Resolving Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts in Nigeria

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

 

 

Pastoralist-Farmers Conflicts and the Search for Peaceful Resolution

 

Memorandum by the Nigerian Working Group on Peace Building and Governance

 

Abuja, 8^th January 2018

 

Executive Summary

Pastoralists-farmers’ conflicts in Nigeria have grown, spread and intensified over the past decade and today poses a threat to national survival. Thousands of people have been killed, communities have been destroyed and so many farmers and pastoralists have lost their lives and property in an orgy of killings and destruction that is not only destroying livelihoods but also affecting national cohesion. Nigeria has about 19 million cattle much of it in the hands of pastoralists and we need to seek solutions to the problem of pastoralism while resolving the problem of insecurity that has arisen.

 

The Problem

Nigeria’s population has grown from 33 million in 1950 to about 192.3 million today. This phenomenal increase of the population has put enormous pressure on land and water resources used by farmers and pastoralists. One of the outcomes of this process has been the blockage of transhumance routes and loss of grazing land to agricultural expansion and the increased southward movement of pastoralists has led to increased conflict with local communities. This is particularly the case in the Middle Belt – notably in Plateau, Kaduna, Niger, Nassarawa, Benue, Taraba, and Adamawa States. The conflicts primarily involve Fulani pastoralists and local farming communities. As violence between herdsmen and farmers has grown and developed into criminality and rural banditry, popular narratives in the form of hate speech have exacerbated the crisis.

 

Grazing Reserves As Possible Solution

It is clear that Nigeria and indeed Africa have to plan towards the transformation of pastoralism into settled forms of animal husbandry. The establishment of grazing reserves provides the opportunity for practicing a more limited form of pastoralism and is therefore a pathway towards a more settled form of animal husbandry. Nigeria has a total of 417 grazing reserves out of which only about 113 have been gazetted. Whether we support or oppose pastoralism, it is clear that at least in the short and medium term, many herds must continue to practice seasonal migration between dry and wet season grazing areas. Ultimately, there is the need for permanent settlement of pastoralists.

 

The Law, Politics and Pastoralism

One of the greatest difficulties in addressing and resolving issues surrounding pastoralism is the politicisation of legal regimes and the blockages to the enactment of or implementation of laws that can redress the key challenges posed. In 2016 for example, a bill was proposed - ‘‘A Bill for an Act to establish Grazing Reserve in each of the states of the Federation Nigeria to improve agriculture yield from livestock farming and curb incessant conflicts between cattle farmers and crop farmers in Nigeria’’ was thrown out. There is an emerging conflict between the constitutional principle on free movement of persons and goods and laws emerging in some States restricting movement. Some States have enacted laws or are processing bills to prevent open grazing on their territory. There are four initiatives so far in Benue, Ekiti, Taraba and Edo States. Could such laws be effective in prohibiting pastoralism, which is practiced by millions of Nigerians?

 

Developing a Comprehensive Policy Framework

A new policy framework on the farmers-pastoralists crisis should be developed that is both comprehensive and mutually beneficial to both groups. An inter-ministerial committee should be constituted with experts and stakeholder membership to draw up the framework. There must be a consultative process that listens to the concerns of all stakeholders in developing the new framework so that the outcome would have national ownership. Pastoralism is not sustainable in Nigeria over the long term due to high population growth rate, expansion of farming and loss of pasture and cattle routes. At the same time, pastoralism cannot end or be prohibited in the short term, as there are strong cultural and political economy reasons for its existence. The new policy should develop a plan for a transitional period during which new systems would be put in place. The framework should map out the duration, strategy and timelines for the transition plan. Finally, a comprehensive approach to address the growing crisis associated with violence affecting pastoralism and farmers in Nigeria is necessary.

Introduction

Pastoralists-farmers’ conflicts in Nigeria have grown, spread and intensified over the past decade and today poses a threat to national survival. Thousands of people have been killed, communities have been destroyed and so many farmers and pastoralists have lost their lives and property in an orgy of killings and destruction that is not only destroying livelihoods but also affecting national cohesion. Each day, we witness more reprisal killings that are simply making the possibilities of peaceful resolution more difficult. Rural banditry is becoming the norm in the Nigerian hinterland and has been transformed into a vicious criminal activity. The result is that the scale of loss of both herds and human life has been escalating and the victims are on all sides – subsistence farmers, commercial farmers and pastoralists. Nonetheless, we write this memo to say we cannot give up to hate and destruction, let’s pause, reflect and seek a way out of the crisis.

 

Nigeria has a large pastoral population the logic of whose livelihood is often misunderstood. What is better understood is the culture of farming, which is rooted in a specific location and has activities that take place regularly. The assumption that pastoralism is in itself an irrational production system is far from the truth. Pastoralism is the main livestock production system in much of Africa where pastoralists live in semi arid zones. It is a historically developed strategy to cope with the uncertainties associated with climate change, build up of parasites and other related challenges. It is above all an efficient way to produce livestock at relatively low prices through the use of non-commercial feeding stock. Historically, pastoralists have been able to meet the meat demand in West Africa with a relatively high level of efficiency without government subsidy for generations.

Different methods through the use of farm residue and open range grazing has allowed this trend to flourish. Nigeria has a landmass of 98.3 million hectares, 82 million hectares of arable land of which about 34 million hectares are currently under cultivation. In crop farming, human beings only directly utilize about a quarter of the total biomass. The other three quarters is in the form of crop residue and low quality crop, which is not directly useful to people. It is this residue that cattle (ruminants) convert into meat and milk. In addition to this, cattle also utilize grasses on fallow lands, non-arable poor quality lands, open ranges and fadama in the same manner. Pastoralists move their animals to these locations to access these opportunities. This system of production is breaking down today as violent conflicts between pastoralists and farmers have arisen and created a major national crisis.

The Problem

Nigeria’s population has grown from 33 million in 1950 to about 192.3 million today. The United Nations recently projected more growth in terms of population in the coming years, 364 million in 2030 and 480 million in 2050 respectively. This phenomenal increase of the population has put enormous pressure on land and water resources used by farmers and pastoralists. Specifically, the demographic increase has led to an expansion in cultivated farmland and a reduction in available grazing land for pastoralists that is characterised by competition over dwindling resources. In the far north, the impact of desertification as well as the crisis of energy, which has resulted in deforestation, coupled with climatic uncertainty and lower rainfall have made it more difficult to sustain increasing populations, pushing many farmers and pastoralists with livestock southwards. This has happened gradually over a period of decades – with an apparent increase over the past decade – and has added to pressure on land and water in central and southern Nigeria.

 

One of the outcomes of this process has been the blockage of transhumance routes and loss of grazing land to agricultural expansion and the increased southward movement of pastoralists has led to increased conflict with local communities. This is particularly the case in the Middle Belt – notably in Plateau, Kaduna, Niger, Nassarawa, Benue, Taraba, and Adamawa States. The conflicts often have localised dynamics, but primarily involve Fulani pastoralists and local farming communities.

 

The Nigerian state has a relatively weak rural presence and has neglected the agrarian sector since the 1970s, when oil revenues began to dominate the economy. There have been few improvements in agricultural productivity and livestock production as a result of the dependence on oil revenues, which have not been reinvested in productive economic activities. State response in the context of the lingering conflicts between farmers and pastoralists has been both ad hoc and reactive, with no concrete and sustainable strategies for conflict management and peace building beyond the deployment of security or establishment of commissions of inquiries. One of the key pathways here is for the state to be more proactive in its responses by putting in place mechanisms that are institutionalised and sustainable both at the local and state levels.

 

As violence between herdsmen and farmers has grown and developed into criminality and rural banditry, popular narratives creating meaning, context and (mis) understandings have been emerging. The narratives emerging on rural banditry in the media and in popular discourse are becoming part of the drivers for expanding conflicts in the country. The protagonists in this saga are often presented as being nomadic Fulani cattle herders, who are mostly Muslims, and sedentary farmer communities of several other ethnic extractions, who are often, but not always non-Muslims. These two distinct groups are usually depicted as perpetrators and victims, respectively. Perspectives of the social, religious and ethnic characteristics of these rural communities are framed into expansive essentialist discourses that actively breed and sustain suspicion and distrust. The result is negative stereotyping between “the one” and “the other” that lead further to ethnic and religious bigotry which fuels the hate process, culminating in further chains of attacks and counter or revenge attacks being exchanged between these different groups. Nigeria urgently needs to find pathways to get out of the crisis and one approach may be the development of grazing reserves for pastoralists.

 

Grazing Reserves As Possible Solution

It is clear that Nigeria and indeed Africa have to plan towards the transformation of pastoralism into settled forms of animal husbandry. The establishment of grazing reserves provides the opportunity for practicing a more limited form of pastoralism and is therefore a pathway towards a more settled form of animal husbandry. Grazing reserves are areas of land demarcated, set aside and reserved for exclusive or semi-exclusive use by pastoralists. Currently, Nigeria has a total of 417 grazing reserves all over the country, out of which only about 113 have been gazetted. There are many problems facing the implementation of the provisions of the 1965 Grazing Reserve Law and the management of the established grazing reserves. First, most of the grazing reserves were established by the then Northern Regional Government. Since the 1970's subsequent military and civilian governments have in effect abandoned the policy of establishing and developing grazing reserves. Secondly, State governments have not been diligent in sustaining previous policies and have not surveyed and gazetted most of the designated grazing reserves. Indeed, only 113 (about 27%) of the 417 proposed grazing reserves have been gazetted.

