The 17 Governors of Southern Nigeria recently met on the 11th of May, 2021, in Asaba with a 12-point communique on which way Nigeria in what is now popularly referred to as the Asaba declaration. The crux of the communique is the banning of open grazing across Southern Nigeria and by implication the support for the ranching of cattle and herds in general. Restructuring of the Nigerian Federation leading to the evolution of state police, review of revenue allocation formula in favour of the sub-national governments, convocation of a national dialogue as a matter of urgency, implementation of the federal character principle, activation and establishment of ports in other States of the Federation to ease the continued traffic gridlock on Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, Lagos and its attendant chokehold exerted on the economy being the sole outlet for goods from Apapa Wharf. Greater coordination and cooperation between Federal and State Governments in evolving strategies for dealing with the covid-19 pandemic and presidential address to Nigerians on the issue of security.
Having meticulously cross-checked this communique, it’s obvious that whoever interprets it as a call for secession is bereft of common sense. The Governors did not say anything that has not been said before. Absolutely nothing new. The first introductory paragraph of the communique expressly “affirmed that the peoples of Southern Nigeria remain committed to the unity of Nigeria on the basis of justice, fairness, equity and oneness and peaceful coexistence …”. This is a direct paraphrase of Section 14(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which states, “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.” Justice means fairness to all. The PDP Governors rose up from their meeting on the 17th of May, in Oyo to practically endorse most of the resolutions of these Governors. I doubt whether the misinterpreters of this communique ever read the communique in the first place. You will be shocked that some of our leaders do not read at all, while some talk before they think, while some base their decisions on market talk (unfounded and primordial sentiments, statements and hearsay peddled by ignorant but boisterous and gregarious persons, only fit for beer parlours, markets and other recreational places, of which only relevance lies in its entertainment nutrient not meant to be taken seriously). In this regard, the allegation of secession can simply be termed laughable.
One of the items in the communique is the banning of open grazing across Southern Nigeria. This proposition has already been enforced by a Northern Governor, Samuel Ortom, who had since signed into law, a bill, enacted by Benue House of Assembly banning open grazing in the State. Experimentally, this reduced the conflict between crop farmers and herders. Incidences of cattle rustling reduced drastically as provisions criminalizing cattle rustling were inserted into the Bill. It was a win – win situation for everyone. The guise under which the terrorists were operating as herdsmen have been removed and terrorists are now easily discernible. The genuine herdsmen who are now living peacefully in their ranches and practising their trade are exonerated that all herders are not terrorists. The lovely beautiful children of these Fulani Herdsmen are now heading to schools rather than forests and would soon graduate to learn more educated ways of cattle rearing which will make them realise that they are sitting on a profession, of which yield, is superior to the income from oil.
Fulani leaders are gradually coming to terms with the reality that the people who are dominating the forests today in Nigeria are no longer their innocent kinsmen whose pre-occupation was the safety of their herds. They are now hardened criminals and terrorists, populated by foreigners, whose pre-occupation is the destruction of the lives and livelihoods of Nigerians, including Fulani, for their selfish ends. They also understand that the fundamental human rights of Nigerians to move about freely and reside in any part of Nigeria do not include the right to move around freely with animals in any part of Nigeria. The movement of animals has always been restricted within the country. While animals like dogs are restricted because they are harmful to lives of the citizens, animals like cows, goats and sheep are restricted because they are harmful to livelihoods. Nigerians, particularly the Northerners, are mostly farmers and the idea of allowing herdsmen to freely shepherd their livestock into people’s farms to eat up their crops and bring about clashes between the farmers and herdsmen is no longer acceptable in modern societies. Something has to give.
