MENACE OF FULANI HERDSMEN IN BENUE STATE

DURING the week, attacks by Fulani herdsmen made headlines again in the newspapers. On Tuesday, at Ofagbe community, Isoko North Local Government Area, Delta State, herdsmen

On Wednesday, suspected Fulani attacked Amoji in Delta State and abducted no fewer than four persons according to a community leader, Emmanuel Odili.

On the same day, a gang of youths attacked and razed down Suwa and Burukutu in Lamurde local government area of Adamawa State. The assailants were said to be well-armed Fulani herdsmen.

In November last year, an armed group alleged to be Fulani herdsmen reportedly attacked nine different communities in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi and killed twenty-two people.

A month before, women from four local government areas in Enugu State, called on the state government to save them from Fulani herdsmen who regularly molest, maim, rape and destroy their farmland and livestock.

The abduction of elder statesman and former Presidential candidate, Chief Olu Falae on his farm at Ilado, Akure Ondo state by Fulani herdsman in September 2015 may have scaled up the national attention to the menace of attack by herdsmen. The herdsmen abducted and released the 77–year old man later after paying an undisclosed amount as ransom.

These incidents are a fraction of the incidents of attack attributed to Fulani herdsmen across the country.

According to a report published by SMB Intelligence, over 2,000 people have been killed in conflicts between the herdsmen and different host communities in 2015 alone. In comparison, the Boko Haram insurgency that has attracted the attention of the Nigerian government and global community, kills 2,500 people annually, the report states.

Recall that in 2000, the Fulani herdsmen and farmers had a major clash in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, which led to a visit by delegation from Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) to the office of the then governor, the late Lam Adesina.

In Benue State, not less than seven local government areas including Guma, Gwer-west, Logo, Agatu, Kwande, Gwer- east and Katsina- Ala were destroyed in the fight between herdsmen and farmers. In fact, there were persistent attack between herdsmen and farmers in Agatu, Ado, Ohimini and other parts of the State. The Fulani herders attacks reached its height in the State during the last quarter of governor Gabriel Suswam because herders from the north eastern states of Nigeria migrated to the state in droves and in turn began to unleash terror on the inhabitants, according to the people’s account.

A few years ago, about 10 youths who were returning home after the one-year compulsory National Youth Services Corps (NYSC) lost their lives in a ghastly auto-crash caused by unguided herd of cattle along Owo Expressway.

At Oro-Ago, in Ifelodun LGA of Kwara State, the Fulanis and their hosts had once clashed and two people were confirmed dead at the end of the hostility.

Alapa town in Asa LGA of the state also was not left out of the tragic incident.

Speaking on the relationship between the cattle rustlers and University of Ilorin, the Deputy Director Information of the institution, Kule Akogun said, “In the past, some of our staff while returning home at the close of work were sporadically attacked by the suspected cattle rustlers robbing them of their belongings in the process.

“Promptly, the University authorities reacted to this by engaging the services of many local vigilante to complement the efforts of our staff security. By 6pm they are at work combing the major roads leading into the campus.”

Akogun added that the last incursion into the campus by the rustlers was during the tenure of the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Ishiaq Oloyede. “He (Oloyede) rose to the occasion and since then, there has never been another attack.”

Speaking on the menace of Fulani herdsmen, the President of Akure Youth Coalition, Adekanbi Oluwatuyi, said herdsmen continuously harass and intimidate people of the State on their farmland by forcibly entering into their farmlands and feed the cattle.

“They descend on anyone who dares challenge or query their actions,” he said.

Onuwaje Eniola an indigene of Ugbonla, in Ilaje Local Government Area, corroborated Oluwatuyi’s statement. The herdsmen are usually hostile to their hosts whenever they try to stop them from littering their compound or the surrounding with cow dung and faeces, he said.

Speaking in defence of the herdsmen, the Secretary of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in Kwara State, Alhaji Usman Adamu said, a Fulani cattle rearer see his herd of cattle as his shop.

“He doesn’t have any other means of livelihood and so would want to defend his source of daily income. When he has no cattle under his control due to attacks, he is angry and would naturally think of the way out which in some cases is to vent his spleen on others.”

He added, “Cattle-rearing is our lives because a Fulani man is first thought of as a cattle breeder. Some of us go into animal husbandry mainly to grow food. The proceeds from sales of diary products are the only sources of income of a Fulani man.”

As a way of preventing the recurring tragedies between herders and farmers, several interventions have been made at different levels.
One of such is the recommendation by the 2014 National Conference. The delegates at the conference resolved that nomadic cattle rearing should be stopped; instead, the delegates recommended that ranches for cattle should be established across the country.

The former Governor of Kano State and Minister of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau during a solidarity visit to Falae in his residence in Akure, the Ondo State capital city, shortly after the release of the latter, said there is need for social justice.

Shekarau noted that the absence of social justice was responsible for the animosity between the Fulani herdsmen and their hosts. He urged the government at all levels to institute well-defined grazing routes so as to curtail the recurrent crises with the cattle breeders.

