The arguments and sentiments for and against the establishment of grazing reserves across the country, took a dramatic turn in the Red Chamber last week. EZREL TABIOWO captures the scenario.
The National Assembly in a bid address the recurring clashes between Fulani nomads and host community farmers, moved to establish grazing reserves across states of the federation with the introduction of a bill to that effect in 2011.
The bill for an Act to provide for the Establishment, presentation and control of National Grazing Reserves and Livestock Routes and the creation of National Grazing Reserve Commission and for purposes connected therewith, was sponsored by Senator Zaynab Kure (PDP, Niger South).
Though the piece of legislation scaled second reading on the floor of the seventh senate, the bill was however not passed into law before the end of the lifespan of the seventh National Assembly.
During debate on the general principles of the bill, Sen. Zaynab Kure had argued that the existing laws governing grazing reserves in Nigeria had over the years been rendered obsolete and ineffective.
She stated that the laws were incompatible with the general scheme of the Land Use Act currently in use, adding that all along, the federal government through the National Livestock Project Department of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has been at the forefront of implementing these obsolete laws, obviously with multiple problems.
The lawmaker stressed that considering the importance of Reserves, the federal government could acquire land for such purposes from any state of the federation by giving notice to the state government on the desire and purpose of acquiring such land.
But with the increasing spate of attacks by herdsmen in recent times, there have been calls by host communities for the rejection of the grazing reserve bill.
The clamour for its rejection stirred controversies and speculations that the bill had been reintroduced in the eight senate without following due process.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Sen. Babajide Omoworare, however denied the existence of the grazing reserve bill before the present National Assembly.
The disclosure was made by Senator Omoworare and contained in a statement he issued in Abuja after plenary on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.
The position of the Senate was made known sequel to a point of order raised by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe that he had been called by many of his constituents over the bill, and urged that the senate should come out with clarifications “so that Nigerians can know the true position”.
However, with heightening killings of farmers of host communities by herdsmen recently, Senators from the northern part of the country, under the auspices of Northern Senators’ Forum, declared that it is wrong to categorize all herdsmen as Fulani, stressing that the labeling must stop.
Chairman of the Forum, Senator Abdullahi Adamu said, “We have tried to kill the idea that every herdsman is Fulani. I am a farmer but I am not Fulani by birth. It is very very wrong to say that everybody you find with a cow is Fulani.”
He recalled that when Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped, the news went round that the kidnappers were Fulani, noting that when those responsible for kidnapping the elder statesman were eventually arrested, it was discovered that they were not Fulani.
Adamu, who said he saw a lot of Yoruba cattle rearers when he traveled to the western part of the country insisted that cattle rearing is no longer the exclusive preserve of the Fulani.
The federal government made the declaration at a one-day public hearing on the recent clashes between herdsmen and farmers of host communities organized by the Senate joint committees on Agriculture, Rural Development and National Security and Intelligence.
Settling for creation of ranches as against grazing reserves across the country as the surest way of solving the perennial conflicts between host communities’ farmers and the roving herdsmen, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobri unveiled plans of the federal government towards ending the crises in his submissions.
According to Lokpobiri, not less than nine states across the federation had given 5,000 hectares of land each, to the federal government for the establishment of the ranches.
According to him, “Available statistics to us in government show that contrary to media report that these violent herdsmen are the conventional Nigerian Fulanis, they are not, as none of those apprehended was able to speak any of the Nigerian languages, giving strong credence to the possibility of the violent herdsmen to be another form of terrorists in the mode of Boko haram.
He said though the country has 415 grazing reserves for the herdsmen to feed their cattle but most of the reserves being in the Northern part of the country, are grass less due to problem of desertification.
He explained further that ranches being the modern way of rearing cattle and achieving the best of productivity in animal husbandry, would make Nigeria with about 19million cows and a population of 160 million people to measure up with Brazil which has 220 million cows with similar human population with Nigeria.
According to him, through ranches as the best way of rearing cattle, Brazil, United States of America, Saudi Arabia, are making the best of productivity in animal husbandry.
“While in Saudi Arabia where there is no cattle movement as we have in Nigeria but ranches, 4.7million liters of milk are realized on daily basis, Nigeria only manages to realize that on yearly basis” he said.