This is why Governor Ganduje of Kano State, a Fulani, and other influential Fulani leaders have joined the call for the abolition of open grazing throughout Nigeria and the warm embrace of ranching as solution. He has built formidable ranching resorts for herdsmen in Kano and has even boasted that Kano has enough land to accommodate all willing herdsmen in Nigeria. It must be noted that open grazing has never been legalised even from the ancient world. There has never been any time in history that shepherds were allowed to freely drive their herds into people’s farms to feed their herds with farmers’ crops. In those days, there were forests reserved for cattle rearing and grazing routes through which the herdsmen pass without encroaching on the lands of the crop farmers. As a result of the gradual increase in population and urban development, the rural areas, forest reserves and routes for grazing gradually started diminishing and disappearing. Of course, human beings must always take precedence in urban and regional planning before animals. As those reserves were depleting, the tension between the farmers and herdsmen kept growing and was managed well through dialogue and mutual understanding. However, when modern terrorism descended on Nigeria in 2009 and the terrorists went into the forests and displaced the Fulani Herdsmen, subduing and co-opting some of them, and unleashing a brand of criminal attacks on the Nigerian communities, from North to South, the relationship between the herdsmen and their host communities soured so much that the continual attacks by these terrorists and bandits is now constituting a national security threat which requires urgent solutions. The immediate solution to this scourge is generally agreed to be ranching. The Governors scored a passmark here and should be commended.
Moreover, today, modern cities have emerged. There is hardly any ancient grazing route from North to South of Nigeria that did not cross a major city. Even if there were no terrorism, nomadic grazing would still come to an end one day because the idea of allowing herds to pass through cities, defecating on the road and on public facilities, posing traffic, hygienic and other health challenges, is incompatible with the tenets of a modern state. One cannot imagine passing through the streets of London, Paris, Washington and stumble into herds of cattle competing with human beings for right of way in those cities and defecating along the streets, waterways and other infrastructures. So ranching is a consequence of a modernized society hoping to make their cities safe, clean and attractive for investment and tourism for the outside world. With due respect to the misinterpreters, the Southern Governors demand for the ban of open grazing couldn’t have ever been a cry for secession, it is merely a quest for a modern Nigeria.
Their zeal for restructuring, though germane, appears a bit hypocritical. The call for state police is unassailable because we are a country of about 200m people and no matter the number of our men in uniform, the mere fact that the entire police force is under the command of one officer, the IGP, is an incurable setback to the war against insecurity. Review of revenue allocation formula in favour of the sub-national governments is also not out of place because with the expected devolution of more responsibilities to the federating units comes the need for more resources to them. However, I was taught in law that whoever wants to plead equity must first of all do equity. The Governors, who will not respect the constitutional financial independence of their State Houses of Assembly, the judicial arm of the State and the Local Governments are asking for restructuring? Excuse me! Let them first of all restore democracy at the Local Government level by allowing INEC instead of SIEC to organise Local Government elections. They should recognise and cede the money of the legislature, judiciary and local governments to them.
The lowest ebb sunk by the Governors was their demand for convocation of a national dialogue as a matter of urgency. It amazes me to realise that the Governors have not deciphered that the convocation of a national confab has become a delay tactic instrument in the hands of successive governments, military or civilian, to hoodwink Nigerian people and divert their attention from the real issues at stake. President Babangida promised to handover power to a democratic government in 1990 but through the instrumentality of different national dialogues, he extended his stay to 1993 and at the end of the day failed to handover to a democratic regime, eventually earning himself the name, Maradona. Abacha convoked a constitutional conference which initially gave him about one year notice to leave power. By the time he finished working on the members of the conference, through carrot and stick approach, they turned back to anoint him to rule as he liked without time limitation and prepared the ground for the five political parties then to adopt him as their consensus Presidential Candidate, prompting Bola Ige to describe the parties as the five fingers of a leprous hand. Obasanjo organised his confab as a tool to achieve third term in office and aborted the whole amendment exercise in the process. Goodluck Jonathan authorised the 2014 confab only to turn around to use the deliberations as campaign tool for re-election in 2015. Enough of government sponsored confabs. He that pays the piper dictates the tune. Democracy is built on independent conferencing and dialogue by the citizenry which develop a body of public opinion that are factored in by the government in its policies and programmes. There is no other confab that is superior to a combined meeting of the Governors, National Assembly members, Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly and the Presidency in the issue of amending our Constitution to reflect current realities. We do not have time or patience or madness for another dubious government sponsored confab because doing same things over again and expecting different result is the technical definition of madness.