The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (5)

The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (5)

Having tried to pose questions with a view to stimulating some thought aimed at getting citizens involved in the process of finding lasting solution to the problem in question, I, in this last installment of the discourse, look at what I consider some practical possibilities.

As it is obvious, at the heart of Fulani problem is economics. The cattle are livelihood for the Fulani, but so also are the crops for settled populations. While the Fulani need to graze their cattle, the farmers also need to grow their crops. If harm to the cattle is threatening to the Fulani, so is harm to the farmers’ crops. But the question to ask is this: in the 21^st century, how effective and efficient are the practices, in Nigeria, of the pastoralists and the farmers in their respective economic endeavours when compared with elsewhere in the world? Clearly, with all the land resources in Nigeria, we are far behind in terms of annual yield per hectare which is why we keep importing all our food needs: livestock and crop.

While government has generally tried to boost agriculture lately, it is doubtful that enough is being made in the area of livestock, particularly cattle breeding which affects the Fulani directly. If one considers the fact that a higher percentage of the beef needs of this country is met from abroad, then it begins to dawn that the present pastoralist practice, cheap as it appears, is no longer tenable and therefore the need for government to make bold policy decisions and back same with purposeful action. Apart from the drying up of pastures, which makes the practice frustrating by the day, crises are erupting everywhere which are proving costly to the Nigerian society and intractable. The Americans saw this over a century ago and boldly went for the practice of ranching which has proven very effective in solving crises between farmers and pastoralists while ensuring higher livestock yield. Beef, dairy and other livestock needs of the United States have long been settled locally, with so much more than enough to spare abroad.

Some quarters have argued, rather insistently, that the problem with ranching in Nigeria arises from the breed of cattle that thrives in Nigeria, known as the “‘Yan Kanaji”. They claim that this breed cannot be successfully ranched. Interestingly, proponents of this position are of northern extraction, some of whom are infact academics in the field of livestock. This raises questions as to the seriousness or sincerity in the quest for a solution to this problem from this particular perspective, as one would expect that by now, such professionals would have immersed themselves in researches aimed at evolving breeds that will do well in ranches in our clime. By the way, this same ‘Yan Kanaji breed of cattle has successfully been ranched and with fantastic yield in Brazil, a country which has the same climatic conditions as Nigeria, therefore felling such arguments flat on the face.

It therefore appears that, apart from the political-economic gains this present entropic status-quo affords some quarters, the real problem is about getting the Fulani to adopt a new way of life and living. This is a people used to moving from place to place and now, due to prevailing realities, will be required to be settled in one. It is understandably not easy. But if that is the only option left for the common good, should the Nigerian state not be bold enough to work with the Fulani nation toward achieving it? Holding on to the status quo for the Fulani as it is today only amounts to a rather vain and costly romanticism.

Also, communities that have found themselves in conflicts with the Fulani must be courageous enough to lay their hurts aside and be a part of more productive measures aimed at bringing the problem to an end. A critical step is to seek a better understanding of the situation and finding ways of better engaging the state to play its role. Critical in the process is the role of legislators at different levels, and such communities must task their representatives.

A final point to make here is the place of rule of law in the whole works. In as far as the Nigerian state keeps toying with the entrenchment of the rule of law, ours will continue its descent into lawlessness. Vandals and criminals must be made to face the full weight of the law; that is the only way to ensure that people don’t continue to take laws into their hands, hence the anarchy. Nigeria must work for Nigerians.

(Published on BLUEPRINT Newspaper, Thur Feb 13, 2014)

The Fulani and the Rest of Us (4)

The Fulani and the Rest of Us (4)

We now go back to our reflections, after last week’s digression, on the Fulani quagmire that is set on swallowing us up as a nation, especially in the north.

Between last Friday and now, there have been at least three vicious attacks in Kaduna state and on the fringes of Plateau state. For that reason of currency, I bring up the Nigerian state into the discourse today, especially in the light of comments made by a former member of the National Assembly in the aftermath of the attack on Manchok, in Kaura LGA of Kaduna State. Hon Barnabas Bala Bantex represented the Kaura federal constituency between 2007 and 2011. Before then he had been Chairman of the same LGA. In a phone-in program on Liberty Radio Kaduna last Friday, after an overnight wipe-out of a family of seven by suspected Fulani gunmen, he called in with a voice laden with frustration and blamed, in his submission, the Nigerian state for its failure to nib the Fulani crises in the area in the bud. He said if the government had done something after the attacks and counter-attacks of four weeks ago, by way of transparent arrests and speedy prosecution of perpetrators, this would most probably not have taken place. By Monday the 3^rd of February again, gunmen, allegedly Fulani, numbering over two hundred and armed to the teeth attacked the Takad people of Zangang in Kaduna State and Kirim in Plateau State, leaving scores dead.