 

Whether we support or oppose pastoralism, it is clear that at least in the short and medium term, many herds must continue to practice seasonal migration between dry and wet season grazing areas, incorporating past harvest grazing farmland in the highly developed and ecologically sound pattern of transhumance evolved by the pastoralist over the centuries. This is an important point to make at this point when many political actors think it is possible to simply and abruptly ban open grazing. There is indeed, the need for permanent settlement of pastoralists both in the far north and semi humid zone of the middle belt. It is important to focus on the development of grazing reserves as part of the solution.

 

The Law, Politics and Pastoralism

One of the greatest difficulties in addressing and resolving issues surrounding pastoralism is the politicisation of legal regimes and the blockages to the enactment of or implementation of laws that can redress the key challenges posed. In 2016 for example, a bill was proposed - ‘‘A Bill for an Act to establish Grazing Reserve in each of the states of the Federation Nigeria to improve agriculture yield from livestock farming and curb incessant conflicts between cattle farmers and crop farmers in Nigeria.’’ The National Assembly on the basis that the Bill appeared to be seeking to favour one particular profession carried out by mainly one ethnic group, the Fulani, threw it out. The problem is that if we cannot have grazing reserves and if pastoralists cannot move, how do we expect the 19 million cattle grazing in the country to survive and how do we protect our Constitutional principle of free movement.

 

Free Movement and Restrictions to Transhumance

There is an emerging conflict between the constitutional principle on free movement of persons and goods and laws emerging in some States restricting movement. In Section 41(1) of the Nigerian Constitution, it is stated that:

 

‘‘Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom.’’

 

Some States have enacted laws or are processing bills to prevent open grazing on their territory. There are four initiatives so far:

 

1.   Ekiti state: Prohibition of Cattle and Other Ruminants Grazing in Ekiti, 2016.

2.   Taraba state: Anti-Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill 2017. ‘A bill for a law to prohibit open rearing and grazing of livestock and provide for the establishment of ranches and the Taraba State livestock and ranches administration and control committee and for others connected thereto 2017’.

3.   Edo State Bill: A Bill for A Law to Establish the Edo State Control of Nomadic Cattle Rearing/Grazing Law and for Other Purposes.

4.   Benue State Law: A Law to Prohibit Open Rearing and Grazing of Livestock and Provide for the Establishment of Ranches and Livestock Administration, Regulation and Control and for Other Matters Connected Therewith, 2017.

It is worthwhile posing the question whether laws can be effective in prohibiting pastoralism, which is practiced by millions of Nigerians. As some of the laws have already been passed, they would have to be tested in court. It is important to stress however that the Constitution guarantees free movement of persons and goods across Nigeria and no State government can withdraw constitutionally entrenched rights. Secondly, following a legislation by the Ogun State Government and the Supreme Court Judgment on the matter cited as “A.G. OGUN STATE V. ALHAJA AYINKE ABERUAGBA (1985) 1 NWLR PG. 395” States were barred from interfering with inter-state commerce and the free movement of goods and services. At that time, Ogun State had tried to control and tax goods entering from other States and the Supreme Court ruled that it would be chaotic if States enacted any laws they please restricting movement of goods and services in the Federation. It was this judgment that led to the introduction of value added tax (VAT) as a State tax that is determined at the national level and collected by the Federal Government, which takes an administrative fee and redistributes the proceeds back to the States. The key issue however is that pastoralism has developed into a national crisis that is leading to increased violence so a legal approach alone cannot resolve the issue. It is therefore important to negotiate a national policy framework that would protect the interests of both farmers and herders. The Federal Government should take the initiative of negotiating a consensual policy framework that would address the issues.

 

Developing a Comprehensive Policy Framework

Livestock production in Nigeria is in existential crisis and the country lacks a cohesive and comprehensive policy framework for livestock development and regulation in Nigeria. The defunct Northern Grazing Reserve Law has not been updated, the Land Use Act of 1978 is dysfunctional, emerging state grazing reserve laws, the ECOWAS Transhumance Protocol and other related international instruments have to be updated and streamlined.

Recommendation

Piecemeal of sectorial approach to livestock development will not suffice. A new policy framework should be developed that is both comprehensive and must be mutually beneficial to pastoralists and farmers. Any policy that does not take into consideration the welfare of both sides will most likely fail or meet resistance by either side. An inter-ministerial committee should be constituted with experts and stakeholder membership to draw up the framework. There must be a consultative process that listens to the concerns of all stakeholders in developing the new framework so that the outcome would have national ownership.

 

The Future of Pastoralism and Animal Husbandry

Pastoralism is not sustainable in Nigeria over the long term due to high population growth rate, expansion of farming and loss of pasture and cattle routes. At the same time, pastoralism cannot end of be prohibited in the short term as there are strong cultural and political economy reasons for its existence. It is important therefore to develop a plan for a transitional period during which new systems would be put in place.

Recommendations

Experts should be assembled to map out the duration, strategy and timelines for the transition plan. As there is no miracle model for solving the problems, the plan should simultaneously pursue a number of models including:

i.      Ranching can be pursued as one of the possible models in areas with lower population densities in the North East (Sambisa Game Reserve in Borno State) and North West (Gidan Jaja Grazing Reserve in Zamfara State);

ii.    Semi-intensive systems of animal husbandry should be pursued accompanied with requisite investment in infrastructure, training, extension, marketing and animal health service delivery in conjuncture with the private sector;

iii.   The traditional form of pastoralism should continue for a period to be agreed upon with some improvements (in the form of coordinated mobility between wet and dry season grazing areas and effective management of farmers and pastoralists relations);

iv.  Use of and development of grazing reserves to target pastoralists with large stocks where skills for pasture production, large milk production, etc can be promoted.

v.    Development of integrated crop-livestock systems with farmers and pastoralists being encouraged to keep some animals in their farms.

vi.  In order to meet the feeding needs of herds, alternative low water and drought resistant grasses should be produced, in response to the impact of desertification on fodder production.

 

Modernisation of Livestock

Nigeria has one of the lowest productivity levels of livestock in the world. It is for this reason that Nigeria imports very large quantities of milk, fish and chicken. The Nigerian herd requires sustained efforts at quality development based on a modernisation strategy that would transform the industry and move the country towards the objective of self-reliance.

Recommendations

The programme for the country’s transition to modern forms of animal husbandry must be accelerated and funded. The national stock would require rapid improvement and modernisation to meet market demands for meat, milk, hides and other products from the industry:

i.               Commercial ranches should be established in some of the sparsely populated zones in the North East and North West;

ii.             The business community should be encouraged through policy measures to invest in the establishment of modern dairy farms;

iii.            Sensitisation programmes should be undertaken on the values of livestock improvement and breeding centres for the production of quality heifers to improve pastoral stock should be developed all over the country.

iv.           Efforts should be made towards modelling best practices of pastoral-farmer relations as evident in countries such as Chad, Ethiopia and Niger, where the existence of institutionalised and functional mechanisms for pre-empting and resolving conflicts between farmers and pastoralists enable them to live in peace.

 

Growing Conflicts and Imperative of Peace Building

Over the past decade, there has been a dramatic explosion of violent conflicts associated with the deteriorating relationship between farmers and herders, cattle rustling and rural banditry in Nigeria. There is also limited knowledge about who the perpetrators are and their motives.

 

Recommendations

A comprehensive approach to necessary to address the growing crisis associated with violence affecting pastoralism and farmers in Nigeria. The Federal Government should commission a large-scale research endeavour to carry out in-depth study to understand the reasons for the escalation of violence, key actors, motivations and agency fuelling the crisis.

 

The Boko Haram Insurgency

Specific measures are required to address the Boko Haram insurgency North Eastern States of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe, which have close to 40% of the total cattle, sheep and goats of the National herd. These States also have the highest number of grazing reserves 255 or 61% of the 415 nationally identified grazing reserves. There are also many kilometres of stock routes interconnecting these reserves. The highest number of transhumance and trade cattle, sheep and goats from ECOWAS countries, Chad, Cameroun, Central African Republic and other countries, come into Nigeria on North Eastern International Transhumance Route.

 

Recommendations

In addition to the search for improving security in the zone through the use of security forces and mobilizing the civil population, some policy decisions are required. The military should be encouraged to pursue the path of ranching as it has already decided to. The Sambisa Grazing Reserve (4800 ha) is an ideal and symbolic place to take-off by establishing a ranch run by the military. It would significantly improve the security situation in the zone and encourage cooperation between pastoralists and the military. In the North West, the military should also be encouraged to create ranches in the Gidan Jaja Grazing Reserve (565,000 ha) for the same purpose of improving security and cooperation with pastoralists.

 

Growth of Hate and Dangerous Speech

Hate speech has now become a generator and accelerator of violent conflicts and the phenomenon of fake news is worsening its negative impact.

 

Recommendations

There is need for the development of a media code to be used in sensitizing the media on the relevant international standards on reporting issues of conflict and banditry. This process should involve conflict sensitivity and safety training and it should be based on very strict journalistic standards. Appropriate laws and regulations should be developed at both the federal and state levels towards ensuring that the margin of what is seen, as “free speech” in the media will be effectively regulated.  

