Violent clashes between farmers and herdsmen will persist until we modernise the cattle economy
Fresh waves of killings have in recent weeks swept through Borno, Kaduna and Plateau states, leaving scores of people dead and several others wounded. Last week in Kaduna, gunmen killed 10 persons in an attack in Adu village while another set of gunmen also attacked a nomadic Shuwa–Arab village killing 17 herdsmen, incidentally not far from Damboa where suspected militants had murdered 18 local hunters at a market earlier in the year. In Plateau State the killing of six people in Kunte village in southern Jos was reportedly done by gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen. In other states like Benue, related violence has claimed many lives. Even many of the youths, called civilian JTF that go out of their way to assist in hunting down Boko Haram members have now become easy targets.
What the foregoing signposts is that even if members of the Boko Haram sect have been weakened by the three-month military operations, they are still very potent. And they seem to be regrouping to kill those they perceive to be giving out their members, especially in Borno and Yobe states, where they have established a strong foothold. But the more worrisome of the recent killings is the one attributed to the clash between Fulani herdsmen and some local farmers over grazing. This is a perennial problem that has gone on for years and has led to the death of hundreds of Nigerians. This year has seen a sharp rise in such violence.
It is regrettable that as a nation, we remain glued to the past hence the seeming inability to deal with this challenge as we proffer the same medieval solutions to simple problems. While accepting that the culture of nomadic cattle rearing is part of our national tradition, there are aspects of our inherited culture that we ought to have modernised for a long time. What would be wrong with a national programme of re-orientation, empowerment and complete modernisation of our cattle economy to become more settled?
We are creating nomadic schools, providing for national nomadic grazing grounds even when we are all aware that the greatest meat producing countries in the world have no nomads. What we need are large modern farms with the cattle in dedicated shelter and cared for by thousands of re-trained former cattle rearers. This would provide massive employment, create new skill sets and eliminate these ancient bloody skirmishes that increase our national security nightmares.
It is lost on the authorities that these frequent clashes are desperate encounters between poor and oppressed herdsmen and equally impoverished and starving farmers. It is one other repercussion of a growing culture of elite indifference to a scourge of scandalous inequality. Yet we are ready to spend more money to investigate what we already know, buy more guns to fight what we caused and yet do nothing scientific to engage the problem. The oil companies whose rent payments keep our economy going are employing the best technologies to maintain their businesses and extract oil and gas but on the things over which we have control and on which the majority of our citizens depend, we remain either indifferent or fixated on ancient practices.
The now familiar regular bloody clashes between nomads and settled peasant farmer communities will not go away any time soon unless we address the crisis of mode of agricultural production in our economy. Even at that, with respect to attacks by the Fulani nomads the federal government's white paper on Sheik Ahmed Lemu report accepted the creation of grazing zones throughout the country. But the federal government has failed to act on the report or come out with alternative ideas while violent bloody clashes continue to claim many lives throughout the country almost on a daily basis.
What the foregoing signposts is that even if members of the Boko Haram sect have been weakened by the three-month military operations, they are still very potent. And they seem to be regrouping to kill those they perceive to be giving out their members, especially in Borno and Yobe states, where they have established a strong foothold. But the more worrisome of the recent killings is the one attributed to the clash between Fulani herdsmen and some local farmers over grazing. This is a perennial problem that has gone on for years and has led to the death of hundreds of Nigerians. This year has seen a sharp rise in such violence.
It is regrettable that as a nation, we remain glued to the past hence the seeming inability to deal with this challenge as we proffer the same medieval solutions to simple problems. While accepting that the culture of nomadic cattle rearing is part of our national tradition, there are aspects of our inherited culture that we ought to have modernised for a long time. What would be wrong with a national programme of re-orientation, empowerment and complete modernisation of our cattle economy to become more settled?
We are creating nomadic schools, providing for national nomadic grazing grounds even when we are all aware that the greatest meat producing countries in the world have no nomads. What we need are large modern farms with the cattle in dedicated shelter and cared for by thousands of re-trained former cattle rearers. This would provide massive employment, create new skill sets and eliminate these ancient bloody skirmishes that increase our national security nightmares.
It is lost on the authorities that these frequent clashes are desperate encounters between poor and oppressed herdsmen and equally impoverished and starving farmers. It is one other repercussion of a growing culture of elite indifference to a scourge of scandalous inequality. Yet we are ready to spend more money to investigate what we already know, buy more guns to fight what we caused and yet do nothing scientific to engage the problem. The oil companies whose rent payments keep our economy going are employing the best technologies to maintain their businesses and extract oil and gas but on the things over which we have control and on which the majority of our citizens depend, we remain either indifferent or fixated on ancient practices.
The now familiar regular bloody clashes between nomads and settled peasant farmer communities will not go away any time soon unless we address the crisis of mode of agricultural production in our economy. Even at that, with respect to attacks by the Fulani nomads the federal government's white paper on Sheik Ahmed Lemu report accepted the creation of grazing zones throughout the country. But the federal government has failed to act on the report or come out with alternative ideas while violent bloody clashes continue to claim many lives throughout the country almost on a daily basis.
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