Recently, governor Abiola Ajimobi expressed worries over frequent clashes between farmers and Fulani cattle rearers, saying that his administration would find a lasting solution to the crises. Part of the solutions, he said, was the proposed setting up of the committee, which would ensure that there is peaceful co-existence among the people, particularly those from the rural areas. The governor also said that grazing routes would be established in some rural areas in the state to assist cattle rearers in feeding their animals without tampering with the crops planted by farmers.

The intervention of Arewa leaders in the incessant clashes has also assisted in dousing the growing tension between the two groups in the region.

The Chairman, Arewa Chiefs in Southern Nigeria and the Seriki Hausa in Shasha, Oyo State, Alhaji Haruna Katsina had met with the leadership of the Fulani herdsmen and pleaded with them on the need to respect their host for peace to reign.

This was sequel to series of clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in Oyo North senatorial district forcing the state House of Assembly to inaugurate a committee to douse the tension.

The Hausa leader had urged the Fulani herdsmen to maintain peace, respect their neighbors, and respect law and government to engender peace in the state. Katsina said observing the laws of the land and respect for the host community will prevent conflict from escalating to violence saying the region will not allow the terrible condition being witnessed in the North to rear its head in southern Nigeria.

The Seriki Shasha who is the Chairman of the Arewa Chiefs across the 17 Southern states of the country also called on the Fulani/ Bororo herdsmen to maintain peace, obey the government and hold peaceful meetings occasionally, urging them to settle their rift with farmers. He urged the Fulani leaders not to cover up anyone found to be a terrorist or kidnapper saying all enemies of peaceful co-existence must the exposed.

On its part, the state police command also held a peace meeting with the farmers and Fulani herdsmen in the state on how to live peacefully without any crisis.

While the farmers accused herdsmen of grazing on their crops without restriction, rape their women, threaten them and sometimes use dangerous weapons to rob innocent commuters along several roads within the state, the herdsmen in turn accused the farmers of killing their animals by poisoning the water which their cattle drink. The Fulani Bororo cattle rearers also pointed out that those troubling the farmers and committing crime are non-resident herdsmen and strangers who are insensitive to the farmers and other locals.

Though they expressed their concerns in angry tone, both parties recognized the need to co-exist peacefully having done so for several decades.

The meeting conveyed by the Commissioner of Police, Leye Oyebade was well attended by all the stakeholders.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the parley, the two groups agreed to live together as they have been doing but with a renewed pledge to respect each other in the process of conducting their personal businesses.

Among others, both parties outlawed grazing at night, personal disarmament by herdsmen, stoppage of threats, rape and intimidation. They also agreed to expose any stranger or strange herdsmen who wander into their communities and hold regular meetings for exchange of information among stakeholders.

The communiqué also called on the government to set aside land for cattle ranch for herdsmen as well as train and retrain them for peaceful co-existence with host communities.

Addressing the participants, Mr Oyebade emphasized that every Nigerian is entitled to their rights as entrenched in the constitution of the country. He said crises may brew in the society but all parties must always find a way to dialogue and find the best solutions so that people can continue to live together peacefully. He, however, warned herdsmen against carrying firearms in the course of their business, saying anyone caught with firearms would be treated as a criminal. He also advised heads of the Fulani community to always pass on outcomes of their deliberations with host communities to their younger ones sine they are the ones that take the animals grazing on farmlands.

The police boss also warned farmers against poisoning the cattle.
And the government is not also folding its arms as it announced plans to constitute a committee saddled with the responsibility of putting an end to the lingering crises between Fulani cattle rearers and farmers in some parts of the state.

In Benue State, Governor Ortom who himself lost over 50 hectares of paddy farm to the herders inversion, on assumption of power as governor of the state, advocated for the creation of ranches as a possible way of ending Fulani/ Farmers clashes in the country and sought for collaboration of the idea by his colleagues across the country.

Ortom also made efforts to constitute several inter/Intra states security committees made up of the Fulanis and indigenes of Benue and Nasarawa States to quell the crisis.

Ortom at a security meeting with stakeholders in Otukpo made up of top government functionaries Fulani elders and traditional heads announced the extension of the amnesty program in the Benue South Senatorial District.

The Coordinator of Ondo State Public Private Partnership, Prince Nekan Olateru-Olagbegi explained that “people that have cows all over, those Fulanis, eventually the state might have to build ranch facilities for them and once they come in, we ask them to occupy and register them; we would be able to manage their activities and check their cattle to ensure they are healthy, which is the reason for an ultramodern abattoir to ensure people consume healthy beef.

“Once we set this up too, we will empower so many people, increase their welfare, the revenue of the state and of course, create ample job opportunities for the army of unemployed youths in the agricultural and industrial sectors,” he said.

The Secretary of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association in the state, Alhaji Usman Adamu said the association was established to ensure that its members “do the right things at all times as against cases of robbing, rapping and killing people in the farms.”

Source: Benue State News