By Chidi Obineche
“What I did was ask him (Abubakar Malami, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice) to go dig (out) the gazette of the First Republic when people were obeying laws. There were cattle routes and grazing areas. Cattle routes were for when they (herdsmen) are moving up country, north to south, or east to west, they had to go through there. If you allow your cattle to stray into any farm, you are arrested. The farmer is invited to submit his claims. The Khadi or the Judge will say, pay this amount and if you can’t, the cattle is sold. And if there is any benefit, you are given, and people were behaving themselves. In the grazing areas, they built dams, put windmills in some places; there were even veterinary departments so that the herders are limited. Their route is known, their grazing area is known. So I asked for the gazette to make sure that those who encroached on these cattle routes and grazing areas will be dispossessed in law and try to bring some order back into the cattle grazing.”
With these words on Arise Television “Morning Show” interview on June 10, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari lit up a fire that has smouldered and raged for weeks on end. It was not the first time that the grey issue of cattle grazing routes would seize the momentum in the country, or generate a national furore. Violent conflicts between nomadic herders from the north of Nigeria often referred to as Fulani herdsmen and sedentary agrarian communities in the central and southern parts of the country have assumed frightening dimensions in the recent past, threatening national peace, unity, and stability.
In 2016 alone, the clashes recorded an estimated death toll of 2,500.The fatalities are increasing with each passing year. Conflict resolution mechanisms to reform livestock management practices, confront environmental issues and address cross-border movements of armed herders and cattle rustlers, identified as some of the triggers of the crises have been less than satisfactory and have not paid off. Issues of land and water use, obstruction of traditional routes, livestock theft and crop damages have not been visited with firm and prompt response. Their roots run deeper. The road to this impasse has been tough and grueling.
According to the Grazing Reserves Law of 1965, Nigeria has 415 grazing reserves but only about one third of it is functional. Others have been encroached on through infrastructural developments, (houses, roads etc) or being used for crop farming. About 141 of the grazing routes are officially logged or gazetted. But less than 20 of them are currently suitable for use by pastoralists. For some people, the presidential order is long awaited, needful, and a product of circumstances; others see it as unlawful and an attempt to stir up temper.
How the mess started
The advent of colonial rule in Nigeria modified the pattern of life of the pastoral Fulani. The relative peace and security that came with the British rule encouraged them to move out of their fortified and overcrowded villages to the grazing areas. Consequently, nomadic lifestyle, which is traditional to the Fulani ethnic group, began to grow in proportions. The cattle population of the northern emirates according to reports during the colonial era was between “three and four and a half million.” The estimation was based on the distribution of cattle for the revenue reports. The figures of the report were obtained from cattle tax returns (Jangali) which were based on native administration officials’ returns.
Governor W Edgerton of Lagos, in his confidential report of 1905 for the abolition of the caravan tolls, confirmed the dependency of the southern provinces on the importation of cattle from the northern emirates. He said: “there was a scarcity of meat for local requirements, especially in the Lagos area, because of the reduction in supply from Fulani/Hausa traders as a result of toll regulations.” In the annual report of Sokoto province for the year 1909, Resident Burdon recorded his observations that cattle was the staple export and expressed his desire to see to the development of the trade “as the great economic future of the province.”
There was a widespread belief that still subsists, that nomadic cattle ownership was part of the ageless and unalterable pattern of African life. No effort was made to coerce or induce the Fulani herders to settle and be integrated into a farm economy. From the first decade of the 20th century, the demand for cattle increased, particularly from the southwest, from Ilorin southwards to Lagos. The growth of human population and settlements, expansion of public infrastructure and acquisition of land by big farmers and other commercial interests have shunted herders out of the post independence government of the former northern region (now split into 19 states).The existing fragile relationship among the ethnic and religious groups in the country has been escalated by the conflicts. The predominantly Christian communities of the south loathe the influx of basically Muslim herders usually referred to as “Islamisation force”. And since these herders are mostly Fulani, their motives have been given a skewed interpretation as they are viewed with suspicion and as harboring an ethnic and religious agenda.