 

Breakdown of Traditional Conflict Resolution Mechanisms

One of the most important dimensions of the growing conflicts between pastoralists and farmers has been the breakdown of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. In the past, when conflicts arise, they were settles by village heads and ardos, Fulani community leaders and if the need for payment of compensation arises, there were traditional systems and knowledge of how to assess damage done and the amount necessary to compensate for the damage and not profiteering. What we see today as a breakdown of traditional authority in the context of conflict management is a consequence of the take over of their powers by the state at the federal, state and local government levels, through the ad hoc measures that are often time wasting and whose recommendations are not implemented.

 

Recommendations

Cattle routes should be restored and significant investment made in restoring traditional conflict resolution mechanisms. As massive corruption has accompanied the increased presence of the police and courts in matters affecting farmers and herders, there should be advocacy and administrative guidance to return to traditional methods of conflict resolution. There should be capacity development of farmers and herders associations so that they play a more positive role in the process.

 

The Environmental and Climate Smart Pastoralism

Livestock produce some greenhouse emissions and pollutants. These can however be mitigated and even reversed by the sustainability of the methods that are used. On the whole, pastoralism is the only renewable non-extractive use of Ryland resources and it plays an essential role in maintaining soil and water quality. In addition, it slows down the loss of biodiversity.

 

Recommendations

Intensive capacity building is required in promoting and advocating for climate smart approaches to animal husbandry including the prevention of overgrazing, promoting integration of grazing and manure provision for farms and coordinated movement between ecological zones in the dry and wet seasons.

 

Legislative Solutions

There are discordant laws and regulations that legislate livestock production and pastoralism at the regional, national and state levels. Some of the newly emerging laws such as the “anti-grazing” state laws appear to contradict the free movement principle enshrined in the Constitution.

Recommendations

i.               A harmonization of relevant laws and policies that governs grazing reserves. Specifically, the 1965 Grazing Reserve Law can be revived based on section 315 of the 1999 constitution in the 19 northern states.

ii.             This should be complemented with a national review and protection of traditional stock routes;

iii.            Regional instruments governing pastoralism should be protected and above all domesticated;

iv.           In addition to the laws, consultative process between farming and pastoral communities are required to review the effect of statutes and regulations on routine practices of animal husbandry.

Expanding Grazing Reserves

The Nigerian livestock industry is largely dependent on natural vegetation. Although there is a vast hectrage of natural vegetation in the country they are not maximally utilized due to poor planning and conflicting government policies. It was estimated that there are over 40 million hectares of grazing land in Nigeria, out of which only 3 million hectares are specifically tagged as grazing reserves.

Recommendations

The idea to encourage nomads to settle was first made in 1942 but never implemented. A clear policy of land grant to pastoralists should be developed and implemented by state governments.

 

 

Digital Tracking of Cattle

The Katsina State Government has just launched a digital tracking system for cattle in the State. It involves inserting microchips in the animals skin and tracking them with mobile phones. The use of such technologies could help address the problem of cattle rustling and violence that have become so rampant. Such initiatives should be supported.

 

The Construction of Positive Narratives

The atmosphere between farming and pastoral communities is extremely bitter and negative. Support should be provided for creative writers in Nollywood, Kannywood, radio and television to create new narratives showing how the interaction between the two groups could be peaceful and mutually beneficial. Above all, the National Orientation Agency (NOA), as an institution with presence across the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the country, should provide these critical services.

                                                     

Signed by

 

Professor Ibrahim Gambari

General Martin Luther Agwai (Rtd)

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Professor Attahiru Jega

Dr. Usman Bugaje

Dr. Chris Kwaja

Ambassador Fatima Balla

Dr. Nguyan Fesse

Mrs. Aisha Muhammed – Oyebode

Mallam Y. Z. Ya’u

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Femi Segun]

Much as one should commend the efforts of the panel members who put up this report, I hasten to say that it is very cosmetic and somehow apologetic of a certain interest-the interest of the Pastoralists. One would have expected that a panel that is made up of such experts should go as far as recommending restorative  justice for the families of thousands that have been killed by the Pastoralists. I read an article in the Punch today, where the leader of the Myetti Allah in Benue State said his group had to kill 25 human beings because 1000 cows were stolen. Has life become so cheap as to be trading human lives for cows? Ideally, reports of this  nature should  have inputs from all the parties that have been affected by the ongoing conflicts in one way or the other. Several arguments have been put out there on the imperative of having cattle ranches. Even though this was mentioned in the report, it is obvious that the preference is the continuation of the current order of moving cattle from the North to the South-with all the consequences. This preference was presented as if it is law, that cannot be challenged. In a plural society like ours, such proclivity can be interpreted to mean an expression  of superiority of one group over another. Can we claim to be a member of the  civilised world if we lack the courage to say or do  what is obtainable in other civilised societies? To what extent can a farmer from Ekiti or Umuahia be allowed to take over land by the force of arms in Sokoto or Kaduna in the name of constitutional provision of freedom of movement? In order to forestall the worsening of the violence and other social consequences that the report rightly highlighted, I will suggest that the recommendations should be rethought and redrafted to acknowledge the pain that those who have needlessly suffered loss of lives are going through and proffer solutions to alleviating such pains in form of compensations. The Government should also stop the current  parochial approach to a festering national sore by developing the courage to apprehend, try in the court of law and punish people who murder human beings  in exchange for cows. Methink there are laws that cover stealing in Nigeria. Those who are found to have stolen cows should also be tried and given just sentence. Additionally, the hard option of cattle ranches should be pursued rather than hiding under the constitution to justify the wanton destruction of lives and livelihood of farmers, across the country. This report falls short of expectations in terms of providing intellectual leadership on nation building and cohesion, especially coming from such a distinguished panel. 

Samuel

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[Jibrin Ibrahim]

Please note that the killing is not one sided as is often reported in the press. Militia groups have emerged to kill herdsmen and they are having a lot of success. Ranches is very misunderstood concept and only operates in thinly populated dry lands where a lot of land can be allocated to cattle owners, thats not our situation. The issue has become very emotive and objective discussion has become difficult but we are trying to do just that.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Femi Segun]

"The issue has become very emotive and objective discussion has become difficult..." 

This is true but my contention is that this panel report appears to fall to that same emotive trap of one-sidedness. Finding solution to this complex problem will require that we rise above sentimental attachment to our ethnic base or even class alliance. It requires a dispassionate analysis, which must of necessity weigh in on the balance of scale of the loss of human lives and disruption to means of  livelihood. We need a political leadership whose consideration for action transcends parochial religious or ethnic interests.  

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

The Fulani herdsmen problem is the work of a group of terrorists trying to obtain other people's land through massacre.

Please stay in your region with your cows.

We dont need them.

toyion

[Toyin Falola]

Mr Adepoju:

Let us be careful in ways we characterize fellow citizens.

Greetings from London where I just had a long session on this issue.

The transition of transhumance society to formal economies in postcolonial society, against the background of plural society, will not come easy.

TF

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[Bayo Omolola]

If law enforcement agencies are serious and sincere, no criminal will enjoy such a free ride on the nation.

Bayo Omolola
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 1/10/18, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resolving Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts in Nigeria
To: "usaafricadialogue" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 10, 2018, 9:04 AM

The Fulani herdsmen problem is the
work of a group of terrorists trying to obtain other
people's land through massacre.
Please stay in your region with
your cows.
We dont need them.
toyion

On 9 January 2018 at 21:50,
Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinib...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Please note that the killing is not one sided as
is often reported in the press. Militia groups have emerged
to kill herdsmen and they are having a lot of success.
Ranches is very misunderstood concept and only operates in
thinly populated dry lands where a lot of land can be
allocated to cattle owners, thats not our situation. The
issue has become very emotive and objective discussion has
become difficult but we are trying to do just
that.
Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior
FellowCentre for Democracy and Development,

AbujaFollow me on twitter

Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on

[Ibrahim Adamu]

Dear All - Indeed this is an emotive issue and lives have been unnecessary lost and children turned orphans & couples turned into widows.

I am Fulani / Ebira and both my parents grew up in Makurdi. Both speak Tiv fluently and we have family houses in Makurdi. I have distant cousins that still live a nomadic lifestyle despite attempts by my family about 7 years ago to make sure they settled in one place. ( side note a group of cousins arrived a week late for my wedding as they came all the way from Central Africa) 

What we are experiencing right now is the impact of a culmination of factors that have been simmering beneath the surface for many years :

- Crisis in the North east has placed pressure on the pastoralist to seek alternate grazing areas  

- Climate Change and desertification forcing them to seek new watering holes 

- Our current economic circumstances and increased conversion of arable lands to proper farm lands causing more interaction and misunderstanding between the two primary groups 

- Lack of anticipation and planning by government to address these issues

- Silence by government interpreted as tacit approval for ongoing violence 

- exploitation of what appears to be mobile wealth which is easily converted under the watch of teenagers 

- Increased criminal acts by wanderers of Fulani extraction ( esp. Kidnapping)

- Explosion in the use psychedelic substances by this population a phenomenon that is consuming folks across all economic and social classes in the North 

- and of course exploitation by politicians 

- decades and century old communal clashes and scores being settled under the guise of these midnight marauders 

Unfortunately our government is complicit by their slow reflexes but we have got to find a solution. these groups aren't new to each other and have had generations of interaction and methods of resolving these misunderstandings  but all that has been tossed out . 

