Wearied by the continued Fulani herdsmen carnage, the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has moved to sign the Anti-Open Grazing Bill into law. It is chiefly aimed at curbing killings and destruction of farmlands associated with open grazing in the state. He has also given an ultimatum to herdsmen to either ranch their livestock or leave the state. The law is an improvement on an earlier version promulgated in Ekiti State, where activities of nomadic Fulani herdsmen have also provoked ethnic suspicions, tension, devastation and reprisals.
Assenting to the bill, the Benue governor chillingly noted, “Between 2013 and 2016 alone, Fulani herdsmen killed more than 1,878 men, women and children in cold blood from 12 local government areas.” In addition, 750 people were critically injured, 200 still missing and over 99,427 households destroyed. This toll is mindboggling. During the gory invasion between February and March 2016, they massacred over 500 persons in the Agatu community, according to former Senate President, David Mark.
Mike Inalegwu, the sole administrator of the Agatu LGA, estimated that herdsmen slaughtered 3,920 persons from 2013 to 2017. At the weekend, herdsmen reportedly abducted Zakari Sada, the external auditor of the National Health Insurance Scheme on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. The crisis has produced thousands of internally displaced persons across the state. The Global Index of Terrorism prepared by a global think tank, the Institute for Economic and Peace, ranked Fulani nomads as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world in 2014/15, after their killing spree in several parts of Nigeria.
Emboldened by the apathy of the Federal Government, Fulani herdsmen have become notorious for rape, trespass, mass murders and destruction of crops of agrarian communities. Their cruel imprints are pronounced in (Southern) Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba, Delta, Nasarawa and Benue states. In April 2016, they slaughtered 40 persons in Ukpabi Nimbo, Enugu State.
In truth, this law is long overdue. By making ranching mandatory, it elevates animal husbandry to a big, modern business, which has been the preferred model the world over for centuries. The five-month moratorium for herdsmen ensnared by age-old open grazing practices to leave Benue by November is in no way harsh.
The law to ranch livestock is a courageous move by the state parliament and the governor. It is argued that ranching eliminates the friction over land between farming communities and nomadic livestock owners. Conflict arises principally as Nigeria’s 20 million strong cattle stock, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, are seeking fodder because of the advancing desertification in the North, which has encouraged the Fulani to expand their sphere of influence with impunity to the Middle Belt and the southern states.
In comparison, the FAO credits Brazil with 211.7 million heads of cattle (the world’s largest stock), the United States with 89.2 million and Argentina with 51 million. In these climes, ranching is the standard practice. It eliminates the outdated roaming of cattle across the length and breadth of the country in search of fodder.
Open grazing endangers food production. On the other hand, ranching protects against livestock rustling because the animals are properly enclosed. A research by the US National Wildlife and Refugee System warns that open grazing also disturbs soil surfaces. “Trampling, pawing, and wallowing by ungulates disturb the soil and in some cases, completely destroy soil crusts,” the study said.
But in its favour, ranching is a very lucrative business. This ought to persuade the cattle herders to cotton on to it. While farmers in Benue State lost N95 billion to Fulani herdsmen invasion in 2014 alone, according to Ortom, Australia’s 117-year-old Anna Creek Station, the biggest cattle ranch in Australia, was worth $370.7 million in 2016. It covers 100,000 square kilometres. In total, Australia exported fresh beef valued at $2.5 billion and frozen beef of $4.5 billion in 2015, says a 2016 report by Geneva-based research outfit, International Trade Centre. Brazil’s total beef export in 2015 was calculated at $4.69 billion, while Nigeria is missing out because of unsustainable age-old grazing practices.
With the Federal Government offering only platitudes, Benue, just like Ekiti in 2016, has started on the right path to ending Fulani herdsmen’s atrocities. But it should not just make the law and go to sleep. The political will to enforce it after the five-month grace is crucial. Other states being tormented by herdsmen should take the sensible legal route being charted by Ekiti and Benue.
In the end, it is the Nigerian state that will benefit from decreased violence, improvements in crop production and increased cattle stock for domestic consumption and export income. The states in the North should stop paying lip service to animal husbandry; they should educate and engineer Fulani cattle owners to commit to ranching. Just like in Brazil, the Federal Government could encourage investments in ranching by easing access to affordable loans for livestock farmers, instead of just burying its head in the sand like the ostrich while Fulani herdsmen wreak unmitigated havoc on defenceless citizens, nationwide.