Why Fulani herdsmen carry arms
An official at the Federal Ministry of Justice gave an insight into why the herdsmen move about with arms. His words: “The social standing of the Fulani herdsmen depends on the number of cows he has. This thing is tied to their culture and religion. They don’t believe in buying land or being involved in other ostentatious acquisitions. They believe in what nature offers them. They carry arms because the forest is a jungle. They kill each other and steal each other’s cows. That is cattle rustling. What they do is to sell one or two cows and use the money to purchase AK-47 guns probably between N450, 000 or N500, 000 to protect themselves. Thereafter, they redeploy the arms to other uses which is what is causing the herders /farmers mayhem.”
Saturday Sun further learnt that the herdsmen usually pay for grazing rights to some village heads to be allowed to graze in the village farms. But the village heads would pocket the money and fail to inform their subjects that they had been paid. The herdsmen therefore get angry and boil over when these farmers accost them in the farms and demand that they leave. After settling the village heads to have access to the farms, the angry herdsmen expectedly resort to violence over what they perceive as breach of contract.
Previous attempts at reopening the cattle grazing routes
In 2009, the federal government embarked on a programme that gulped a whopping $247 million to mark out grazing reserves across Katsina, and Bauchi as well as Abuja. Establishing these reserves which were deployed to attend to the needs of more than 15 million pastoralists entailed demarcating 175,000 hectares of grazing land, building veterinary units and constructing settlements for nomads to use on their way through. Government also launched the demarcation of a 1,400km livestock route from Sokoto State in the Northwest to Oyo state in the Southwest, and another 2000km route from Adamawa in the Northeast to Calabar in the South-south.
In addition to these grazing routes, the Federal Government in its tepid eagerness to address the problem holistically budgeted $10b for what it called Great Green Wall Program (GGWP) geared towards combating desertification, which is one of the major factors pushing pastoralists from the far north to the south in search of greener and richer grazing. The violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers indisputably revolve around encroachment on their grazing lands and migration routes and the setting aside of designated grazing areas for herders.
Stakeholders weigh in
These two issues usually spark off violence leading to killings, rapes, arsons, abductions, destruction of property, etc. The apex socio-cultural group of the Igbo, Ohanaeze in a swift reaction to Buhari’s directive, said: “You can’t ask people in an agrarian area like Benue and Enugu to cut out areas and designate them as grazing precincts just to avoid incessant conflicts with herders.” The group which spoke through its President-General Prof. George Obiozor, said: “The proposal is simply provocative. Grazing fields mean less farmland and farm yields for a people who are mostly farmers and hamper food security and deplete the agricultural profile of these agrarian states.” However, despite the ever increasing escalation of conflicts between the herders and farmers on a steady basis, no middle ground has been reached and an end to the search for grazing sites across the country still remain a remote prospect.
The Executive Director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) Adetokunbo Mumuni argues that the gazetted law on cattle routes and reserves are part of northern Nigeria laws and is not applicable outside the north unless it is nationalized. Dr Ajibola Basiru, the senate spokesman and senator representing APC, Osun Central, insists there is no law on grazing routes in the country. He adds that grazing reserves recognized as a state law in the 1999 constitution criminalized open grazing. He said: “Grazing Reserve laws in some states created from the former northern region of Nigeria are deemed to be state laws by section 318 of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
“They have been adopted from the Grazing Reserve Law of Northern Region of Nigeria (NN law of 1965) including Cap 3 laws of Kwara State, Cap 56 laws of Bauchi State, and Cap 55 laws of Katsina State. Such law cannot be within the competence of the National Assembly.” In specifics, he explained that Section 37 of Grazing Law Cap 63 of Kwara State and Section 40 of the law prohibits possessing, carrying or using for any purpose, any firearms or other weapons for other purposes in the grazing areas.
Dan Nwanyanwu, National Chairman of Zenith Labour Party, (ZLP) says cattle routes will not reflect the demands of a 21st century development in cities and states. “Whether they respect vital infrastructure along the so-called routes or not, the important issue is that Nigeria should not continue to live in the past. The government should not give the impression that it is partisan by taking us back to the stone age.”