This crass failure of the state to provide protection to lives and property of Nigerians has become legendary. It has caused insecurity to fester in no small measure. For whatever reason, the people entrusted with the task have successively failed, or even refused, to tackle this particular problem of the Fulani, as with many other problems, across Nigeria. One is left with no option but to conclude that the continued existence of this problem is serving some interests. There is no political will to address this particular problem, it has become clear, and gradually Nigerians who find themselves under the threat are resorting to providing security for themselves, hence, an unfettered descent into anarchy. Many people living in these threatened areas consider themselves being waged war at.

Of course this problem is not one that can be addressed militarily by the Nigerian state, even though a certain amount of it is clearly required going by the apparent sophistication of organization and the surgical precision of onslaughts. It must be approached politically and with sound governance policies which, regrettably, have been non-existent and, where there have appeared any, are either ill-conceived or deliberately programmed not to achieve the stated results. For example, the nomadic education policy which is meant to target the pastoralist Fulani and hopefully integrating them into mainstream society and modern trends even in their own livelihood. For all it is worth, the program has not yielded as expected because the people at whom it is aimed cannot be tied down for it to achieve meaningfully as they are constantly on the move. Moreover, very few instructors are ready to follow them about and in such terrain. May be the nomadic policy strategy has to be revisited.

As more and more problematic as the Nigerian demographics have continued to be by the day due to the porous nature of our borders on all fronts, the Nigerian state has failed Nigerians in coming up with sure-fire measures to police our frontiers and to ensure proper documentation of citizens and foreigners within the country. It is only natural that any person who wants to be Nigerian or live in Nigeria be fully accounted for and not for such to traverse in and out of the frontiers at will. It means that the system must be effective to the extent that everyone within provides some legitimate identification on demand otherwise face the full weight of the law. We have heard claims that some of these Fulani are not of Nigerian extraction.

Of course this is only possible if the local population, especially those living near the borders, is ready to cooperate with the state. Census exercise has been a major challenge in Nigeria. For selfish political and other sundry interests, many have made the conduct of censuses in Nigeria impossible. Every day, the implication of that continues to stare us, rather unpleasantly, in the face.

Nigerians have to be able to account for each other if Nigeria must work. It is only in conditions of peace that we can prosper and we must insist on those we have put in leadership positions to deliver on their mandate by creating such an environment. 

(Published on BLUEPRINT Newspaper, Thur Feb 6, 2014)

A Brewing Storm

A Brewing Storm

Today I keep aside our ongoing discourse on the pastoralist Fulani many clashes across the country in order to mention, for the record, what to me is a brewing storm waiting to rage in Kaduna state, if nothing is done, especially as we approach the precarious looking year, 2015.

Yesterday, on Liberty Radio news in Kaduna, the Federal Road Safety Command in Abia State was said to be decrying the menace that Achaba (Okada) riders have come to constitute, not just to the general public but also, to its very own men and officers including others charged with the task of maintaining traffic in that state. The bike riders, on their part, alleged that they are being incessantly extorted by road traffic workers and they cannot contain the molestation any longer.

Abia State is not alone, somewhat. In Kaduna State, feelers have been rife with complaints by Achaba riders of how they are being exploited by law enforcement agents. One had dismissed the complaints as one of those “roger” incidents that Nigerians have been compelled to accept, but, apparently, it isn’t so as they are growing louder by the day. Only yesterday, also, on the Kaduna State Media Corporation’s Capital Sounds Fm popular morning show, Oga-Driver, the anchor, Phillips Arome Omachi, brought the matter to the open, based on complaints received from Achaba riders around the Barnawa suburb of the Kaduna city. Oga-Driver, being a programme on road safety, entertains citizens’ complaints on everything ranging from road use to road infrastructure. Citizens have come to trust it as a veritable mouth-piece and the Kaduna State government, as with successive ones, has made efforts to take voices from the programme seriously.

A backgrounder to the report on Oga-Driver is necessary here. Kaduna has turned out host to the many Achaba riders from many other major cities across the north, nay the country at large. Many bike riders expelled from the FCT, Niger and Nassarawa States have found their way to the closest “accommodating” city, which is Kaduna. Also, there are some from Kano and Plateau States including those who, probably not finding the ongoing insurrection attractive, have decided that Borno and Yobe States are no longer safe. They have now made Kaduna home. Some are from as far flung areas as Lagos and other that have banned Achaba riders in their cities. The result is that the city has become overcrowded with commercial motorcycle riders to the extent that every day on Kaduna roads is an assurance of traffic molestation by these riders, to the extent that, as a car rider, if you retire to your home without a bruise to your vehicle, it is an achievement.

