The business of cow herding predates Nigeria, so also the farmers-herders disputes. In fact, it was partly due to this reason that the Grazing Reserve Law of Northern Nigeria, No 4 of 1962 was bundled into the 1963 Republican constitution. Basically, it was meant to encourage the sedentarization of the nomadic pastoralists (mostly Fulanis) through legally secured titles, but unfortunately, the law was haphazardly and fraudulently promulgated by politicians who allocated lands to themselves.
It is imperative I lay bare some points on the issue of criminality, impunity, threat to security, the slarking and gradually tearing apart social fabrics of the Nigerian state for everyones' discernment. Whether this piece is objective or not will simply depend on the logical and inferential capacity of each and every reader. Though, it is a long read but a trial at reading further might prompt one to read more of it.
To start with, the failure of the political elites to sincerely operate and adhere to those legal frameworks guiding the conduct of cow business, as exemplified in the bastardization of Grazing Law Act was the genesis of farmers-herders clashes. What should we expect when a cowboy is told that he has a grazing route from Dutse to Ankpa or from Birni-Kebbi to Asaba, whereas, the indigenous owners of these routes were never compensated, apparently, there will be crisis between the nomads and the land owners.
Politicians may not feel obligated to regulate cattle movements simply because of the 'issue of ownership'. Who owns the majority of these cattle? The opacity of cow business has made many Nigerians to fall for the factoid that 'it is a non-elitist or low profile business'. Contrary to this view, politicians, military chiefs, high cadre civil servants and wealthy stakeholders, mostly of Northern Nigerian extract invest in cattle business. What normally holds is that a herd of 10,000 cattle for instance could be shared among various herders through a Sarkin Fulani who stands as the front for the real owners of the business whose interest is simply informed by nothing but profits.
The
logic behind this business is that the real owners remain invisible in order to
be able to evade tax, avoid corporate social responsibilities, and above all,
to shield the face of the volume of capital that is involved. Let's take 10,000
cattle at the rate of 200k each into consideration, that's N2b. How possible is
it for a parliamentarian or a military chief who could not legitimately earn
5% of such an amount between a period of 2 to 5 years to suddenly come up with
that volume of capital?
That means the source of capital for cow business is shady hence the need to keep it in the dark from the understanding of the general public.
The invisible owners of these cows who are always at the helms of affairs in the military, civil service, legislature or federal executive bodies and are invariably the invisible reasons Fulani cattle herders could wield deadly weapons like AK-47 rifles; trespass on farmlands; act aggressively and kill farmers who dare to challenge them. An order from the top to release Fulani herdsmen who might have been arrested on an account of criminal offence is commonplace within the police service as well. The implications of this on the larger society therefore are that herders become more emboldened, ruthless and condescending in their social relationships.
Did we wonder why all the hues and cries against the atrocities of those bad eggs among the cattle herders didn't yield any positive governmental action over the years? The invisible owners of the cows are the reason open grazing cannot be seriously banned. They are the reason ranching cannot evolve up till now. The real owners are behind the decision buttons of different governments at various eras, as such, they have frustrated policies that were geared towards the process of modernizing cattle rearing because such moves will expose them to paying taxes, it will make them observe social responsibilities, limit their access to cheap labour and above all, reveal the strength or extent to which they have accumulated ill-gotten capital.
When President Buhari came up with some erratic and paranoia policies such as: grazing routes, cow colonies, RUGA and inclusion of all inland water bodies in the exclusive legislative list, we understood it was all politics meant to buttress the business of cows. This same Mr Buhari has a ranch in Katsina state but he would rather enforce the imposition and propagation of cow colonies on those states that constitute Nigeria for free while the profits go into private pockets. In fact, Mr Buhari's obsession with the issue of localization of cows business actually made some people suspect the President has a sinister objective of using RUGA or cow colonies to change the demography of Nigeria.
The resultant effects of the bitter politics behind the economics of cattle business is that people who are saddled with the responsibilities of running the affairs of Nigeria at different capacities are selfish, greedy, wicked and highly inconsiderate to the extent that they have used their positions to create another brand of people out of an ethnic nationality which then makes the larger society to stereotypically label all the unit as evil. Little wonder did the leader of Miyetti Allah, Kautal Hore posited a few days ago that "Mr Buhari has done nothing for the Fulanis instead, he made more enemies for them"
There was a revelation by rtd. Col. Tony Nyiam, a member of a national security discourse, who said that a larger percentage of the arms carried about by Fulani herdsmen, came from the Army and Police armoury according to the Director General of the State Security Services, Maman Daura, who is also himself a Fulani man. It was about the same time that President Buhari visited Donald Trump just to make an impression that the nomadic Fulani only carry sticks and not riffles. All these lies and cover-ups took place between 2016 and 2019, when there was a torid battle between the indigenous people of the Middle Belt zone of Nigeria and the Fulani herdsmen over ancestral lands.