The nomadic way of life can't continue as we know it in the 21st century there's simply no place for it but at the same time a bororo isn't any less a human being and deserves dignity - the idea (s) of establishing colonies or ranches or settlements has to be discussed and options tabled. The Fed Govt must also design an instrument for compensation for all those families who have lost loved ones ( life has no value ) or farm produce and houses. This is the price we must pay as a society for our negligence and recklessness towards our fellow man . And all those who have been caught must be brought to book. 

To the Peace Committee I hope your suggestions are accepted further scrubbed and those responsible bold enough to implement it . 

The Life of Each Nigerian Matters

Ibrahim Dikko Adamu 

Sent from my iPhone

[Femi Segun]

Oga Toyin

I beg to differ. This position defeats  the pursuit of nation-building and societal harmony. We need an effective state and visionary leadership to manage the various centripetal and centrifugal forces. Saying we don't need them is an escapist answer. Damage has been done and still being done, but we cannot hands off in defeat.Many of us cried out last year  when some misguided youth gave ultimatum to the Igbos to leave the North. We must help this government to think right and act justly.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Who is arming the Fulani militia?

Why is their killing so systematic?

Why the recurrent massacres?

Why are they able to massacre, give press conference after press conference, one at least  after each massacre, justifying the massacres on the basis of the most infuriating lies and still people are speaking plenty of grammar on what is obviously a terrorist campaign?

All this plenty talk abt climate  this and that would have been relevant if we were not dealing with massacres on a recurrent and genocidal scale as well as serious murderous inroads into the South with the help of an actively compliant Fulani centred govt.

One should not be too civilized to assess all factors in a horrendous equation.

These murderers and their political enablers are counting on people's perpetual civlity, their inability to grasp the fact of the deliberate horror of monumental proportions being visited upon them.

Someone is carrying out a carefully coordinated war.

There is nothing accidental in this campaign.

These people see  themselves as conquering descendants of Uthman dan Fodio and his Fulani jihad and so will not dialogue with you , will not accommodate your needs, bcs to them, you are not their equal, as you might not even be seen as a human being as they are, hence the drinking of blood through recurrent murder has become their defining culture.

Have you ever interacted significantly with religious or ethnic fanatics? They are inhuman when in that mode.

I need to mention here, on a group where much seems to be made of non-factual transcendence of tribalism, that in my very active presence on Facebook, I am yet to see a single condemnatory  response to these massacres from anyone from the Muslim North.

The sad truth is that all you people from the South who are struggling to be detribalised are on your own. Southerners do not seem to have really grasped the ethno/religious  core of Northern Muslim politics.

I have belonged in various Northern Muslim centred groups and can attest that the dominant mindset in those climes is very different from even the Yoruba vs Igbo quarrels that recur on social media.

What am I saying?

Somebody has organized a well armed military force and is using it very effectively in a campaign building on the cartography of Nigerian politics and ethnic affiliations.

The civilized Muslim Northerners on this group and on Facebook will not support the massacres, but they will not condemn them.Some, though,  give support in the name of claiming reprisals. None will acknowledge that what we are seeing is massacre after massacre of defenseless people, of almost entire populations. Instead they will take refuge in such non-factual euphemisms as as 'Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts' as was presented in the essay that ignited this discussion.

Southern politicians are largely cowards and self centred creatures with the SE governors particularly hungry for VP and eventually  Presidential status, so they will keep mum.

Many Southerners will intellectualize a barbaric war in the name of trying to understand savages who are intent on subjugating you and destroying many in the process.

This war is being fought with military weapons of a caliber as to hold their own and almost overpower the army and the police when they have been bold enough to go agst the terrorists, it is being fought through political machinations at the highest levels, hence the murderers are never apprehended even as they publicly justify their massacres, the national ruler, the head of the DSS as well as the heads of practically all the security agencies belong to their ethno/religious affiliation, an arrangement that Buhari put in place as his quickest initiative while delaying for months to appoint ministers, the war is being fought through propaganda as in the effort to destroy the credibility of Apostle Suleiman, the only Christian pastor bold enough to speak out agst this scourge, the war is being conducted through the active and at times tacit connivance of Hausa-Fulani politicians at the heart of which is Buhari with his strategy of  distancing from the situation.

If the Fulani people have problems with desertification, they should learn irrigation from North Africa and Israel. The herdsmen, the advance guard of the terrorists who at times engage in terrorism themselves dont need to bring their cows to the South or the Middle Belt using the crude foot navigation method.

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Who is arming the Fulani militia?

Why is their killing so systematic?

Why the recurrent massacres?

Why are they able to massacre, give press conference after press conference, one at least  after each massacre, justifying the massacres on the basis of the most infuriating lies and still people are speaking plenty of grammar on what is obviously a terrorist campaign?

All this plenty talk abt climate  this and that would have been relevant if we were not dealing with massacres on a recurrent and genocidal scale as well as serious murderous inroads into the South with the help of an actively compliant Fulani centred govt.

One should not be too civilized to assess all factors in a horrendous equation.

These murderers and their political enablers are counting on people's perpetual civlity, their inability to grasp the fact of the deliberate horror of monumental proportions being visited upon them.

Someone is carrying out a carefully coordinated war.

There is nothing accidental in this campaign.

These people see  themselves as conquering descendants of Uthman dan Fodio and his Fulani jihad and so will not dialogue with you , will not accommodate your needs, bcs to them, you are not their equal, as you might not even be seen as a human being as they are, hence the drinking of blood through recurrent murder has become their defining culture.

Have you ever interacted significantly with religious or ethnic fanatics? They are inhuman when in that mode.

I need to mention here, on a group where much seems to be made of non-factual transcendence of tribalism, that in my very active presence on Facebook, I am yet to see a single condemnatory  response to these massacres from anyone from the Muslim North.

The sad truth is that all you people from the South who are struggling to be detribalised are on your own. Southerners do not seem to have really grasped the ethno/religious  core of Northern Muslim politics.

I have belonged in various Northern Muslim centred groups and can attest that the dominant mindset in those climes is very different from even the Yoruba vs Igbo quarrels that recur on social media.

Having a nice Northern Muslim friend, a fellow cosmopolitan, a scholar with all the refinements of civilization is not identical with appreciating a mindset that dominates a region. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Emir of Kano, former central bank governor,  a suave cosmopolitan and yet an embodiment of this mindset, struggled to raise the alarm about the self destructive character of this mindset, its insular and medievalist orientation, but was blackmailed into silence.

What am I saying?

Somebody has organized a well armed military force and is using it very effectively in a campaign building on the cartography of Nigerian politics and the structure of its ethnic affiliations.

The civilized Muslim Northerners on this group and on Facebook will not support the massacres, but they will not condemn them. Some, though,  give support in the name of claiming reprisals. None will acknowledge that what we are seeing is massacre after massacre of defenseless people, of almost entire populations. Instead they will take refuge in such non-factual euphemisms as 'Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts' as was presented in the essay that ignited this discussion.

Southern politicians are largely cowards and self centred creatures with the SE governors particularly hungry for VP and eventually  Presidential status, so they will keep mum.

Many Southerners will intellectualize a barbaric war in the name of trying to understand savages who are intent on subjugating you and destroying many in the process.

This war is being fought with military weapons of a caliber as to hold their own and almost overpower the army and the police when they have been bold enough to go agst the terrorists, it is being fought through political machinations at the highest levels, hence the murderers are never apprehended even as they publicly justify their massacres, the national ruler, the head of the DSS as well as the heads of practically all the security agencies belong to their ethno/religious affiliation, an arrangement that Buhari put in place as his quickest initiative while delaying for months to appoint ministers, the war is being fought through propaganda as in the effort to destroy the credibility of Apostle Suleiman, the only Christian pastor bold enough to speak out agst this scourge, the war is being conducted through the active and at times tacit connivance of Hausa-Fulani politicians at the heart of which is Buhari with his strategy of  distancing from the situation, while these politicians feed the cows of these private business people with grass bought from Brazil using Nigeria's  money, struggle to steal land from other Nigerians for the use of these imperialists using a national grazing bill and do their best to use the army as a shield for this armed business consortium.

If anyone claims to to have problems with desertification, they should learn irrigation from North Africa and Israel. The herdsmen, the advance guard of the terrorists who at times engage in terrorism themselves, dont need to bring their cows to the South or the Middle Belt using the crude foot navigation method.

toyin

On 10 January 2018 at 15:20, Femi Segun <solor...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

This piece by Wole Soyinka is the most eloquent answer to the report posted. The claim that the violence is not one-sided is a cop out that is always advanced to obfuscate the clearly established pattern of armed herdsmen terrorism and banditry. At every turn, the Fulani's complaint and justification for sacking villages and wiping out their inhabitants has been loss of cattle. In what universe is is one allowed to equate cattle with human life or to engage in mass killings to avenge the loss of cattle? Are we now a Hobbesian society of violent self-help? Don't we have laws against theft that should be applied in case of rustling? Should the herdsmen be allowed to thump their nose on Nigerian law and perpetrate their own murderous judicial systems on innocent sedentary farmers? The armed militias of the Bororo herders are a threat to the nation. The Bororo's trans-human nomadism is unsustainable in 21st century Nigeria, for reasons that almost everyone now knows and which the report repeats. When the officials of Miyetti Allah show up to a "peace meeting" post- Agatu massacre with their weapons and admit in the presence of the commissioner of police and other security agents that they massacred the Agatu people because they lost some cows to theft and they walked out of there free and are still free; when in the aftermath of the recent massacres in Logo and Guma, the same Miyetti Allah came out to claim that their murderous terror is revenge for the lost of 1000 cattle and they are still walking around freely, being interviewed and organizing press conferences; when the leaders of the same Miyetti announce belligerently that Benue State will not know peace unless it modifies or gets rid of its duly passed anti-open grazing law and they are still free; when all this evidence of Miyetti's sponsorship of armed herdsmen terrorism and Buhari's unwillingness to deal with them, or, more charitably, his nonchalance to the killings--is juxtaposed against his treatment of an IPOB that, however militant they waxed, did take up arms or kill for their struggle, one can only reduce the immediate issue to state-subsidized impunity and complicity.

