The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha says a lot of the disagreements between Fulani herdsmen and farmers could be traced to the erroneous assumption that all herdsmen are Fulani.
He stated this in an interview with select journalists in Abuja recently.
Mustapha, who hails from Adamawa State, disclosed that he is a herdsman but not of Fulani descent, noting that there were many others like him.
The SGF also described as “unfair” accusations that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was lethargic in handling herdsmen/farmers conflicts.
Mustapha said:
I think for anybody to accuse this government of being lethargic in dealing with herders-farmers conflict is quite unfair because we have been very decisive. The categorisation of the Fulani as herdsmen is improper. I am a herdsman but not a Fulani. So, particularly in the northern part of the country, saying all herdsmen are Fulani is a lie. We are all herdsmen, we are all farmers; some are arable farmers, some are herdsmen and all these farming in the agricultural sense is one. One is animal husbandry, the other one is arable farming or crops which are all farming and I think the dimension of conflicts in this country often time comes with different interpretations.
The farmers-herdsmen conflict is not new. It has been with us. The communities were more intact. They did not have a lot of extraneous influences. They have a defined pattern in resolving their conflicts in a particular location.
If the herdsman allows his animals go into a farmers plot and there is destruction, the local community use to sit down; there will be an assessment of the level of destruction, then the herdsman will be asked to pay. If unfortunately, the farmer kills an animal that belongs to a Fulani man or herdsman, then the community will sit and establish the justification for that action and if there’s no justification you will be asked to pay. So, we have a communal way of resolving a conflict.
Ranches and reserves have been in existence. In Adamawa, where I come from, there are several reserves established by law dating back to the days of Northern Nigerian with defined cattle routes. Abuja is a cattle route defined and gazetted in the laws of Northern Nigeria and similarly in several parts of this country. There is a major contention going on now, and partly economic with the growth in our population; with the growth in urbanisation, we have taken some of those reserves and turned them into residential areas. We have a belt across those cattle routes because there is a traditional pattern of movement that was established over the years.
You see, we do so many things in this country not minding the consequences that will confront us in the future. We have built across those cattle routes with urbanisation. We have taken the grazing reserves and apportioned them among elite farmers. We have fenced over the places, and these animals will have to feed and would have to get to a source of water. And this is a seasonal movement that’s why they are called nomads. We have nomadic fishermen. We have nomadic herdsmen. In the early part of the 70’s, the military thought it fit to build nomadic schools.
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There is a commission for nomadic education. Most of us do not think that is important. People move across a certain area at a certain time, so we needed to establish schools that will go along with them. We did that and even set up a commission but we did not look at the economic aspect that is now rearing its head. There is a competition over land, over control of resources. So much has happened as a result of climate change that were not even factored into the whole thing, but that’s the dynamics to it. So, for anybody to say that the Government has been lethargic in dealing with that crisis is totally being unfair.
I would say we are doing our best, we are making provisions. States that have given out some portion of their land for the creation of ranches, the government is going to help them to ensure that those ranches are created. All over the world, that’s how most countries have transited from being nomads. The American cowboys in the U.S. were nomads, moving from one place to the other but today grazing in the U.S. is restricted to a ranch. That’s what has happened all over the world. I don’t think that the Nigerian situation should be any different. We must move along that direction. Government is doing the best it can to ensure at least that those issues are mitigated. And there is a lot of mediation going on and some relative calm already coming into it.
In the North West, it is not the application of military force that will resolve that issue. It is deep because you won’t believe it that there is no cattle to rustle in the North West because virtually all the cattle are inside the forests; they have all been rustled from the Fulani men and they are inside the forests like bandits. So, the Fulani man is left without any cattle and he is being hunted. The conflict in the North West is deep and it will require the collective effort of the government and the people to be able to deal with it and that is why I was saying that if we are not careful it will surface as an insurgency because it is deep and it will be worse than the Boko Haram. It deals with the livelihood of the people. The people that used to live in those forests have all been uprooted, the bandits have rustled all the cattle and taken them into the forest. So, there must be a systematic way of dealing with that conflict. It requires the inputs of the traditional rulers, of religious leaders, community leaders to confront that particular conflict. So, it’s a complex situation and I know that government is decisive in putting apparatus in place to deal with it.