Halting The Sneaky Menace of Determined Fulani Cattle-Rearers. By Felix N.Jarikre.

Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture.

We live in uncertain dangerous times; though by religious acculturation, I am exhorted and trained not to fear anything, for the first time in my adult life as a Nigerian, I genuinely fear for the configuration of the future that would be left for our children as citizens of this largely abused, battered, flattered, unloved and conveniently manipulated geographical piece of expression on Mother earth known as Nigeria. 

Why has this nagging fear refused to go away from my mind? For the first time, without sound alarmist or pessimistic, I see a real determined threat against the cohesion, unity and corporate existence of this country. Violent conflicts are not strange in this country, but we survived a civil war. Yes, there have been strident calls for the country now and then to be restructured as a way of liberating the creative and entrepreneurial energies of the people, discouraging indolence and parasitic tendencies, limiting an overly powerful centre, and transferring greater power to the federating units. Vocal proponents of this seemingly laudable idea so far are mainly from the South while its visceral antagonists come from the North of Nigeria. 

That the country is operating abysmally below its capacity, there seems to be an agreement. How do we pull away from the cross-currents that buffet the ship of state, and keep us rudderless, stagnant and unproductive? We seem to have a hard time making up our mind on the way to go. 

Growing up as an Urhobo child in primary school, we sang the National Anthem of Nigeria with gusto. We believed in the potential sold us of the country.  We never felt ethnically superior to other tribes, neither did we feel inferior.  We grew up as children in Oria-Abraka, now in Delta State where we were challenged in our household not to be lazy, beggarly or dependent  but to emulate Igbo enterprise and industry. If we had to buy any cloth or shoes that we felt secretly like owning, we worked hard for the money – tapping rubber, or any menial job that came in handy. There were no handouts except at Christmas! 

The Fulani herdsmen, as they drove their cattle about with long  stick zero AK-47s, we thought to be harmless, honest and reliable. On our gramophone, we played Yoruba musicians like Haruna Isola. Rex Lawson was an abiding presence. Omokomoko, an Urhobo icon, was legendary in his lilting singing style. Mingling with other cultures, we didn’t consider it strange that some of our friends spoke languages or dialects that we struggled to understand. One thing was sure. Our sense of shared destiny as Nigerians was very strong. 

Scales of innocence peeled off. Using political/military power by successive despotic regimes to pass unconscionable laws and decrees, the oil in our land was stolen to develop other parts of the country while our people was left behind with poverty, diseases, social dislocation, environmental degradation and pollution. Anger stalked the land. Militant agitations were rife. Yet somehow the dream of Nigeria’s greatness never died. The ones amongst us who reject violence believe that dialogue, moral suasion and the logic of human development will help to resolve the issues that seek to divide us. 

Right now, it appears an expansionist imperialistic agenda of a nameless shadowy government is unfolding before our eyes, and the future looks bleak. With the troubling conflicts across the country in which violent death or aggression is visited on any host community that dare to resist the encroachment of Fulani herdsmen, the Federal government’s response so far is to push out a plan mapping out as temporary solution Grazing Reserve Areas in the South until the herdsmen are persuaded to adopt other means of rearing their cattle. Not as easy or reasonable as it sounds!

Fulani Herdsman.

If top government ministers from Lai Mohammed, Abdulrahman Dambazzau to Audu Ogbeh appear to be fixated on appropriating lands for Fulani herdsmen in the south as the only tenable way out of the crisis, there is no solace in the National Assembly.

 Here there is a horrendous bill, from the heart of a woman, being fast-tracked to take other people’s lands under a National Grazing Reserve Commission. This bill has passed first and second reading. If it received the assent of the President, having passed a third reading, it shall be passed into law. Among other things, the bill seeks to provide for the establishment of a National Grazing Reserve Commission of Nigeria to preserve and control national grazing reserves and stock routes in the country.  The full title of the bill is: AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL GRAZING RESERVE (ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT) COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION AND CONTROL OF NATIONAL GRAZING RESERVES AND STOCK ROUTES AND OTHER MATTERS CONNECTED THEREWITH.

The key provisions include the following:

1.To establish a National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC) a body corporate.                                                                                                        2. The NGRC may acquire, hold, lease or dispose of any property, moveable or immoveable for the purpose of carrying out its function. 
3. The NGRC shall have a governing Council headed by a Chairman appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate with members representing the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Resources, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, the National Commission for Nomadic Education and shall also have a Director General.                                                                  4. To raise monies by way of grants, loans, borrowing,  subsidies and donations.                                                                                                         5. The following lands may be subject to the provisions of the Act to be constituted as National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes:                          (a) Lands at the disposal of the Federal Government of Nigeria.                      
(b) Any lands in respect of which it appears to the Commission that grazing in such land should be practiced.                                                                           
(c) Any land acquired by the Commission through purchase, assignment, gift or otherwise howsoever.                                                                                    
6. State Governments shall be given notice first before land acquisition and gazetting.                                                                                                          7. The Commission shall pay compensation to persons affected by any land acquisition.                                                                                                       8. There shall be no improvements, encroachment, bush burning, hunting, use of chemicals and felling of trees by anyone inside lands acquired and demarcated as National Grazing Reserves or Stock Routes.                           9. Contravention of any of the provisions in (8) above shall be punishable by a fine of N50,000 or 5 years imprisonment or both.                                          
10. No court of law shall carry out execution of its judgement or attachment of court process issued against the Commission in any action or suit without obtaining the prior consent of the Attorney General of the Federation.                  
11. For the time being, the Commission shall report to the Honourable Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.                                                   
12. Native communities referred to in the Bill shall be any group of persons occupying any lands in accordance with, and subject to native law and custom.                                                                                                             
13. Stock Routes shall mean tertiary or secondary or inter-state stock routes linking two or more States together or leading from grazing to grazing reserve.                                                                                                            14. When passed into law, the Act shall be cited as the National Grazing Reserve Commission (Establishment and Development) Bill 2008.

I appeal to you from my heart. Don’t just gloss over the content of this bill. Carefully scrutinise, and digest it and be amazed at the utter contempt, condescension, and neglect  with which some group of people holds others in Nigeria. With this piece of legislation, the NGRC may just seize any land it deems fit and acquire it for grazing purposes. At the disposal of Fulani herdsmen! 

This reprehensible bill, from its womb of conception, is a hostile act against its targets because it attempts to hand over the whole country, its economy, its security and future into the hand of one ethnic group – the Fulani.

The proponents of this obnoxious, retrograde bill appear determined and relentless. They are leaving the targets with no choice but to swallow or lump it. But it must be resisted and killed. That’s a task that must be done. To keep Nigeria one!