IMPUNITY RIDES AGAIN

Wole SOYINKA

It is happening all over again. History is repeating itself and, alas, within such an agonizingly short span of time. How often must we warn against the enervating lure of appeasement in face of aggression and will to dominate! I do not hesitate to draw attention to Volume III of my INTERVENTION Series, and to the chapter on The Unappeasable Price of Appeasement. There is little to add, but it does appear that even the tragically fulfilled warnings of the past leave no impression on leadership, not even when identical signs of impending cardiac arrest loom over the nation. Boko Haram was still at that stage of putative probes when cries of alarm emerged. Then the fashion ideologues of society deployed their distancing turns of phrase to rationalize what were so obviously discernable as an agenda of ruthless fundamentalism and internal domination. Boko Haram was a product of social inequities, they preached – one even chortled: We stand for justice, so we are all Boko Haram! We warned that – yes indeed – the inequities of society were indeed part of the story, but why do you close your eyes against other, and more critical malfunctions of the human mind, such as theocratic lunacy? Now it is happening again. The nation is being smothered in Vaseline when the diagnosis is so clearly – cancer!
We have been here before – now, ‘before’ is back with a vengeance. President Goodluck Jonathan refused to accept that marauders had carried off the nation’s daughters; President Muhammed 

Buhari and his government – including his Inspector-General of Police - in near identical denial, appear to believe that killer herdsmen who strike again and again at will from one corner of the nation to the other, are merely hot-tempered citizens whose scraps occasionally degenerate into “communal clashes” – I believe I have summarized him accurately. The marauders are naughty children who can be admonished, paternalistically, into good neighbourly conduct. Sometimes of course, the killers were also said be non-Nigerians after all. The contradictions are mind-boggling.

First the active policy of appeasement, then the language of endorsement. El Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, proudly announced that, on assuming office, he had raised a peace committee and successfully traced the herdsmen to locations outside Nigerian borders. He then made payments to them from state coffers to cure them of their homicidal urge which, according to these herdsmen, were reprisals for some ancient history and the loss of cattle through rustling. The public was up in arms against this astonishing revelation. I could only call to mind a statement by the same El Rufai after a prior election which led to a rampage in parts of the nation, and cost even the lives of National Youth Service corpers. They were hunted down by aggrieved mobs and even states had to organize rescue missions for their citizens. Countering protests that the nation owed a special duty of protection to her youth, especially those who are co-opted to serve the nation in any capacity, El Rufai’s comment then was: No life is more important than another. Today, that statement needs to be adjusted, to read perhaps – apologies to George Orwell: “All lives are equal, but a cow’s is more equal than others.”

This seems to be the government view, one that, overtly or by implication, is being amplified through act and pronouncement, through clamorous absence, by this administration. It appears to have infected even my good friend and highly capable Minister, Audu Ogbeh, however insidiously. What else does one make of his statements in an interview where he generously lays the blame for ongoing killings everywhere but at the feet of the actual perpetrators! His words, as carried by The Nation Newspapers:
“The inability of the government to pay attention to herdsmen and cow farming, unlike other developed countries, contributed to the killings.” The Minister continued:
“Over the years, we have not done much to look seriously into the issue of livestock development in the country….we may have done enough for the rice farmer, the cassava farmer, the maize farmer, the cocoa farmer, but we haven’t done enough for herdsmen, and that inability and omission on our part is resulting in the crisis we are witnessing today”
No, no, not so, Audu! It is true that I called upon the government a week ago to stop passing the buck over the petroleum situation. I assure you however that I never intended that a reverse policy should lead to exonerating – or appearing to exonerate – mass killers, rapists and economic saboteurs – saboteurs, since their conduct subverts the efforts of others to economically secure their own existence, drives other producers off their land in fear and terror. This promises the same plague of starvation that afflicts zones of conflict all over this continent where liberally sown landmines prevent farmers from venturing near their prime source, the farm, often their only source of livelihood, and has created a whole population of amputees. At least, those victims in Angola, Mozambique and other former war theatres, mostly lived to tell the tale. These herdsmen, arrogant and unconscionable, have adopted a scorched-earth policy, so that those other producers – the cassava, cocoa, sorghum, rice etc farmers are brutally expelled from farm and dwelling.

Government neglect? You may not have intended it, but you made it sound like the full story. I applaud the plans of your ministry, I am in a position to know that much thought – and practical steps – have gone into long term plans for bringing about the creation of ‘ranches’, ‘colonies’ – whatever the name – including the special cultivation of fodder for animal feed and so on and on. However, the present national outrage is over impunity. It rejects the right of any set of people, for whatever reason, to take arms against their fellow men and women, to acknowledge their exploits in boastful and justifying accents and, in effect, promise more of the same as long as their terms and demands are not met. In plain language, they have declared war against the nation, and their weapon is undiluted terror. Why have they been permitted to become a menace to the rest of us? That is the issue!
Permit me to remind you that, early in 2016, an even more hideous massacre was perpetrated by this same Murder Incorporated – that is, a numerical climax to what had been a series across a number of Middle Belt and neighbouring states, with Benue taking the brunt of the butchery. A peace meeting was called, attended by the state government and security agencies of the nation, including the Inspector General of Police. This group attended – according to reports - with AK47s and other weapons of mass intimidation visible under their garments. They were neither disarmed nor turned back. They freely admitted the killings but justified them by claims that they had lost their cattle to the host community. It is important to emphasize that none of their spokesmen referred to any government neglect, such as refusal to pay subsidy for their cows or failure to accord them the same facilities that had been extended to cassava or millet farmers. Such are the monstrous beginnings of the culture of impunity. We are reaping, yet again, the consequences of such tolerance of the intolerable. Yes, there indeed the government is culpable, definitely guilty of “looking the other way”. Indeed, it must be held complicit.

This question is now current, and justified: just when is terror? I am not aware that IPOB came anywhere close to this homicidal propensity and will to dominance before it was declared a terrorist organization. The international community rightly refused to go along with such an absurdity. For the avoidance of doubt, let me state right here, and yet again, that IPOB leadership is its own worst enemy. It repels public empathy, indeed, I suspect that it deliberately cultivates an obnoxious image, especially among its internet mouthers who make rational discourse impossible. However, as we pointed out at the time, the conduct of that movement, even at its most extreme, could by no means be reckoned as terrorism. By contrast, how do we categorize Myeti? How do we assess a mental state that cannot distinguish between a stolen cow – which is always recoverable – and human life, which is not. Villages have been depopulated far wider than those outside their operational zones can conceive. They swoop on sleeping settlements, kill and strut. They glory in their seeming supremacy. Cocoa farmers do not kill when there is a cocoa blight. Rice farmers, cassava and tomato farmers do not burn. The herdsmen cynically dredge up decades-old affronts – they did at the 2016 Benue “peace meeting” to justify the killings of innocents in the present - These crimes are treated like the norm. Once again, the nation is being massaged by specious rationalisations while the rampage intensifies and the spread spirals out of control. When we open the dailies tomorrow morning, there is certain to have been a new body count, to be followed by the arrogant justification of the Myeti Allah.
The warnings pile up, the distress signals have turned into a prolonged howl of despair and rage. The answer is not to be found in pietistic appeals to victims to avoid ‘hate language’ and divisive attributions. The sustained, killing monologue of the herdsmen is what is at issue. It must be curbed, decisively and without further evasiveness.  
Yes, Jonathan only saw ‘ghosts’ when Boko Haram was already excising swathes of territory from the nation space and abducting school pupils. The ghosts of Jonathan seem poised to haunt the tenure of Mohammed Buhari.

• Prof Wole SOYINKA is the first African Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

In my last comment on this subject, I stated that we are witnessing a war being fought using, as part of its strategy,the cartography of Nigerian politics and the structure of its ethnic affiliations.

I stated that, in this conflict, while some Southerners intellectualize endlessly, desperately ignoring the clear ethnic warfare going on in the name of peripheral  considerations, most Muslim Northerners, no matter how well educated, no matter how seemingly cosmopolitan,  will never condemn the massacres being carried out by their kin, preferring to downplay or in some cases, justify these horrors in the name of reprisals.

I argued that the dominant mindset in the Muslim-North is a strong ethno-religious  mentality on account of the domination of the region by hard core ethno-religious , right wing conservatives.

