Gyang Bere, Jos
Professor Hamidu Sharubutu, is the president, Veterinary Council of Nigeria. He is equally the Provost, Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology, Vom, Plateau State.
He was the chairman of the committee set up by Plateau State Government to proffer lasting solution to the lingering clashes between farmers and herdsmen. He wants government to ban grazing by minors and encourage Fulani herdsmen to settle down for ranching, just as he expressed the need for the federal government to resuscitate the primary responsibility of livestock extension workers in the country and introduce movement permits for Fulani herdsmen to checkmate their influx into rural communities in the country.
You are a Professor of Animal Health and the country is suffering from herdsmen attacks that have culminated in the death of innocent persons, how can the country get out of this trouble?
It is true that we are a College of Animal Health Technology, the college started from the Vom Veterinary School and our mandate is to train middle level manpower in animal production and by implication, train extension workers that interact with the herders and because of the nature of our trade, the farmers and the herdsmen are inseparable. We depend on the farmers as much as the farmers depend on the herders and when we bring these two together, it enhances our productivity as extension workers.
What do you think is the solution to the herdsmen/farmers’ clashes?
If you are asking me for the solution, I will say that the neglect of the traditional institutions is one of the factors, the traditional institution must be seen as leaders, government should not just use traditional institutions as fire brigade, they need bicycles to move around, they need motorcycles to move around the communities, a situation where they don’t have these facilities, there is no way they can monitor what is happening around.
In the olden days, every traditional ruler has sub-chiefs that are responsible for every trade, that is why in a typical Hausa setting you hear of the Serikin Noma, Serikin Shanu, and Serikin Doki among others, these are people that take stock of trades that are practiced in their domain and if there is an encroachment into anybody’s trade or if there is a visitor, the first thing they ask him is what is your trade and if you are a preacher, you will be received as a preacher, if you are a farmer, you will be received as a farmer, if you are a herdsman, you will be received as such and criminality can easily be monitored, unlike what is happening now.
Secondly, I want people to differentiate between farmers and herders’ clash which exist at a very smaller level from the criminality that is being perpetrated now. The remote cause may be farmers/herders’ clash but I think the situation we have found ourselves now has advanced beyond that level, I am saying this because I am involved, I have presented papers. When Plateau State governor, Simon Lalong was trying to introduce ranches, I was the pilot man, I was the driver of everything, I was the one that was educating people because of my academic background on the implications, and why Plateau State is peculiar in this respect? There is no tribe or ethic group on the Plateau that does not rear cow, therefore any regulation that is going to be put in place must not have an ethnic, tribal or a religious colouration. If you import that, it will completely sabotage the whole process, I was sponsored in school through livestock proceeds, so many of us were sponsored through livestock proceeds not necessarily because of a Fulani man but because our people are into it. Some Fulani don’t even have the types of animals that the Berom have, the Langtang and other tribes on the Plateau have, so a blanket ban will not solve the problem and we must do something.
What do you think should be done to solve the problem?
We must regulate the activities of farmers as well as that of herdsmen. There is no trade that should be left like that, drivers have regulations, the people selling cattle in the market have regulations, even bear parlour sellers have regulations, they have closing time, why will a Fulani man, a Berom or Angas continue to graze his cattle for 24 hours? Some of this criminality occurred in the night. Why will you allow small children who see everything green as a place to graze animals, take these animals out? Why will farmers be allowed to farm right into the middle of the road? Look at the forest, we have eaten it up, even where water is supposed to be flowing we are making rages there, that means the herdsmen cannot move. The criminality aspect of it is something that we must address urgently, if one Gaimai man is a thief that does not mean that all Gaimai people are thieves because we will miss the point when we libel Gaimai people as thieves, it is the same thing with the Fulani, we should be able to isolate the good people from the criminals.
People come from outside and commit mayhem, the next person we meet is my neighbour, the chain of crisis will continue but the most important thing to me as an educator of extension workers, livestock extension workers does not exist in this country, we don’t have livestock extension workers, we may recruit people but they are more of salary earners, there are no supervisors to ensure that all the extension workers are targeting a population, ask our extension workers where their areas of jurisdiction are they doesn’t know because they are in the offices, people are in the offices receiving salaries, they don’t know what is happening, if there is crisis in any part of the country, a good extension worker within that axis should know how the crisis started.
Innocent Fulani men are also facing the same problem with the farmers, if he exposes the marauders he will be killed, I believe if we get extension workers and put them across the entire areas, get the traditional rulers involved and get livestock activities regulated, it will help. Criminality takes place in the bush, if somebody is kidnapped, he is taken to the bush, we have our mineral resources in the bush, there are human beings in the bush and yet nobody is policing the bush, the soldiers, the police and other security agencies are in the town leaving the bush unprotected, we need to promote Forrest guard with high level of intellects, they will know the placement of your leg at any direction you go, they know the cries of animals and births, why is government finding things difficult to promote them, why are we bringing people like peace corps that will stay in the town.
Are you saying the lack of livestock extension workers is the major cause of farmers and herdsmen‘s clashes in the country?
It is not the major cause of the clashes but it is a factor, the causes of the problem are multi-dimensional. We have exhausted the fact that as livestock breeders they need water, they need grasses, the facilities are deeply reducing every day, the drying of the whole land due to the encroachment of the dessert, climate change are factors, so based on these there will be continue movement of this cattle. Also, our agriculture has largely been traditional, worse of all, the nomadic nature of our livestock rearing, movement from one place to the other, this is complicated with the fact that we consume what is available, we don’t think of the near future, if we had taken care of the warning of the climate change, population and the need to expand infrastructure and the fact that the grazing route and grazing reserve are constantly been encroached, we would not have been having this problem. The thinking that all the Fulani are Muslims and all farmers are Christians is not also helping matters. But if you compare it against the backdrop of what is happening in Zamfara State you will realise that line of thought is incorrect. The analysis of the crisis in Zamfara is different from that of Plateau State because a Zamfara man will look at it as a criminal activity while a Plateau man will look at it as farmers/herders’ clash.
I want us to get it straight; the grazing activities must be regulated just like any other business. If you go Niger Republic, they monitor movement, they don’t ban movement but they determine the period for movement and a license is given for it, so if a herder wants to move from Sokoto to Plateau State, he obtains a movement permit so that this forest guards or rangers can stop them at any point and ask them which direction they are going and they will be guided by the movement permit. But these people who are coming from Niger, immediately they are approaching Nigeria, they throw away that permit because Nigeria does not regulate it. We must encourage people to settle down for ranches, there is nothing wrong with ranching, it is not proper for a typical Fulani man to continue to be moving without direction, what we teach here is that continuous movement takes away energy, and it reduces the productivity of the animal, the children will not go to school and your heart structure will continue to reduce and when you lack what to do you go into criminality. For our governors in the northern parts of the country who claimed that the Fulani are their own, they should do something fast by introducing a programme that will salvage the dwindling nature of facilities in the region, grazing must be regulated just like any other legal activities, the herdsmen should be able to have the carrying capacity of their animals within the range.