Another major challenge is that of this horde that has fluxed and keeps on fluxing Kaduna, many do not have accommodation. Some just collect themselves in a spot that is slightly convenient and pass the night lying on their bike. Some crash in or around property such as mosques and filling stations. Others get to strike some deal with owners of certain business areas to be allowed to crash around as their presence would provide some measure of nightly security. It is in these circumstances that mindless security operative come in. According to Oga-Driver, Achaba riders from the Barnawa axis have complained that when sleeping at night, men of the police force come to round them up and would not release them until they pay the sum of N2000.00.  Venting their frustrations, they are calling out for help.

One challenge with this situation is that, in the bravado of knowing their nuisance value to politicians during elections and electioneering, these Achaba riders could take laws into their hands anytime in protest against such errant policemen and a mean crisis could break out; mean in the sense that it can happen at night when they are being rounded up and Kaduna, being what it can be, could conflagrate along sectarian lines beyond control.

Moreover, any city with such a number of persons without address and coordinatedly crashing from one point to another, in the name of eking out a living, is sitting on a tinderbox. This is because such persons usually have no stakes to protect and can unleash mayhem and be on the move. Kaduna state government allowed itself to be stampeded in the name of poverty, last year, from outlawing Achaba despite the fact that it knows that about 80% of these persons can melt away without a trace and that it has made alternative tricycles through its SURE-P. Other states have refused to be blackmailed by this poverty. Kaduna state must be advised.

 


(Published on BLUEPRINT Newspaper - Thur Jan 30, 2014)

The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (3)

The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (3)

Last week I tried to take a sociological peep into the reality of the pastoralist, drawing from experiences from far away climes and epochs and a pattern is clear. For anyone interested in testing this analogy, a further study into closer pastoralist tribes in central Africa, East and Southern Africa should be more revealing.

This week, the attempt is to see if the Fulani are also victims, of sorts, of their circumstances. Some eight or so years ago, I was at a certain seminar and during one of the breaks we got chatting with some fellow participants, amongst whom was this Fulani gentleman from Sokoto – a jolly good fellow. We talked about the many clashes, including the many acts of sheer roguery, involving the Fulani. My friend from Sokoto told of a certain young Fulani man caught in one of such acts of banditry and, when asked why he was involved, he replied, “to an dafa mu da magani, kuma yanzu babu shanu, ga kuma jini na tausa… yo to me za mu yi?” Roughly translated, the young man said what do you expect of us when we have been so fortified with charms to protect ourselves and our cattle in the bush and now the cattle are no longer there and we are still energetic? Now if this is true, then it is very telling. Remember also that, for a very long period of time from the 1990s, northern Nigeria was plagued with vicious armed robbery on our highways: the Kaduna-Lagos road along the Birnin Gwari-Tegena axis, the North-Eastern highways amongst others. People who have survived such attacks would always tell you that the perpetrators were Fulani or Chadians – still Fulani. One begins to wonder if these bandits are a collect of the many charm-fortified young men who have lost their cattle and have got lots of energy to expend. While this might seem a bit generalist, it is worth interrogating: where did the cattle go to?

Traces of this pattern began manifesting in the late eighties into the early nineties. Not much attention was paid it. Around the Birnin Gwari area, time came when the settled locals began to find ways to protect themselves from Fulani onslaughts which had begun to threaten their existence in no small measure. They came up with community vigilante groups as a response and because these groups were not trained, their interventions were wanton and innocent other Fulani were affected which has led to reprisals and counter reprisals, thus exacerbating the situation. It is noteworthy that the Birnin Gwari axis is on a cattle belt that extends northward to Zamfara and beyond, which is also facing the same intractability. Infact apart from outlawing grazing at night presently, the governor of Zamfara State has been making a strident case to be allowed to arm local vigilante; thus, state police of sorts.

Of course there are natural explanations to what might have happened to the Fulani cattle – and mind you when talking about them, one must accept the reality that one cannot restrict one’s considerations only to Nigeria’s Fulani but those of the entire West African sub-region as they are frontier-blind. The Sahara desert is said to be advancing southward at the rate of 900 meters annually. It has been made even worse by the aggravating realities of climate change. Therefore even before we saw the desert within our frontier, many pastoralists were already losing their cattle to the trend, hence left without livelihood. These pastoralists have had to move southward with all their survival skills but without their cattle and any skill in crop farming to help them make a possible switch. Of course there will also be those who must have lost their cattle to some disease plague or the other; or due to their very own irresponsibility. They will naturally constitute a threat to the communities they come in contact with.