A graphic description of this mentality is Pius Adesanmi's summation in a 28/12/ 2011 discussion on the NaijaPolitics Yahoo group under the heading "Boko  Haram and the Silent Majority",   written at a point when many in the Muslim North did not grasp the universally destructive nature of the Islamic  terrorist group that began its first two years after its 2011 escalation on the ascension of the GEJ govt portraying themselves as Muslim soldiers fighting an infidel govt and Christians in the North illustrates this point in relation to another, related scenario. Adesanmi addresses the culture of recurrent massacre that is part of the history  of the Muslim North, from the 1950s, to the anti-Igbo/Southerner's pogrom of 1966 to the pro-Buhari massacre of 2011 in revenge for his election failure:

"  'The majority of peace loving Muslims are powerless before this very powerful radical minority, and for the sake of their lives most prefer to keep quiet. But the agenda of Islamisation which is a crucial expected outcome of these radicals will be an outcome welcome by all Muslims whether radical or not.' - Reverend Father Bassey

Dear Father Bassey:

Thanks are due to Oga Ojo for circulating your thoughts widely. I agree with his critique of same. I have also excerpted a curious point you make. I couldn't disagree with you more on what you state above. The majority of Nigeria's peace loving Moslems are certainly not powerless before the bloodthirsty cannibals among them. The proper thing to say is that the rest of us, Nigerian non-Moslems, have somehow never held the Muslim majority accountable for their silence over these orgies of murder that come complete with the ability to tar-brush all of them and even their religion.

I am not saying that we don't hear from a few courageous and progressive Muslims but the numbers are not up to the ten fingers of my non-leprous hands. Apologies for the hyperbole. It is for discursive effect. Just look at my constituency: how many Northern Muslim University lecturers have ever come out to denounce these killings? How many of them have ever thought of coming together in pressure groups and thinktanks - something like a League of Northern Academics Against Religious Violence - to mount pressure on Northern state governors, religious leaders and elders? How many of them have organized themselves in NGOs and sought funding from local and foreign bodies to mount public campaigns against religious violence in the core north? Don't we have colleagues everywhere from Usmanu Dan Fodio University in Sokoto to Bayero University in Kano? How many of them have you ever heard from? They don't have voices or they suddenly become too busy with academic work whenever these orgies of violence require their voices in the public space?

I think the time has come when we must begin to make it clear to that Moslem majority that we do not believe that they are powerless to rein in the murderers who are giving their religion such a bad name; that, where we stand, their silence means acquiescence or indifference or both; that we are no longer satisfied with a handful of well-meaning Muslims and Muslim organizations coming out to apply medicine after death by issuing statements after every bomb blast and going back to sleep until the next blast - let them be proactive! Let them do the right thing with conscientization campaigns and other socially prophylactic initiatives in the warrens of radical Islam in the North, etc. We want to see them get their hands dirty in the trenches of the North, involved in very publicized and mediatized campaigns for religious harmony and against religious violence. That Muslim majority must be seen working proactively by the rest of us. Otherwise, the Sultan rushing to Aso Rock for a photo-op presented as a security consultation while we are burying our dead is cold comfort.

Pius"

 

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

By the way, the only positive--if one can call it that--to come out of the latest outrage against armed herdsmen terror is the emerging consensus on ranching/cattle colonies or whatever they are called. Even this report, as pro-herdsmen as it is, recognizes this reality and recommends the establishment of grazing reserves--another name for ranches, really--in the northwest and northeast. This is a good recommendation. Those regions have a bigger landmass than others, much of it underutilized. Those regions also provide the herdsmen with kinship affinities and would thus be amenable to providing land for ranching. In my social media engagement, I have noticed that even our Hausa and Fulani compatriots have come around to the imperative of enclosed herding--ranches, colonies, or whatever. I now see a lot of them condeming the culture of transhumance as counterproductive to the Bororo's own interests because it deprives them of the benefits of citizenship, which sedentry communities enjoy. Transhumance, in other words, actually marginalizes the herdsmen, prevents their integration into the national social fabric, and hurts their future prospects since their children are not being educated to enter into Nigeria's official economy or governmental institutions.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Respectfully correcting a typographical error in Moses' post:

"when all this evidence of Miyetti's sponsorship of armed herdsmen terrorism and Buhari's unwillingness to deal with them, or, more charitably, his nonchalance to the killings--is juxtaposed against his treatment of an IPOB that, however militant they waxed, did  [    [ NOT ] take up arms or kill for their struggle, one can only reduce the immediate issue to state-subsidized impunity and complicity."

While I agree with Moses summations and very much appreciate his stark facing of a deadly reality some are determined to avoid facing clearly, I hereby add that the Miyetti Allah claims of their cows being stolen or killed are absolute lies  that defy all logic.

After the Agatu massacre by the vampires there was no evidence of killing or theft of any cows, not to talk of killing at the scale they alleged.

Same with the barbaric claim they put up in connection with the recent Benue massacre.

thanks

toyin

[Toyin Falola]

Can we be bold, as the Hindu did centuries ago: beef boycott?

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Yes, Toyin, thanks for the correction and the skepticism about cattle theft. Cattle rustling is real and is being tackled by the anti-rustling task force the president set up in his first year in office. However, cattle theft seems to also have become the killer herdsmen's impulsive, go-to alibi. The notorious Fulani supremacist, Nasir el-Rufai, even bought the excuse and paid them compensation using public money. Of course, the killings in Southern Kaduna predictably worsened after the payment. In the case of Benue, Miyetti Allah issued several threats after the passage of the anti-open grazing law, saying that Benue had declared war and that the state would not know peace, that Benue would be punished, etc.  The recent massacre bears the tell-tale signs of those threats made real. That's why I think the cattle theft alibi, however valid it may be in other contexts, is a ruse in this particular case, a clear afterthought in light of the national outrage the latest massacre generated. They even chose a nice round figure of 1000 cattle.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Professor Falola,

I believe that choice was dictated by the Hindu's religion--no?

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

I dont eat meat anyway.

Why should we kill fellow beings of obvious sentience, creatures with families they care for as we care for ours, creatures who feel pain and in some cases express obvious emotion, all bcs we want to eat?

Its not difficult to imagine creatures so far above us in intelligence and capacity as we are above other animals. What of if, God forbid, such creatures chose to feed on us?

A science fiction story inverts the conventional  scenario. Martians have invaded and colonized the earth. They have driven humans from the surface to take refuge underground, and no memory remains that humans once lived above ground and were once the dominant species on the earth, except in rumors.

It is the pride of many humans to be so gifted that the Martians invite them to companionship on the surface. Such humans are never seen again  below the surface. The belief is that they have ascended to a better life and so need not return to such lower regions of being.

The truth is that the Martians eat them.

toyin

[Toyin Falola]

Actually there is the literature that says that, as in pork and Islam/Jewish religious sanctions were to reinforce ideas that 

1 pork caused illness in hot/humid climes as in tape worm. In Africa, we dis the same, as in taboos: without electricity we said if a pregnant woman went out at night the baby would be satanic 

2. Cows consumed too much water and plant resources, according to one interpretation and to  balance that environmental interest they turned to a taboo: the cow is the mother of the nation, don’t eat it.

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Well, I am not going to support meat eating, though I am willing to eat some meat, and am mostly abstemious especially of beef.

But before we put all the Fulani herdsmen out of business, I’d like to know what substitute occupations we are willing to support before driving them to poverty?

We might as well say the same about pork raisers.

And if you want to go that route, try doing the same for lamb or goat! That would hardly be possible. After all, how could you celebrate ramadan’s feast, or even a naming or birthing ceremony without the sacrificial goat. Want to celebrate with a chicken?

Wait a minute—chicken is also meat!

We should all be eating fish. But now, with this globalization fishing, there’s no fish left.

 

Anyway, youth of today are vegans. That takes care of the whole shebang.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday 10 January 2018 at 14:52
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Resolving Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts in Nigeria

 

Actually there is the literature that says that, as in pork and Islam/Jewish religious sanctions were to reinforce ideas that 

--

[segun ogungbemi]

Legislative Solutions

"There are discordant laws and regulations that legislate livestock production and pastoralism at the regional, national and state levels. Some of the newly emerging laws such as the “anti-grazing” state laws appear to contradict the free movement principle enshrined in the Constitution."

I just want to comment on the above quotation. My response is that the idea of free movement is not elastic. You have freedom of movement insofar as  it does not enchroach on the right of others to personal property and protection of life. For instance,  if I invest in farming and my crops flourish and just before harvesting them a herdsman and his cows enchroach on the farm and destroy the crops,  the law does not permit the herdsman and his animals to violate my right to property. 

There is a mutual respect between one with  freedom and another with right. Each must know his limit to avoid unnessary  conflicts of interest. That is what is missing in both claims of freedom and right agents in Nigeria.

That is where National Orientation Agency and social media should try to educate the masses.   

Segun. 