How the herders-farmers crises began
The Fulani ethnic group rears the majority of Nigeria’s cattle, traditionally estimated at 83% pastoral, village cattle 18%, and Peri-urban 0.3%. They are spread across nine nations in the West African sub-region. They are core and traditional pastoralists. For pastoralists, cattle represent the major household asset and play a key role in status and prestige, and for cementing social relationships such as kinship and marriage. Before the 1950s, a symbiotic relationship existed between pastoralists, crop farmers and their environment with the Fulani practicing transhumance. In the dry season, they migrated to the southern part where there are ample pasture and green vegetation.
In the wet season, these areas faced the challenge of diseases transmitted by Tse-tse flies, so they would migrate back to the northern savannah zone, supplying dairy products to the local farming communities. In return, they received grains, and after the harvest, cattle were allowed to graze on crop residues in fields, and would leave behind droppings that become manure. Fulani do not have rights to land, a situation that breeds local conflicts when their herds damage crops.
Grazing reserves came to the rescue of the Fulani in 1965 to provide them with secure land tenure, and to modernize the livestock sector, and dissuade them from nomadic lifestyle. As a follow up, between 1970 and 1980, the federal and state governments collectively invested $70m USD in livestock development. About 70 % of the amount was allocated to grazing reserves. While the selection and acquisition of grazing lands was placed on individual states, the reserves came through the National Livestock Project Unit (NLPU) of the Federal Livestock Department, now known as National Livestock Project Department. They are saddled with infrastructure development like provision of boreholes, dams, schools and roads.
However, they failed to tap into the venture because of the absence of formal and comprehensive gazetting, non-legalized grazing, land ownership, slow provision of infrastructure. Many states were indifferent to establishing reserves because of the prohibitive amounts of land compensation occasioned by the Land Use Act, 1978. Today, according to official revelations, there are 415 grazing reserves in 21 states, and 141 are gazetted, while only 2 are in the south – Oyo and Ogun. But other unofficial sources insist that, of the 415 grazing reserves, only 1/3 is in use currently, while 24 of them are gazetted. As the livestock population increases, the graze-able land is decreasing. This led to increased tension between crop farmers and Fulani pastoralists. It is such that in the last decade, it has claimed no fewer than 2,000 lives, 16,000 houses, multiple rapes of females, kidnapping for ransom and other heinous crimes.
Roadblocks and running battles
The problems of cattle grazing took a turn for the worse at the beginning of the current democratic dispensation in 1999 and gravely threatened the corporate existence of the country. By 2015, the herdsmen crises heightened with colossal damages. The federal government in 2018 conceived the idea of building cattle colonies for the herders, but it was resisted by many Nigerians and state governments mainly in the South, who perceived it as a grand ploy to grab land by the Fulani.
Shortly afterward, the government came up with Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) Initiative. It also fell flat on its face as it also was swiftly and stiffly resisted. Then, came the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). Under this programme, the Federal Government, Adamawa, Benue, Ebonyi, Edo, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Oyo, Plateau, Taraba and Zamfara states conceded to set up cattle ranches. Estimated to cost N179b over 10 years period, the two tiers of government were to throw in jointly N70b in the first three years of the pilot phase of the programme. Again, many Nigerians who believed it to be a clone of RUGA fought against it. Regardless, government forged ahead with the plan and launched the pilot phase in Adamawa, Nassarawa, and Plateau states in February 2020. But the rampaging COVID 19 pandemic then and the poor state of revenues of the federal and state governments jeopardized it.
Apart from political coloration of the efforts to sanitize pastoralism, other impediments have also combined to obstruct its progression. Chief among them is the Land Use Act, 1978. Section 1 of the act says:” Subject to the provisions of the ACT, all land comprised in the territory of each state in the federation are hereby vested in the governor of that state.” There is also the existence of a 1969 ruling by Justice Adewale Johnson which declared that “there is no grazing route established by law and protected by law”. That judgment has not been set aside till today. The grazing routes gazetted and recognized by law existed only in states created from the old pre 1966 northern Nigeria. Even at that, the laws recognizing grazing routes are state laws and therefore inferior to the Land Use Act which is a federal law that enjoys protection in the constitution. Besides, open grazing of cattle is banned in the south of Nigeria and backed by state laws. The 141 gazetted routes cover only 2.7 million hectares of land, while the grazing reserves cover 4,275,326 hectares. The land mass covered is infinitesimal to make any progress or impact.
