I’ve been asked to write about the marauding Fulani herdsmen who have
been causing havoc and mayhem where ever they go. This is a very
sensitive and volatile topic that nobody will write about unless it’s
about their murderous antics.
But nevertheless let’s see what I have to say.
Surprisingly I’ll sit on the fence here: a lot of blood has been shed
on both sides; there are no winners or losers here, everybody is
suffering.
What you have going on here is the equivalent of opening up the
floodgates to Hell: on the one hand you have a bunch of illiterate
herdsmen protecting their livestock with everything they’ve got and on
the other hand you got those protecting their lands from the
trespassing herdsmen. And unless steps are made to keep them apart –
permanently – there will be pandemonium for years to come. The
proliferation of weapons in Nigeria and the inability of the security
forces to control it means these otherwise ‘bow-and-arrow’ herdsmen
now have access to a wide range of advance weapons – handguns, AK47s
and god knows what else – to go on the rampage with.
I don’t believe the killings are politically or religiously motivated
since the herdsmen haven’t declared any allegiance to any political
cause or party and they intend to kill anyone indiscriminately which
rules out religion as a cause. That they were trained in Libya to come
and wreak havoc in Nigeria seems to be a far-fetched unsubstantiated
claim: without a political or religious agenda this doesn’t make
sense.
For those old enough to remember the Fulani herdsmen have always
brought their herds down from the North to graze in the South before
selling them. In the past they have done this in a peaceful manner
without becoming a nuisance or danger to anyone.
Then something happened , recently, that would turn them into rag-tag
militant murderers burning down towns and villages and killing people.
The thing that happened is called ‘progress’: whilst the rest of the
country has moved on into the 21st century the mentality of the
herders is still stuck in the 19th century – or even less!
As we know, the Fulani herdsmen are nomadic and highly illiterate:
they don’t stay still in one place to get a decent education or learn
about the world around them. Their loyalty is only to each other and
their herds – anybody else is their enemy. They also believe it is
their God-given right to graze their herds where ever they see a green
patch. The people in the South and Middle Belt have progressed further
and the once open and vast green belts are now somebody’s front
garden, farm, playing field or park – definitely not for grazing
without permission from the owner. The illiterate herdsmen don’t know
this (- or don’t care!) and continue grazing their ‘beloved’ animals
and before you know it trouble erupts and escalates to big time wahala
and people are killed.
Now instead of the herdsmen to see this as a deterrent to them grazing
on somebody’s land without permission they see it as a declaration of
war. So next time they come down from the North with their herds they
are ready to battle with anybody who gets in their way: and armed with
AK47s, machetes etc they can inflict a lot of damage on a small
community within a few hours.
What is wrong here is their mind-set and with no one to talk to them
or educate them about the dos and don’ts of the 21st century they will
carry on. And in a country where there is a breakdown in law and
order, where 80% of the active police force are assigned non-police
duties such as guarding dignitaries and banks, anarchy is bound to
prevail; so it’s no surprise Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, cultists and
other miscreants are running amok.
In the United Kingdom the government had a similar problem with a
nomadic group of people called ‘travellers’ or ‘gypsies’. They would
turn up out of nowhere with all their old vehicles and caravans and
set-up camp where ever it suited them – be it a public park, school
field or somebody’s front garden. Without a doubt this lead to
incessant conflicts between them and the local residents. It got so
bad that just like the Fulani herdsmen they came ready to do battle
with anyone who got in their way until the government stepped in.
The government’s solution to the problem was a very simple one: they
established traveller’s parks outside of every major town so these
people can go there whenever they’re on the move and passed laws
forbidding them from going anywhere else. Problem solved! The
travellers were happy and the local residents were happy. No more ugly
confrontations and no more wahala.
Sometimes the solution to a big problem can be something very small.
There’s enough land in Nigeria for every major town to have a ranch or
ranches outside the city boundaries to accommodate these Fulani
herdsmen and their cows.
Once you have these ranches up and running (- hopefully!) you make
them go there and stay there, enforcing it with whatever means
possible: enforcing their movement there is the key here; somebody
needs to get it into their thick skulls that they can’t graze their
cattle anywhere else. By the time you arrest and lock-up a few of them
and seize their ‘beloved’ herds the rest will get the message.
By doing this a lot of the bloodshed, happening on a daily basis, will
be avoided.
Branding them as terrorists or engaging them in running battles will
only escalate the problem.
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