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

In Zamfara State, a killer State, a killer squad has been killing Fulani pastoralists for the past two years and no one is talking about it. In Benue, the same thing has happened and I am told I can't say killing is done by both sides. Yes the media is heavily one-sided in its reporting and the Fulani story is not being told, and it should be. All killings are unacceptable, why can't we take this as a point of departure.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

But in Zamfara state, the killings are occuring between cattle rustlers and herders, both of whom are Fulani for the most part, the cattle rustlers sometimes being former herders and vice versa. It was only later that the crisis pitted some Fulani herders against non-Fulani communities as these communities began to take revenge indiscriminately against Fulani herders after their communities were attacked by the Fulani bandits.The president has largely solved that problem by inaugurating in the first few months of his tenure a military task force to deal with the issue in that axis extending all the way to Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State. Perhaps you need to give us the evidence of herdsmen being killed in Benue. Even Miyetti has not alleged killings in Benue; rather it claims that its members lost 1000 cattle to theft when they were migrating from Benue to Nasarawa state, and that the recent massacre was revenge for the loss of said cattle. I'm sure some herdsmen have lost their lives in the expanding collision between armed Bororo herders and farming communities across the country. However, only one group, the herdsmen, have a roving, armed militia that is killing and terrorizing people and sacking communities with impunity from Zamfara to Southern Kaduna, to Plateau, to Benue, to Enugu, to Kogi, Edo, and beyond. There is a pattern of nationwide terror for which the armed wings of Bororo herdsmen are responsible. That is a discernible pattern that should be recognized on its own terms without the forced narrative that killings are not one-sided. It does not help to construct false equalences or to manufacture claims about herdsmen killings that the herdsmen themselves have not made. The  herdsmen militia, mobile and murderous, are an existential threat to Nigeria. I hope Buhari wakes up from his nonchalance and deals with it as the national threat that it is. Jonathan was late to recognize the threat that Boko Haram posed to the nation and he paid a political price for it, not to mention the thousands of needless deaths that occurred as a result of his conspiracy-fueled tardiness. We do not help him recognize the threat when we throw out exculpatory and obfuscatory canards such as "the killings are not one-sided." A pattern of terror stalks the land, and it is traceable to one roving, murderous militia. Pointing to isolated, historically familiar, and sporadic incidents of mutual conflict between herdsmen and their sedentary hosts should not be advanced to take attention away from this national threat. That sporadic, familiar conflict has been with us for centuries and was never a problem until this strangely new group of Bororo herders decided to use brute force, backed by a well armed militia, to take grazing land from farming communities and to punish them when they would not yield.

[Femi Segun]

Added to this spurious attempt to defend the indefensible is the recommendation in the panel report that grazing reserves should be carved out, more or less compulsorily. That option should not and cannot be an imposition, except of course we are saying, the murderers have more rights than the people that they have been killing. As Wole Soyinka said in his piece in the Punch of yesterday, the claim by the Inspector General of Police that the killing  was a product of  communal clashes, bespeaks shameful display of ignorance by a law enforcement officer of his rank. Communal clashes occur among neighbors, not between people who leave far apart.  Whether or not PMB is contesting in 2019, he needs to drop his toga of an ethnically and religiously biased posturing. Why on earth will he declare Operation Python and Operation Dance in the Southeast and South South without deeming fit to deploy Soldiers to the Middle Belt to stop these mindless killings? 

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

What is happening to our intellectuals, how can a whole ethnic group be categorised as murderers. 

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Jibrin:

This question is really what I cannot understand.  Why put an ethnic label on murderers _ Fulani - , or even a trade label on them - herdsmen - when not only do I  know many Fulani who are neither herdsmen or murderers, but many herdsmen who are also not Fulani or murderers! 

By labeling them constantly as "Fulani herdsmen", you clearly cause some natural defence _ by Fulani individuals, or by herdsmen, or both (MAKH)  - of otherwise indefensible and outrage conduct. 

Unfortunately,   in Nigeria's toxic political environment, these particular dog whistle has become a latter day characterization of the armed wing of the feared "Hausa Fulani hegemony" which many of us in the South and Middle Beltran railed against in earlier decades.  That armed wing used to be the Military... The civilian ogre is now MAKH nationwide,  not even BH, which is confined to the NE.   

That Buhari is now President - that famed defender of yore of Fulani herdsmen before Oyo Governor Lamidi Adesina - - appears maddening to a core group of Nigerians.  His herdsmen mentality could not be used to prevent him in 2015... Should we not try again in 2019, beginning now?  Is the politicization of criminality - which led to the escalation of BH - once again rearing its ugly head through official inertia? 

Honestly, we need new thinking and language.  We must drop the etnicizatiin of criminality - whether pastoral-related killings, or cult- or politics related kidnappings, etc _ so that we undercut all their support oxygen. When criminals are caught and punished, we must ensure that no one begins to say "Oh, it us because they are Fulani, or Yoruba or Igbo, etc" because such characterizations weaken the resolve to go after the crime. 

And there you have it. 

Bolaji Aluko 

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Oga Falola,

You have raised very important appendices to this conversation. While we wait for Jibo's response, let me chime in with my thoughts.

There is indeed a fear of the Fulani, which is both political and existential. This has always been part of Nigeria's tripodal politics of mutual ethnic suspicions. The narrative of a domineering Fulani hegemony has always been a trope of Southern Nigerian and Middle Belt political discourse. Some of the suspicion is real and some of it is grounded in fiction and unfounded fear. I suspect that some of may be be strategic. There is also a rather visceral hostility and suspicion of the Fulani in some quarters. This is largely a politically-driven antipathy. 

There is however genuine outrage at the menace of armed herdsmen militias. Unfortunately, in the current climate, it is difficult to tell the former from the latter as they have overlapped and seeped into each other. That is one of the negative consequences of the incessant, largely ignored killings by these militia. Genuine angst agains the killings have sometimes meshed with a more primordial and political distrust of herdsmen and their non-nomadic Fulani kinsmen. It is quite unfortunate.

It is also unfortunate but hardly surprising that the conversation has morphed into a familiar and rather cliched anti-Fulani rhetoric and the promotion of certain political pathologies about the Fulani as hegemonic and domineering. This is one of the reasons that some of us had been restrained from commenting. If you express outrage at the killings, those who harbor an ethnic or political animus against the Fulani as an ethnic group could latch onto what you say to further their agenda. But you cannot keep quiet when mass murders are being committed on a vast scale.

For starters, it is important to point out that not all Fulani are herdsmen or pastoralists. In fact I would say that MOST Fulani, at least in Nigeria, are not nomadic herdsmen. I attended secondary school in Yola, Adamawa State and it doesn't get more Fulani that Yola. Yet most Fulani in Yola and even in the larger Adamawa State are not nomadic herders. Most of them are actually sedentary farmers and traders and settled herders--or ranchers in the prevailing lingo. So, the ethnicization of this conversation is misleading, and the extension of the culpability of the armed herdsmen killers to all Fulani is wrong.

Even among Fulani herdsmen, a fine-grained distinction needs to be made. We all grew up with nomadic Fulani herders in our communities and consumed their dairy products, which we obtained sometimes by battering grains and other items that they needed. They were largely peaceful. They respected the host communities. Whenever their cattle transgressed in farmlands, they obeyed local traditional authorities and paid compensation. When they felt aggrieved by members of host communities, they approached the local authorities for redress. This still happens with some nomadic herders.

What has changed?

What has changed is that, there is a new group (a sub-group, if you will) of herders who have broken this unwritten rule governing relations between herders and farmers. They no longer respect local constituted authorities and have no respect for farmers or their crops in host communities. They are also armed and ready to use these arms to enforce their will and desires on host communities and to kill and sack communities if and when challenged. Needless to say that this small group of ultra-aggressive and violent herdsmen that many now call the Bororo has made life difficult for the nomadic and semi-nomadic herdsmen that many communities across the country have been familiar with for decades if not centuries. Through their mass murders and other heinous acts, they have given a bad name to all herders and helped create a negative stereotype of herders as mass murderers, rapists, and terrorists. It is this stereotype that is now being mobilized mischievously by some people to reinforce previously existing political suspicions of the Fulani ethnic group as a whole.

I was discussing with a member of this list from Kwara state who told me that in his hometow, people are now scared to go to farms after recent incidents of violence and killings of farmers by armed herdsmen. His story is quite emblematic of what is going on across the country. His hometown, a Muslim kingdom with an emir, has, for centuries, welcomed and hosted nomadic Fulani groups, trading with them, interacting with them, and in some cases even intermarrying with them. So deep and historical are these relations that some of the Fulani have now actually settled with their cattle on the outskirts of the community and for all practical purposes have become a part of its fabric. Recently, however, this picture was shattered when a new group of nomadic Fulani herdsmen arrived in the area armed with sophisticated weapons and, unlike previous groups nomads, began aggressively and recklessly encroaching on farms and killing local farmers who challenged them. The most telling aspect of this story is that these armed nomadic killers have not spared the settled and semi-settled Fulani nomadic communities in the area. These new, aggressive and armed nomads have killed local nomads and sacked Fulani settlements in the area as well, sending shockwaves through the entire community, with both Fulani and non-Fulani running for their lives. When my friend asked his people who these new Fulani nomads are, he was told that both his people and the older, largely peaceful Fulani communities in the area call the new, violent nomads Bororo, clearly a term to differentiate them from the other Fulani nomadic groups that have been coexisting with the people of the area for centuries.

My point in telling this story is to yet again underscore the unhelpfulness of generalization and to reinforce the distinctions that must be made among the Fulani and also among the pastoral herdsmen as a way of isolating and defining the identity and character of the mass killers and terrorists who pose a clear threat to the nation.