Cattle routes reopening in top gear
Following President Buhari’s directive to reopen the grazing routes, a rash of activities has seized the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Justice. Saturday Sun checks at the two ministries last week gave positive indication of an imminent reopening of the grazing routes and reserves as directed. Indeed, the reopening has flagged off in full force. The Acting Director of the Department of Animal Husbandry in the ministry, Mrs Winnie Lai-Solarin declined to comment on the unfolding development when contacted. So did two other senior officials of the ministry.
However, information gathered indicates that stock routes are currently being retraced and recovered. Important landmarks along the known routes are being identified whether or not they have been built on or not. The focus for now is on the non-conflict areas. Those encroached on by vital public infrastructure are not to be effected in the recovery exercise. Some herdsmen have been drafted into the project to assist in the identification part of it. The exercise is being safely carried out, and based on the findings of Saturday Sun, the exercise, within the context of the controversial grazing reserve law, is slated to last for about 30 days.
To throw more light on the issue, a senior official at the ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak informed that, “we flagged off serious work on the project immediately after the President’s pronouncement. It is not that nothing had been done before; the directive only infused some urgency into what we have been doing before now. A ministerial order gave vent to meetings which have been held regularly since then, with the minister co- coordinating. Before long, you will see the results. Teams have also been set up to work on the recovery plan of the stock routes and reserves. The government is desirous of putting this problem behind. Lobbying by various interests has intensified. We have legal support and advice from the Ministry of Justice to guide us. The lawyers are examining the laws not only for implementation, but also to scrutinize the legal effects and other matters connected to the directive. The Committees on Agriculture at the National Assembly are involved. They are currently in a meeting with all the state directors and the directors here as you can see (Monday, June 21, 2021). The National Assembly is being carried along so that there won’t be any misunderstanding, delays or roadblock.”
He added that the number of consenting states to the project is growing saying that as at the previous day 22 states and the Federal Capital Territory had keyed in for the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). Asked why the whole affair is shrouded in utmost secrecy, he responded that as civil servants it is a tradition. “Here, only the Director of Publicity is authorized to speak, though directors can also speak.’ He continues: “when the grazing reserve law came into being in the 60’s, the population of Nigeria was about 56 million people. The livestock population was around 3 million. The livestock population started increasing as human population grew too. The pressure to have corridors connecting cattle from one reserve to another increased too. Some of the reserves and stock routes were gazetted, while some were not. I don’t understand it when people say the law was from the Northern Region. Was Oyo or Ogun State in the North? Can a northern regional government law be applicable in Oyo and Ogun? The truth is that infrastructural development, farmlands, estates have encroached on the stock routes and reserves. But don’t forget that these Fulani herdsmen usually move with their little ones, especially sons, who eventually take over from them. Those children that migrated with their fathers about twenty or thirty years ago are now mature, and may have discovered and can recognize these routes after taking over from them. What about the dung and droppings of the cattle along the routes? As life-long professional herdsmen, they are astute at recognizing these droppings which look like manure along the routes. Unable to follow the route for grazing, the herdsman then moves into farms and any available green space with his cattle for grazing.”
Resolving the herders-farmers clashes through legislation
A source at the Ministry of Justice, explained: “In 2014, former Benue State governor Gabriel Suswan headed a committee to resolve the lingering clashes between herdsmen and farmers, mostly in central and southern Nigeria. Six years down the line, nothing has come out of the report and nerves are still frayed. At the moment, the position of the government will be legally driven.” Only the courts can modify the decision of the government to resurrect the grazing routes, the source informed. According to him, ‘we expect litigations. It is normal. In 1953, there was no Nigeria in the real sense. Such things could fly then, but not now. The ethnic and religious consciousness of the people has been awoken. The arms bearing by the Fulani herdsmen has also deepened the problem and put other Nigerians on edge. Perhaps, if they were not carrying arms, the sensitivity would have not been like this. So we await claims and litigations. The grazing reserves and stock routes are on the concurrent list in the 1999 constitution. So the issue of a presidential veto cannot arise if a modified bill is sent to him from the National Assembly.”