The federal government of Nigeria failed to come up with any meaningful or lasting solution to the Middle Belt crisis. Instead, the anti-open grazing law, promulgated by the government of Benue state, where a greater degree of destruction was committed by Fulani herdsmen as at then, because they owned up to it, was eventually countered by a nationwide Federal Executive Order which says "all licensed guns, be it dane or automatic should be returned to the Nigerian Police". When Nigerians called the attention of the federal government to the AK-47 being brandished by the Fulani herdsmen, the government replied that herdsmen who are dispersed in the forest could only be reached and informed of government's directives through the establishment of a Fulfude speaking Amplitude Modulation radio that will cost billions of naira. The said radio was fictitiously created on the frequency of 720 KHz.
Encouraging social vices by political authority in any form is such a dangerous thing to do because crime has the propensity to grow beyond expectations if left unchecked. The breakaway groups of fulani herdsmen who are into kidnapping and banditry these days do not know if government officials or a fulani owns a particular vehicle they want to attack on the highway. They care less if their next victim is a muslim or not. Once a vehicle is targeted, it will be sprayed to a halt. Whoever dies is immaterial to their mission as long as there are few others who could be taken away for profiling and ransom.
Chronic insecurity, like never before, is the bane of Nigeria for over a decade but the state has either been foolishly adept at politicizing it or making businesses out of it. Either way, the people were made to bear the brunt of such government ineptitude while the resultant effects could be seen in the ways livelihood within Nigeria is shattered and tacitly disarticulated. Despite the clamour by the Nigerian senate that Mr President should enforce an executive order and ban open grazing nationwide, the Governor of bauchi state, Bala Muhammed, still swung to the defence of herdsmen at the just concluded 2121 Press Week by declaring that "herdsmen only carry Ak-47 rifle in order to protect themselves against wild animals and cattle rustlers". The Governor didn't say a word on the killings of farmers, kidnapping, raping and conversion of indigenous peoples' ancestral homes to cattle settlements but was quick to blame the government for failing to protect a Fulani herdman against the hazards of his business as if all other legitimate businesses in Nigeria are risk-free and entirely cushioned by government subventions.
This is the current situation of Nigeria. We are in this mess due to three reasons. The first is the politics behind the business of cows; succinctly discussed above. The second is the multiplier effects of irresponsible governance (travesty of governance), and the activities of politicians to clinch powers at all cost; while the last reason is the issue of backward economy that must be addressed or else we continue to sink into deep mess.
A critical look at the second reason Nigeria is facing serious security challenges at the moment will reveal that the prevalence of banditry is not totally an offshoot of herdsmen brigandage or gangsterism, but also significantly due to the activities of politicians who confessed to have hired militia from neighbouring countries to prosecute the election which brought the government of Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2015.
One of the confidants of President Buhari, the current Governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, claimed in 2018 to have paid a huge amount of money in order to send off the majority of those parading themselves as bandits in the North Western part of the country today. We were amazed at his action. Many asked "to where is he sending them after the pay off??". We didn't expect such a move because we assumed these elements are aboriginal to Nigeria and mere criminals who must have acquired arms in order to draw the attention of the same government who plunged them into age long penury.
The situation became clearer when Kawu Baraje, a onetime National Secretary of the opposition party PDP, who was also part of the founding members of the APC in 2015 explained that "those who are causing problems in Nigeria today are not the Fulani we have been living with for years, but those fulani herdsmen that were hired from various West African countries in order to facilitate victory for APC in the 2015 polls". We cannot completely discount Abubakar Baraje's assertion because President Muhammadu Buhari, in 2019, after being confronted with the question of influx of foreign Fulanis declared that his "government has granted no-visa requirements to any African who wanted to enter Nigeria". After this declaration, a member of Buhari's cabinet stated on National TV that "every fulani in any part of the word is a Nigerian by nature". What else do we need to ascertain that foreign militias were shipped into the country for political reasons which has now backfired and degenerated to a security crisis?