The danger of ethnicization and generalization is that we will lose allies among the sedentary Fulani and among Fulani intellectuals and aristocrats, who share ethnic affinity with both groups of herdsmen and would resist a quest for solutions that unfairly castigates and stereotypes the Fulani as an ethnic group. The other downside of course is that such an approach is unfair to the historical Fulani nomadic groups whose descendants continue to desire peaceful coexistence with host communities and have at times, as the case I narrated shows, become victims of the killer herdsmen. This victimhood is not just in having their cattle rustled or in being killed by their armed and violent Fulani nomadic kinsmen. It is also in the fact that, unfortunately, the murderous activities of the armed herdsmen militia have destroyed the trust between host communities and historical, largely peaceful Fulani nomadic and semi-nomadic groups. 

This is precisely the reason why, if I were Fulani, whether I'm a nomad or not, I would support the effort to isolate the Bororo mass murderous and deal decisively with them. I would not want my reputation and ethnicity sullied and subjected further to the kind of castigation, negative stereotyping, and suspicions that you outlined above in your questions to Jibrin.

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Moses:

Happy New Year! 

Our emails on this same subject crossed,  but we seem to be echoing the same sentiments.  What we are witnessing is nothing more than a reincarnation of the famed fear of "Hausa Fulani hegemony", and un-beneficial politicization and ethnicization of criminality. 

We must move back from this brink. 

Bolaji Aluko 

[Jibrin Ibrahim]

Bolaji

You are absolutely right that the ethnic labels are neither accurate nor a description of what is going on. There is new research by CERDDERT in Zaria that is drawing attention to the underlying reality, the emergence of numerous well armed criminal gangs some ethnic, others multiethnic that are the key actors in the killings and both farming and pastoralists are victims. These criminal groups are straddling between cattle rustling and kidnapping in addition to terrorising communities and we should look at some of these dynamics. I have asked A. S, Mohammed to prepare a summary of their findings which I will distribute.

Moses, Bororo has been the term used for Fulani pastoralists all along and what is new is the phenomenon of these well armed criminal gangs.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim

Senior Fellow

Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja

Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Jibrin, 

Buhari."s administration is characterized by inertia:  inertia in changing ancien regime officials, in choosing ministers and ambassadors, in subsidy removal, in corrupt officers removal, in reshuffling cabinet, in addressing head on these issues of pastoral, political and cult-related killings and kidnappings.  Some official messaging has been amateurish - witness the recent dead people appointments.   

Buhari is now healthy, so old excuses need not apply. There needs to be much greater proactively onsmy fronts  and forward looking-Ness, not rear mirror viewing. 

The fact of the matter is that all activities in Nigeria have ethnic, political, religious, economic, revolutionary and criminal dimensions.  The question in each particular case is the weight given to each factor, and whether there is broad and even official approval by the class that they claim to represent.  

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

The sad truth is that this war is being fought exclusively by members of a particular ethnic group, with the connivance of politicians of same ethnicity agst the rest of Nigeria.

Those who can should stop the Fulani militants from killing other Nigerians and save us the rivers of blood and intellectual hair splitting.

toyin

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

                                                         The Systematic Character of Fulani Terrorism

This particular brand of terrorism has as its goal the acquisition of territory across the nation by members of the Fulani ethnic group, using the herdsmen as a landing point in various communities and under the cover of their presence,  strike across the Middle Belt, the SE and other regions.

The ultimate goal seems to be to force Nigerians to give up their lands for cattle ranches and compulsory  grazing routes. To this effect, a nation wide campaign involving military and political organization has been escalated with the ascendancy of Muhammadu Buhari, who is clearly in alliance with his fellow Fulani imperialists.

Some are happy to claim the govt is only slow but cant explain why security agents whom the governor of Enugu state cried to for help abandoned the scene shortly before the anticipated Fulani militia struck.

They cant explain why the mass murderers give press conferences justifying their massacres and get away with it year after year.

Being civilized does not mean refusing to interpret the full scale of a horrendous phenomenon.

toyin

On 11 January 2018 at 17:55, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:

Does the evidence support the notion that this scourge emanates from a group without a central command structure across the nation, some mysteriously appearing group that has no political affiliation with their ethnic kin in the corridors of power?

It does not.

This scourge is systematic and very well funded.

The claim of a random emergence cant be sustained.

toyin

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Toyin Vincent Adepoju:

Happy New Year! 

Since you are so absolutely sure of the identity and supporters of these criminals, and yet feel hopelessly powerless in contributing to stopping the criminality,  all we can beg you and similar position holders for is patience, so that both Fulani and non-Fulani stakeholders, intellectuaal and otherwise, can (try to) solve the problem? 

Thanks a bunch. 

Bolaji Aluko 

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Does the evidence support the notion that this scourge emanates from a group without a central command structure across the nation, some mysteriously appearing group that has no political affiliation with their ethnic kin in the corridors of power?

It does not.

This scourge is systematic and very well funded.

The claim of a random emergence cant be sustained.

toyin

On 11 January 2018 at 17:42, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Mobolaji Aluko:

Great new yer to you.

It is gratifying to see even you agree at last we have a large scale problem when your previous stance was that too much was being made out of isolated skirmishes.

The only solution being preferred by the terrorists and their representatives is that they must be given free land across Nigeria.

If you know of any other solution they offer, please educate us.

They refuse to build ranches in their own territory. The preferred method is to compel agreement to their demands through making rivers of blood.

Great thanks

toyin

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Toyin Vincent Adepoju:

Please don't add misrepresentation - a euphemism either for untruth or lies - to hysteria.  

My position has always been to point to the illogicality of herdsmen -  Fulani or otherwise - who depend on the living to but their cows for food or leather - to mass-kill their customers as they roam from town to town!   I have never supported begat I've or positive attributions to while groups of people, because that is the very definition of racism  - and too many Nigerians are openly racist, even as they trumpet how great their in ethnic group is, while denigrating others. 

You are now advancing the age-old Sardinia alleged  theory of Fulani  dipping the Koran into the sea through a gradual creation of geographical beach heads, in the Middle Belt, SE and SW?  

Really?  How come you know this ingenious device and no one else?  Where is this dossier? 

And now that we know - and since we cannot do without beef and leather - why don't Middle Belters s and other non-Fulani create ranches and cow colonies, populate these  themselves to undercut this insidious plan? 

Of course, you have always opposed Buhari’s political ascendancy, but that is the topic of another Symposium.... Or is it the same Symposium? 

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Bolaji,

Happy new year!

I just hope that the ethnicized hysteria does not distract us from the clear case of presidential indifference and impunity, which Wole Soyinka eloquently articulated. As we speak, we have officials of two organizations, Miyetti Allah and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, who have repeatedly and publicly owned and boasted of these mass killings as revenge for alleged cattle theft. In other words we have representatives of organizations who have confessed to repeated mass murder. They are walking free, daily giving TV and newspaper interviews, spewing more inciting venom and issuing threats of more killings on AIT and Channels. They have not been arrested. Why? This is a question that will dog this administration, whose head is Fulani, because as you said, everything in Nigeria is given ethnic coloration, especially when there is no official explanation for inaction and other explanations are not plausible.  

The Miyetti guys made the same boastful confession during the Agatu massacre and similarly walked away freely. What then is the deterrent? Where is the even-handedness when Buhari moved an entire brigade of the Nigerian army to the SE to deal with non-violent IPOB? So, it's not just the slowness and nonchalance of Buhari in regard to these killings; it's also that we're witnessing what amounts to a state-sanctioned impunity that allows self-confessed mass murderers to walk freely. The mass murderers are emboldened to kill more, and would-be mass murderers are taking note. In debating the short term security solutions and longterm policy and legislative solutions, I hope we don't ignore the role of impunity and of certain people soaring boastfully above the laws of the land to both brag about the killings and threaten more and facing no consequences.

--

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Aluko,

​I can readily bring up your own dismissals for the archives. Its not worth my time.

As a person who supports Buhari in in all circumstances, even to submitting toilet paper as his certificate to qualify for the low level grades required for the Nigerian Presidency, what more does one expect of you?

Nigerians dont need to have cow produce from Fulani herders who are being used as advance guard for terrorists.Please advise the Fulani herders to build ranches in their own land.

thanks

​toyin​

--

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Adepoju:

You will get old trying to go to the archives to find a position that I never took, including the toilet paper certicate reference.  So you are wise not wasting your own time. 

As to supporting Buhari no matter what, I have always made it clear that if criticism of him is in support of BBC - Bring(ING)  Back Corruption - of the ancien regime, then I will always push back, no matter the opprobrium.  

 I will also always push back against vicious and deranged  racists who hide under political positions. Those same people in power will identify new targets, until only when their family members  - with same last names -  are left standing. 

And there  you have it. 

Bolaji Aluko 

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Aluko,

Sadly, the same anti-corruption angel you supported, an angel who was corruptly enabled to become President,  his non-possession of even the most basic education being excused in a situation in which nobody from the South would ever have been excused, was quick to remove you from a job in which you had barely begun given the scope of the task, a job  you had been appointed to in building an institution from scratch, from bare earth,  same as he did others appointed by the very man 'unwise' enough to look beyond ethnicity in providing such strategic opportunities, the angel you supported placing as his minister of education a person whose entire career has been in journalism, whose education does not go beyond a masters in that field,  but who was qualified for such a highly specialized job by being the ethno/religious loyalist of your angel, upon which  appointment  this loyalist removed you and many others , replacing them largely with people from the ethno/religious demographic he shares with your angel,  a good no from Kano state alone.

Ndo.

Its about time the day broke for you.

'Whenever a person wakes up, is their daybreak'

Nigerian proverb.

thanks

toyin

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