In Nigeria, the laws and the constitution are often observed in the breach. The citizens prefer to follow the leader and his body language. He explains further: “In America, it is America first. In Nigeria, it is the leader first.” But he declined to affirm the nature, tempo and details of the law being planned although he rationalized it by quoting the late politician, Tony Anenih, that “everybody will leave the drawing board happy.”
He also brushed aside the insinuations that cattle herding is a private business and should not attract government funding or intervention. His argument: “In various states of the country, farmers enjoy government fertilizer free. Is that one not private business? So what’s wrong in government intervening financially in cattle rearing since it is causing problems in the country?” Insisting that a fair view will help in providing solutions to the protracted problem, he reechoed some of the oft-expressed effusions of the apologists of Fulani herdsmen crises, saying: “In the amalgamation of nations, your landmass determines the sea mass. The sea reserves in the south are as a result of the landmass in the north equated at nautical miles. This is a different argument entirely. We should be able to perfect routes where these animals will go through. The issue of the cross-border Fulani is also important to be addressed. There is no clear demarcation in the north showing borders. They only put ropes to show the difference between countries. No formal borderline as opposed to the south. When you say ‘border closed,’ can you close an open border? Some of the Fulani don’t know where they are from. The truth of the matter is that the herdsmen you see with the cattle are not the owners. The owners are the northern elite. They are in the background. They are the ones who are arming them to protect their stock because cattle are money.”
Going further, he reminded Nigerians that the Attorney General of the Federation is not vested with powers to originate laws on the concurrent list. He said: “When the states fail to make the laws, then federal laws will be binding on them.” On a concluding note, he expressed optimism that the crises over cattle will fizzle away soon. “There will be no war. It will die a natural death in some months to come. The style of a leader often dictates the nature of governance and set-up. Some leaders prefer the use of force in attaining goals. Some prefer dialogue. Others just float with the times and the subjects adjust to his aura and things sort themselves out,” he predicted. For Alhaji Gidado Siddiki, Southeast Zonal Chairman of MACBAN, “any move that will douse the tension in the land is welcome.”
States rev into action
Several states in Nigeria’s north have swung into action to re-open abandoned grazing reserves. At the last count, Katsina, Bauchi, Kano, Borno, Yobe and Niger have taken the lead in the revival process. In Katsina, over 2000km of cattle routes have been reclaimed. The Special Adviser to the governor on Livestock and Grazing Reserves, Dr. Lawal Bagida who spoke on the subject, said: “We already have a committee here, which has worked by marking the routes which have been gazetted.” The routes are marked out using beacons. The state has also earmarked and gazetted 123,000 hectares of land for grazing.
In Bauchi, a machinery has been set in motion to revive the routes. In October 2020, ahead of the presidential directive, the state released a White Paper on the report of the Administrative Committee of Inquiry into a land dispute between farmers and herdsmen in Misau Local Government Area which recommended revocation of all lands illegally acquired by farmers and other persons and to reestablish grazing reserves and reopen all the cattle routes in the state. Kano State has announced that its grazing reserves and routes are functional and have never been closed. The State Commissioner for Information, Mallam Muhammadu Garuba said efforts are on to ensure that the presidential directive is not breached in any way.
Owing to the fear of insurgency, the reopened routes and grazing reserves in Borno State have been abandoned. The Director, State Nomadic Education Directorate, Gambo Abasuwa Tom, said: “the routes were of different types, including local routes that linked one community to another within the state, interstate routes, as well as international routes which were in existence for a long period of time. Insurgency has displaced most of the pastoralists, while the majority of them have migrated to neighbouring states and countries. The state wants help from all concerned to restore normalcy and demarcate the routes.” The routes were known by the pastoralists, community leaders, and policymakers before the advent of insurgency, the commissioner said.
Yobe State has, so far, recovered 31 international routes in Gujba LGA, the chairman of the Local Government Area, Alhaji Dala Mala has announced. While the State Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Breeders Association, (MACBAN) Alhaji Sarkin Shuwa described the presidential order as long awaited, the chairman of the Farmers Association in the State, Aliu Mai Bindiga, lamented that his members lost over 70% of their produce to herders’ invasion this year.
The situation in Niger is slightly difficult because of the heightened insecurity in the state. Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Ahmed Ibrahim Matane said the state will opt for ranching after banditry in the state has been stamped out.