Someone who didn't understand the root of this problem such as Sheik Ahmad Gumi has found himself at the opposing side of the negotiation table against one of the masterminders of the issue of banditry, Mr Nasir El-Rufai, who now leads the motion that 'bandits should be bombed at once' instead of granting them amnesty as touted by the Islamic scholar who likened bandits to Niger/Delta freedom fighters. To have compared banditry and militancy in Niger/Delta is not just totally out of place, but it is also a miscarriage of thought; most especially when it is done by one of those who normally speak the truth to the power like the Sheik. Any realist will simply agree with Mr El-Rufai's position in that the Governor must have been exhausted with the continuous secret demands of the bandits. In the real sense of it, no matter how bad Nigeria is littered with communities of criminals, nothing good can come out of paying criminals. This is because such an act will make them crave more money, continue to feel more entitled, drain the state, become more powerful, encourage more criminal elements to sprout out of the blue and invariably portray millions of law abiding citizens as fools.
The security situation of Nigeria today leaves so much to be desired. Fulani herdsmen remain a veritable dynamo that could trigger itself any time. Boko Haram waxes stronger because the sect makes money at almost every negotiation with the Nigerian government. The nexus between government officials and terrorism was established when the US government stated categorically in 2017 that they have stopped sharing Intel with the Nigerian government because whatever they tell our top government officials is being leaked to the terrorist group. Fulani herdsmen were thereafter labelled a terrorist group by the US government. We expected a stern action against insecurity from the Nigerian government in response but instead, a self-government agitating group of Eastern Nigeria origin was proscribed by the federal government. In the midst of these dilemmas arose the menace of banditry and kidnapping for ransom on the highway ways.
It is in a country like that of Nigeria where the government is either absent, silent, irresponsible or technically dead that the people only resort to self-help like we have in the case of Sunday Igboho, a Yoruba war Lord tagged activist who took up arms against criminals in defence of his people. Such action is a double-edged sword; it may attain the desired end for now, but it will bring about a negative ripple effect in the nearest future because it lacks authority and legitimacy no matter the amount of followership or acceptability it commands among the people. Information Minister, Lai Muhammed, recently affirmed the deficit of trust embedded in Nigeria's government when he endorsed the meeting/negotiation between groups of bandits in Zamfara and Sheik Ahmad Gumi by foolishly genuflecting that ''criminals would easily believe the islamic scholar more than the Nigerian government".
A religious approach to resolving political matters that has socio-economic undertone cannot be entirely watered down, but it is important we learn from history in order not to repeat the same mistake. The roots of banditry as it is seen today could be significantly traced to Sharia law being championed by the people of Zamfara state. Little did the people know that the Governor then Sani Yerima, only used the law as a cover-up for his own planned grand theft and looting of the state treasury. The same line of reasoning is going on right now in Kano state where Hisbah Police simply usurp the duties of the conventional police force in order to brand the state as a Muslim type. It doesn't take a sociologist or a political scientist to predict that the actions of Hisbah police will successfully breed monsters that will later torment Kano state. Governor Umar Ganduje would have become history by then, but the people would suffer from the Leviathan they foolishly created.
The very last reason we are enmeshed in deep security mess is because we have failed as a nation to organize reasonable, progressive and conducive economic, educational and social arrangements for our people. Banditry became a profession because those guys lack proper education while the majority of them are jobless. The same factors worked in favour of the Boko Haram sect who could always draw membership from the horde of idle, illiterate and religiously drunk populace of the North. This is why the exercise of deradicalizing, rehabilitating and reintegration of repentant Boko Haram members will continue to be a waste of resources and state perfidy. After all, the same repentants have been proven to be hard core terrorists by the Senate Committee chairman on Army, Muhammed Ali Ndume, who claimed that the recent attack on civilians at Damboa federal constituency of Borno state and other sof targets were aided and abetted by the so called repentant Boko Haram members.
Solution to the issue of insurity is not monothetic. Politicians must put the country first before any good thing can happen. Peace and security cannot fall from heaven. Ranching is a must and strictly a private business. Education is a must for any nation that wants civility. Gainful employment is a corollary to a balanced, diversified and organized economy. Apart from those macro security challenges, the country is faced with a myriad of other variants such as: highway robbery, cyber theft, baby factory, fake drugs/foods production and a host of daily petty threats to lives and property. These vices are on the increase due to factors that could easily be located within the causative factors of 'negative political leadership and economic failure'. How on earth can amnesty fix all these? How on earth can military actions put a stop to all these? Unless our leaders wake up from their illusive slumber and appreciate reality, the country will drift into complete anarchy and no tribe, religion, class or group will be able to save itself because all the means with which resolution/pacification could be attained would been exhausted as a result of the recklessness and irresponsibilities of those ethnic champions we hail in the name of politics of patronage today.