Though stake holders from various ethnic nationalities like Tivs, Idoma, Ohaneze, South – South etc, through their representatives supported the proposal of the federal government for the establishment of ranches by kicking against continuation of grazing reserves policy, the herdsmen under the auspices of Meiyetti Allah insisted that grazing reserves routes should be sustained.
The National Legal Adviser of the Group, Barrister Tukur Bello, submitted to the committee that ranches being planned by the federal government have been personally created by some of the herdsmen in some parts of the country.
He said creating grazing reserve routes across the country for the herdsmen will be the best solution to the incessant clashes between the herdsmen and farmers in addition to establishment of a Federal Ministry of Livestock Development.
Other recommendations made by the group are that “The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should work with the ‘Ministries of Water Resources, Environment, National Planning,Foreign Affairs, State Governments to see to problems of cattle rearing in the country.
“Past interventions and reports on previous clashes should be reviewed and Comprehensive Livestock Development action Plan should be worked out from them.
“Funding for grazing reserves development should be provided from The CBN lntervention funds, SDG funds and support from Technical financial and development partners like The World Bank, The Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, UN—FAO. The European Union, lnternational Fund for AgriculTural Development (lFAD) and others”.
The Chairman of the joint Committee, Senator Adamu Abdullahi had also sounded a serious note of warning to any Nigerian community that may want to take law into their hands against grazing reserve for now, by declaring that government alone can decide whatever it want to use land for.
Adamu who sounded the warning when representative of the Southern Kaduna people insisted that the Nigerian Fulanis were the ones killing their people and acquiring their land under the cover of grazing reserve, said “Nobody can stop government from acquiring land anywhere in Nigeria. Government is government , if anybody thinks he is violent, government has monopoly of violence.
Representatives of the Chief of Defence Staff, Lt-Gen Abayomi Olonishakin, the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase and other security heads, along with elder statesmen like Profs Jubrin Aminu and Ango Abdullahi, also made submissions at the public hearing.
But a pro-democracy Non-governmental Organization, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has accused the federal government of placing ethnic politics above national security interest in the cases of mass killings by armed Fulani herdsmen.
HURIWA alleged that there is a well funded campaign by northern governors and top federal government officials to seek actively to change the narratives of the real identities of the killer Fulani herdsmen wrecking havoc across Nigeria.
The Rights group said it was an act of sabotage on the part of top political office holders such as Inspector General of Police Mr. Solomon Arase and now the minister of State for Agriculture Mr. Heineken Lokpobiri to affirm that the killer Fulani herdsmen were foreigners even when there are overwhelming evidence based on documented accounts by leaders of the Fulani herdsmen of Nigeria which points to the fact that indeed some of those killings were premeditated acts of revenge for alleged cattle rustlings.
In a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA accused the top government officials who are shifting blame to foreigners for the incessant killings of playing to the gallery to please their pay masters who are mostly Fulani by ethnic origin.
Citing the seventh schedule of the constitution of the (of 1999) Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), HURIWA stated that the oath of office sworn to by top government functionaries clearly spells out that they must discharge their duties in accordance with constitution of Nigeria and the law, and always in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity and well being and prosperity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and must not allow their personal interest to influence their official conduct.
HURIWA stated thus: “we are shocked that whereas top government and security officials failed in their constitutional duties to provide security of lives and property of Nigerians which is their primary legal obligations, we are even more scandalized that some key political and security officials of this administration are currently engaged in the spreading of propaganda in an attempt to sweep the impunity of the mass killings of Nigerians by fellow Nigerian Fulani herdsmen under the carpet to satisfy the interest of some Northern governors”.
HURIWA also demanded public apologies from the agriculture minister of state who appeared before a Senate Panel on Agriculture to make unscientific claims that the killer herdsmen were foreigners.
HURIWA expressed anxiety that there is a plot to set free the few armed Fulani herdsmen allegedly arrested in the scenes of all these massacres just so the well oiled federal government’s cover up can work.
With the federal government’s intervention in curbing the activities of killer herdsmen on rampage, only time will tell if the President Buhari administration will live up to its decision to settle for the establishment of ranches as against grazing reserves.