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| Mallami |
AGF Mallami's attempt to conflate open grazing with spare parts dealing is a dangerous attempt at ethnic-baiting, more so when such position is coming from the nation's chief law officer.
There's no equivalence between nomadic pastoralism and trade/commercial activities like spare parts dealing. It is the business of selling not rearing cattle that can be compared to spare parts trading. Nomadic pastoralism is both a vocation and a way of life for some people, with significant negative externalities on people and environment.
I consider the decision by the Southern Governors' Forum to ban open grazing in southern states as pragmatic one. Given the current wave of anti-Fulani incitement in southern Nigeria and the rise in herdsmen affiliated crimes like kidnapping and banditry, the FG should be the one to announce the ban as a primary measure in order to calm the situation and allow for dialogue to happen.
Because, no matter what the law or the constitution says, you cannot force communities to accept open grazing by nomadic pastoralists who are themselves non-natives in those areas. Land is a very delicate issue anywhere in the world and we have seen land disputes spiralling into deadly clashes even among neighboring communities.
There are two realities in the ongoing conversation on nomadic pastoralism. The old and new realities. The old reality is that of thousands of kilometers of designated cattle routes and grazing reserves for nomadic transhumance that traversed the length and breadth of West and Central Africa and the various regional protocols supporting them.
The new reality is that population growth, urbanization and climate change have rendered those routes untenable and those protocols unenforceable, pitching herders against local farming communities and exacerbating communal tensions.
What the government is doing (and doing wrongly) is to impose the old reality on our current conditions. But as it stands today, nomadic pastoralism is incompatible with our present social, political and economic realities. Instead of insisting on the old reality which is a recipe for conflict, government can declare a ban on open grazing in the south, while developing a framework to phase it out in the north over a period of time.
Such ban, could eliminate the explosive mix of Fulani herders and southern farmers/communities, thereby greatly reducing tension and denying the many ethnic provocateurs the opportunity for mischief. I believe the north has enough land to pursue open grazing, ranching and other initiatives being conceived to address the Fulani herdsmen crisis.
Banning open grazing in the south and controlling it in the north (with a view to phasing it over some years) has significant security advantages, considering the emerging trend of terror affiliation and criminal activity under the guise of pastoralism. It will also present the nomadic Fulani with the opportunity to transit to a more modern, secure and sustainable livelihood.
Such reforms could radically transform the beef and diary industry in northern Nigeria, creating jobs and generating wealth. In contrast, the present situation of open grazing has brought nothing but killings, destruction, division and fear among our people. Given it's current threat to national security, if there's ever a more opportune time to transform nomadism, that time is now.
I'm not saying this is going to be easy or its outcomes rapidly successful. Given the transnational dimension of pastoralism and the complex mix of culture and geography, it is difficult to solve this problem in 4 or 8 years or even in one single generation, but the more we become less emotional and more innovative about the herdsmen debate, the better we are able to narrow the chasm of division and promote the chance of genuine dialogue and sustainable peace among our communities.
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