Left to go wild in its communities with insufferable insolence, enormous tension is building up in Ogun State over the destructive activities of armed herdsmen. Atrociously, some herdsmen recently attacked a woman in Oru-Awa, in Ijebu North, shattering her jaw with bullets. The consolation is that police arrested three herdsmen suspected of carrying out the attack on Morenikeji Salami. Almost simultaneously, there were shocking reports of Fulani herdsmen occupying farmland in several Yewa villages, allegedly with the backing of soldiers. Villagers who resisted the impunity were beaten up. Even obas and chiefs were subjected to the indignity of flogging by the invading soldiers. This is an insult to the traditional institutions of the people. Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, should get to the bottom of these incidents and ensure that the culprits are arrested and prosecuted.
Long before the twin assaults at the turn of the year, Ogun, much like the other states in the South-West, had been under siege from marauding herdsmen, who, under the pretext of grazing, committed odious crimes. In particular, kidnapping for ransom, robbery and rape have been habitually traced to these armed herders. Outrageously, herders block highways with their cattle, trample on farms and communities without a care for the investments of farmers and property owners in both rural areas. For selfish interests, they deliberately set fire on forests for fresh grass to sprout up for their cattle. But experts say bush burning destroys oil organisms, soil texture and soil fertility. It destroys vegetation cover, leading to soil erosion, causes air pollution and destroys insects and animal habitats. This is a minus for food and agricultural production in the state.
In 2017, Wole Soyinka raised the alarm on the dangerous anomaly of open cattle grazing. The Nobel laureate said, “This is a deliberate act of provocation. The trespasses have been frequent, we have reported them to the police, but the government is taking security lightly. We need to wake up the government, let them know the seriousness of the issue on the ground; these herdsmen are worse than Boko Haram.” That is succinct, but Ogun residents are not relieved yet from the invading herders. For some time now, strident alarms have been raised about the influx of armed Fulani herdsmen from Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and other West African countries into the South-West forests. Worse, the herdsmen were reportedly backed by some soldiers to intimidate Ogun communities. A traditional ruler in Yewa, Akintunde Akinyemi, whose Iselu community was recently invaded, has joined other rulers to write a petition to the Nigerian Army, the police and the Ogun State Government. Although the state government, through the Special Adviser on Public Communications to the Governor, Remmy Hazzan, denied that it received a petition of the invasion, the state police command stated that it got its own.
Law remains the most potent instrument to keep the herders’ menace at bay. The Ekiti State Anti-Grazing Law of 2016 became a landmark development in the effort to control violent herdsmen. And rightly, other states, including Oyo, have enacted the law. But there is a perceived air of aloofness to the plight of the people by successive administrations in Ogun State. The present Dapo Abiodun-led government is the guiltiest at a time when violent crime in the South-West reaches new high.
While Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states have formed the South-West Security Network known as Amotekun in their domains, the corps has yet to fully take off in Ogun. As a mark of seriousness, the other state assemblies passed the Amotekun bills, which the governors have signed into law. That is the legal way to tackle the herdsmen menace.
Being an integral part of the region, Ogun supported the formation of Amotekun in February 2020 after a series of bloody attacks by herdsmen and bandits on South-West highways and forests. In spite of this laudable initiative that has moved into action in other states despite the initial misgivings by the federal forces, Ogun is still behind in formulating the law to back up the corps in the state. As it is, the state is largely dependent on the federal arrangement to secure its citizens. In Nigeria’s dysfunctional federal political system in which the centre is tottering, that is unrealistic and dangerous.
All the same, the collective interests of the Ogun people should be protected. Cattle herding is hardly part of the agricultural system of the South-West, but in the past two decades, it has instigated constant crises and created staggering economic losses for farmers.
Anti-open grazing law is a fundamental instrument to curtail the open movement of cattle all over the world. Cattle should never be allowed to roam free in the state. Farming is the main occupation of the people; but unfenced, untended cattle are a danger to farmlands and farmers. Open, unregulated grazing of animals is associated with overgrazing, soil degradation and deforestation. Science has proved that prolonged heavy grazing undoubtedly contributes to the disappearance of palatable species and the subsequent dominance by other, less palatable, herbaceous plants or bushes. The Food and Agricultural Organisation says such loss of plant and, in consequence, animal biodiversity can require a long regenerative cycle. It therefore runs against the economic interest of farmers to allow cattle to roam freely in every nook and cranny of the state when they should be penned in ranches.
In the cattle-farming climes like Australia, the United States, the Netherlands and Ireland, cattle-rearing is confined to ranches, eliminating the animus between farmers and livestock owners. Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, recently took the security of life and property a notch higher when he ordered the Fulani herdsmen illegally occupying the state forest reserves to leave. Furthermore, he banned open cattle grazing across the state. In Benue, the Governor, Samuel Ortom, signed the anti-open grazing law at the height of the herdsmen atrocities in 2017. This seems to have restricted the herders in the state.
That law can also make the difference in Ogun State. Open grazing is a source of conflict, destruction and banditry. The decision of the six South-West states to ban any form of open grazing in the region should be backed by law. The Ogun State’s Animal Grazing and Cattle Ranch Establishment bill, 2020 should be passed into law immediately. Abiodun should get proactive with his own security initiatives, infusing and merging the ideas of his counterparts in the region. If he does not instil urgency, the problem will become more intractable.
