsman’s palaver.

  • Re: Ranches or prisons for herdsmen

    SIR: Nigeria is a land of absurdities – abundant crude oil yet scarcity of petrol, large expanse of waters yet no potable water, quantum of gas, yet none to power electricity, countless churches and mosques yet increasing crimes.

    How else can one explain a situation where people violently take over farmlands to feed their own cattle at other people’s expense and in the process kill the innocent farmers, rape their wives or kidnap farmers with brazen impunity.

    Absurdly enough, the secretary general of Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDAN) one Sale Bayari in The Nation Wednesday April 27, saw all the actuality reports by local and foreign media on the rampaging by Fulani herdsmen as mere propaganda.

    Reports of herdsmen kidnappers of Chief Olu Falae who confessed and reports of killed and burnt victims are also propaganda.

    Bayari also sees the right of free movement as right to trespass and poach other peoples’ properties with impunity. He is also oblivious of the land use act provisions.

    His defence smacks of some illogicalities. The rangers, cowboys in America he refers to do not violate the rights of other farmland owners by feeding their cattle on other peoples farms. Perhaps it would interest Bayari to know that there are ranches in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

    It is just economically wiser for the money bag owners of cattle to purchase some exotic breed which will multiply with time and give them better earnings in meat, fat, hides and skin, dry bones and animal waste for manure. Most importantly it will expose the illiterate crude handlers to a settled civilized life, livestock technology, and education of their children.

    It is unprogressive to stick to cultural or traditional ways of life without some moderation.

    Creating ranches will tame the animals and their crude and blood-thirsty handlers.

    For instance if the poultry farmers had stuck to keeping local breed perpetually, they would not have discovered better option in the imported broilers. The cattle keepers can move out of their traditional model and move with modernization in livestock trading instead of depending on other peoples farms to feed their cattle free of charge. Even if the government establishes grazing zone, it must not be free because the state cannot behave like Father Christmas.

    If this trend is not checked the agro diversification programme of President Muhammadu Buhari government will be endangered as large farmlands will be plundered.

    It is a pity that in the defence of the Fulani, the spokesman did not even sympathize with victims of Fulani plunderers meaning that cattle is more precious  than human lives.

    Another issue in the whole scenario is the neglect of intelligence report of the planned invasion by the herdsmen by the relevant authorities. It is pure show of official irresponsibility and people involved deserve punishment.

    The Enugu State governor shedding crocodile tears is just a political weeping. President Buhari should arrest the situation before it grows to another Boko Haram scourge.

     

    • Julius Kayode,

    Isolo, Lagos.

  • Benue proposes a bill for ranches

    Benue State Executive Council has proposed a bill for the establishment of ranches by cattle owners to reduce conflicts between farmers and herdsmen.

    Special Assistant to Governor Samuel Ortom on Media and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Mr. Tahav Agerzua, in a statement, said the governor disclosed this when the Air Officer Commanding, Tactical Air Command of the Nigerian Airforce (NAF) Base, Makurdi, Air Vice Marshal R. A. Ojuawo paid him a visit.

    Ortom was quoted to have stated that when passed into law, the ranches would forestall the incessant clashes between farmers and herders in the state.

    “Governor Ortom said the initiative would be a permanent solution to the age-long conflict, adding that the establishment of ranches remained the best practice for cattle owners across the world.

    The governor, who expressed appreciation to the Nigerian Air Force for maintaining a cordial working relationship with the government and people of the state over the years, urged the officers and men of the command to help his administration to tackle the insecurity challenges confronting the State.

    Governor Ortom stressed that his government has taken proactive measures, including the declaration of an amnesty programme to recover illegal arms in the state in order to create a conducive environment for investment to thrive.

    Earlier, Air Marshal Ojuawo requested the governor to take proactive steps to sustain security in the state and explore the possibility of commencing flight operations from Abuja to Makurdi at least three times in a week.

    He expressed the resolve of the NAF BASE in Makurdi to continue to discharge its responsibilities creditably and requested the governor to visit the Command to see things for himself.

    Governor Ortom also hosted the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Yahaya Garba Ardo, the management of the University of Mkar, Graduate Internship Scheme of the Benue SURE-P, former staff of Taraku Oil Mills as well as the management of Jos Electricity Distribution Company.