Some quarters have found these realities of the Fulani very profitable in many strange ways that many may not ordinarily imagine. There is the need for some persons in these quarters to remain politically relevant and they would stop at nothing. Some of these persons are infact kinsmen of the Fulani, in other words, they are Fulani: the more the situation festers, the more their relevance, hence they surreptitiously pitch their unsuspecting kinsmen against others only for personal gains to the detriment of society at large. Even in government, this anomie serves the personal or group interests a great many whose duty it is to forestall the trend and, therefore, they would look the other way while it festers.

If ordinary citizens pay heed to the dynamics of this problem by interrogating more closely, they would realize that instead of always going on rampage, they can do a lot to be part of, and also compelling duty bearers to do their bit in, getting rid of this problem.

 

Published on BLUEPRINT Newspaper, Thursday Jan 23, 2014

The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (2)

The Nomadic Fulani and the Rest of Us (2)

So, to the first question raised last week: is the Fulani inherently wicked to people other than his own? Is the Fulani simply a trouble maker who goes around, in racial arrogance, causing crises all over the place? In the light of what is generally held about them as a people, it is probably helpful to take a peep into the sociological make up of the Fulani and see if any meaningful deduction can emerge.

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, discussing the many feuds between many families around the Appalachians in the United States of America in the 1800s, notes that “when one family fights with another, it’s a feud. When lots of families fight one another in identical little towns up and down the same mountain range, it’s a pattern”. We have seen a clear pattern in the manner in which clashes involving the Fulani across Nigeria have manifested. One finds Gladwell’s argument quite fascinating in locating a trend and a metaphor in this Fulani quagmire of ours.

For almost a hundred years, the 19^th century saw a lot of killings in that mountainous area between families: the Howards versus the Turners in the Harlan County; Hartfield versus McCoy on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, which stretched over twenty years; the French-Eversole feud in Perry County, Kentucky; the Martin-Tolliver feud in Rowan County, Kentucky; the Baker-Howard feud in Clay County, Kentucky. These were just to mention a few of the many known ones.

Gladwell further indicated that of the many potential explanations to this pattern debated, there was a consensus on what sociologists consider a particularly virulent strain called the “culture of honour”. Such cultures tended to take roots in marginally fertile areas like Sicily, the Basque regions of Spain and the northern counties of England and Ulster in Northern Ireland. Because of the low arability of such areas due to their rocky nature, the peoples tended to be herdsmen. They were very spartan. They were constantly under threat not just by the elements but also by other people like them, not to mention the wild animals. In contrast to the settled farming populations whose crops cannot be easily stolen wholesale, the livestock of the herdsmen can easily be totally plundered. Therefore, as a means of survival, they had to be aggressive; they had to make it clear that they were not weak. They saw any challenge as a threat to their personal reputation. It becomes, for such persons, a matter of honour.

The inhabitants of the Appalachian mountain areas emigrated originally from historically the world’s most ferocious cultures of honour. They were Scotch Irish: the lowlands of Scotland, the earlier mentioned northern counties of England, and Ulster in Northern Ireland. These borderland regions were known to be lawless territories, fought over for hundreds of years. They replicated their livelihood and lifestyle in the new world around the Appalachians.

Herdsmen are very clannish, “responding to the harshness and turmoil of their environment”, as Gladwell puts it, “by forming tight family bonds placing loyalty to blood above all else”. Being herdsmen also, it is easy to locate the Fulani in the above context. They are very clannish with very high loyalty to family bonds. Infact because of their quest to keep the family intact, it is common practice amongst them for first cousins to marry each other, which many other Nigerian communities find rather strange. The extent of their familial bonds sometimes leads them to treat children amongst them who have one of the parents coming from another tribe other than theirs with some reservation. To demonstrate honour and bravery in the typical Fulani society, a young man seeking the hand of a maiden in marriage will have to subject himself to the gory and sometimes life-threatening Sharo contest with other suitors, in which they subject themselves to vicious lashes – or thuds? – of each other’s herdsman staff. The last man standing wins the bride, having proved his capacity and capability to fend for and defend his family.

It is also, therefore, easy to see why any feud with one of them anywhere, as is commonly held, is a war with his family everywhere, no matter how seemingly remote the tie is: from Senegal to Mali, Gambia to Cameroun, Guinea to Chad, Niger Republic and Burkinafaso. It would not matter the enemy’s religion, tribe (including theirs) or the length of time, they would seem to visit with vendetta, regardless of frontier. Any wonder then why some of them caught during some of these attacks we see today don’t appear Nigerian? Again, once an older member of the family declares such battle, no matter how unjustifiable younger persons in the family construe such, it would take the former’s peers or seniors to stand them down.

This discourse is not an attempt to explain away the irascibility in question or vilify the Fulani, but to begin to suggest context for policy formulation toward permanently addressing the problem.

 

(Published on BLUEPRINT Newspaper, Thursday Jan 16, 2014)