BY
BOMBA DAUDA
Conflicts over land resources have assumed very dangerous dimensions. These conflicts are triggered, partly by competition over depleted and scarce resources as
a result of bourgeoning population growth rate and the impact of climate change/global warming and the ensuing effects: desertification and drought. Many communities in the West African sub-region have grown increasingly into desert wastelands, which pushes the rate of internal and trans-border migration by pastoralists to very favourable climates and dense foliage-endowed communities in the Middle-Belt and the Southern parts of Nigeria for grazing to be more frequent.
The constant clashes between farmers and the nomadic pastoralists are largely caused by incursion into unauthorized grazing lands such as farms by avaricious herders. Though, the situation in Southern Kaduna offers a different scenario, it is not farmers versus herders clash or inter-tribal conflict as it is in other climes but, genocide because armless people have been attacked at night while sleeping with the aim of taking over their ancestral land.
There are various schools of thoughts regarding conflict resolution akin to the persistent transhumant pastoralists versus farmers’ clashes in Nigeria. Some theorists believe that the spate of attacks by Fulani bellicose fighters against defenceless communities can be checked by providing a political solution through legislation and policy framework. This concept is laid on the hypothesis which claims that, no forcible peace can endure without a political basis. While others prescribe the right to arms or equilibrium of terror (the possession of arms by one community drives the others towards the same behaviour) as antidote to the social malaise, especially when taking into consideration the failure of army to embark on strategic military operation or rapid response by any of the state security apparatuses in all the attacks in Southern Kaduna.
But to Governor Nasiru El-rufai of Kaduna State, the recurrent genocide and ethnic cleansing by Fulani belligerents in Southern Kaduna can be shrewdly mitigated through the establishment of grazing reserves and force cohabitation between two dissimilar characters. I guess, the over ambition of the state government to create grazing reserves in the region is risked by poor information gathering mechanism, the mismanagement of information or even short of sensitivity to political signals. Accept reality.
As it is now, Kaduna State government wants to take over about 226,770 hectares of land across the state to give to Fulani herdsmen in the name of grazing reserves. Out of these lands, government wants 120,380 hectares of land from Southern Kaduna communities, which represents 63% of the total proposed grazing reserves in the State.
Today, we are in a battle of attrition to secure our ancestral inheritance. However, pluralism and not totalitarianism has to do with the rights of citizens, their rights to petition for the redress of grievances and fair hearing and not excessive display of might. The grazing reserve bill was supposed to undergo federal legislation and plebiscite to carry the entire nation along and not using state executive fiat to impose what government parochially deemed as “viable option.”
It is on these bases the Southern Kaduna people, like other geopolitical zones in the country, hold strong and incompatible conviction with the government on the viability of grazing reserves. Given this view, force cohabitation through the establishment of grazing reserves in our communities will only exacerbate the tension that has enveloped the region after the barbaric attacks against the Southern Kaduna people by Fulani herdsmen began in earnest in 2010.
Since the federal government brought to the fore the proposition of grazing reserves on the account that it is an effective conflict mitigation mechanism (by their assumption), a lot of Nigerians have condemned it on the ground that it is a systematic ploy to formalize land tenure rights to pastoralists and to also provide Fulani with legal grazing rights and title to land. In relation to that, on 25th August, Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) in concert with the coalition of Civil Society Organisations of Southern Kaduna extraction organized an International Press Conference and peaceful protest against the unabated killings and government planned grazing reserves in a move to gobble up our land and to force us co-exists with incongruent Fulani in our domain.
Since the senseless attacks started, the following communities: Bondong, Atakad, Madauchi, Ninte, Gododgodo, Sanga, Agwan Ayu, Gada-Biyu, Agwan-mada, Kobin, Fadan Karshe, Ningon, Ambe, Ankpong, Hayin-Gada etc have been besieged by villainous armed Fulani. According to available data, from 2010 to date, about 50,000 people (mostly women and children) have been killed and an estimated 1500 houses have been burnt to rubble, crops and hectares of farmlands destroyed in the aforementioned communities.
In an attempt to foster peace, in 2014, SOKAPU signed a peace pact with the Fulani but, 24 hours after the peace agreement was signed Fulani militia carried out an attack which is an indication that they are not lovers of peace. They have subsequently carried out the most atrocious attacks against the people of Southern Kaduna since the so-called “cease fire”. The communities surrounding the Ladugga grazing reserves are daily been attacked by Fulani insurgents.
The Fulani are currently view as sinister allies and foes, so, government proposed cohabitation lacks any viable selling point in many geopolitical psyche. It is imperative for government to know that some of the things they see as sensibly coherent in their eyes may be morally repugnant to the people. Cohabitation may be a lofty idea to the government but, bringing such idea into focus in the eye of the public may be boneheaded.
A typical case is the 30 years of forced cohabitation between Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 1952, the British government handed over Eritrea to Ethiopia but, the Eritreans fought all through the 30 years of cohabitation until they triumphed against the Ethiopian Army in May 1991.
We have consistently express twinge of uneasiness against grazing reserves, which is informed by the rate of horrific incidences and the pains inflicted on us by the same Fulani that government want to make our neighbours. Moreover, Ladugga as a case study has failed to guarantee peaceful co-existence, rather, it gives the criminal elements of the Fulani the latitude to infiltrate our communities and wreck havoc on us. Our people are currently having issues with Ladugga because its aim has been short-changed. Influential Fulani have converted the grazing reserve into their own personal property where they share lands to themselves, erected estates and also pursuing other business interests aside grazing. It is purported that, Fulani have arbitrarily produced a fake gazetted copy of Ladugga grazing reserve and extended it from the official 30956 hectares to a whopping 74000 hectares.
The question on the lips of most Nigerians is: why is government using tax-payers hard earned resources to promote a particular ethnic tribe business? The troubling issue vis-à-vis the grazing reserves is, which of the Fulani does government want to build the grazing reserves for, the sedentary Fulani or pastoralists from neighbouring African countries that have been resented and sent packing by their host countries because of their aggressive tendencies?
It is intellectually logical to redirect the N940 million the federal government budgeted in the 2016 budget for the establishment of grazing reserves into combating desertification and drought. And again, government should seek for more responsible ways through an institutionalize mechanism in spending ecological funds to restore environmental potentials and reverse the trend of migration and conflict. These are the surest ways to wriggle out of the logjam and not establishing grazing reserves that will be fought to a standstill.
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