CATTLE-FULANI HERDSMEN MENACE – A MORE OMINOUS THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY THAN BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY

CATTLE-FULANI HERDSMEN MENACE – A MORE OMINOUS THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY THAN BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY
 Cattle-Fulani Herdsmen Menace,is a bequest of the apparent lock-up of Nigerians in POW camps in which not even the Geneva Convention on Treatment of POW of 21st Oct. 1950, is observed. Section 2(1) of the Constitution denies the federating peoples of Nigeria their inherent and inalienable Right to Self Determination and therefore completely stifles Mutual Respect between the people who have assigned to themselves the right of ownership of Nigeria and the rest of Nigerians who they regard as mere appendages. Everybody knows this but nobody talks about it in the open.

(1)Historical Background: The Cattle Fulani menace is a legacy of the Fulani conquest of Hausas in the Fulani wars of 1804-10 and the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate of Sheik Othman Dan Fodio.  The Fulanis by nature are nomads as against the Hausas and other ethnic nationalities inhabiting the North, who are farmers. The Fulanis assumed the right to graze their cattle anywhere including Hausa farmlands. They overran farmlands, sacked people from their homes, and killed, maimed and raped women without qualm.  Sir Ahmadu Bello, the first premier of Northern Region in a patronizing effort to reduce tensions emanating from the frictions arising out of the free ranging Fulani herdsmen, created grazing routes and reserves. By 1964 Northern Regional government had gazetted up to 6.4 million hectares of the forest reserve, ninety-eight percent in the savanna. Sokoto Province had twenty-one percent of the land, followed by Kabba, Bauchi, Zaria, Ilorin, and Katsina, with 11-15 percent each (Awogbade 1982). The Wase, Zamfara, and Udubo reserves followed in succession. The implication was that large chunks of other peoples’ land had been awarded to Fulani herdsmen and their settlements grew within and without these reserves. As the reserves bordered with numerous northern minority communities, conflicts proliferated.

(ii)Threat to National Security: The dominion tendency of Cattle Fulani herdsmen seems to have heightened with the victory of the Federal forces in the 1967-70 “Civil War.” Armed with military assault weapons they have now extended their sovereignty over the whole of Nigeria, North Central, South-West, South-South and South-East zones,  killing, maiming and raping women with impunity and sacking and taking over communities and farm lands without any question whatsoever from the security agencies. Their activities are most ferocious in non-Moslem areas of Nigeria who they regard as infidels (unbelievers) who perhaps by their orientation have no right to life, property and dignity. Organized and registered as Miyetti Allah Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), their patron is reportedly from the ultimate power in their Caliphate. The owners of the cattle ranging all over Nigeria are the most prominent and influential Fulanis – traditional and religious leaders, top political and administrative office holders, foremost security officers including generals etc. The herdsmen are mere minders and therefore enjoy unlimited protection from their owners. The herdsmen seem to obey no laws of Nigeria and even refuse to attend peace conferences in communities where they commit these havocs for which the security agencies rarely arrest them.
(iii)Casualties of the Menace: Nigerian Newspapers daily are awash with casualty figures of Cattle-Fulani herdsmen’s menace. Benue, Plateau and Southern Kaduna suffer the highest daily casualties. A Plateau sitting Senator and the leader of Plateau State Assembly who were both killed by Fulani herdsmen after attending burials of victims of the same scourge, are two of the most high profile killings by the herdsmen. Nigeria loses annually over 5,000 lives to herdsmen menace. One of the most pathetic cases of displacement by these herdsmen was recently reported in Southern Kaduna - a family head driven into a refugee camp as an internally displaced person with his entire family, went to visit his home in his ancestral homestead but had to keep a safe distance and observed Fulani families occupying his home whilst he and his family had to survive as IDPs in a refugee camp in his own State and country.
(iv) Audacity of Cattle Fulani herdsmen: Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue State’s episode illustrates the fact that Nigeria has two classes of citizens – one above the law and the other under the law.  On 24th February, 2014Miyetti Allah Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) was audacious enough to write President Goodluck Jonathan a highly provocative letter titled, “Mr.
President, Call Governor Suswan to Order Before It is Too Late” in which they not only threatened to
deal with Governor Suswan of Benue State in his home State for assisting the Tivs of the Middle Belt to limit the herdsmen’s murderous activities in the Middle Belt. They also reminded the President that their ranging across the country with their cattle is covered by Section 41, (1) of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement and settlement in all parts of Nigeria to all citizens of Nigeria. On10th March 2014, after an exchange of gun shots failed to get the Governor in a convoy, they attacked Mr. Suswan’s ancestral village, killed 25, and sacked the village plus 29 other communities within 25 kilometres radius. MACBAN had deliberately ignored n their letter to the President, the fact that the freedom of movement guaranteed by S.41 (1) refers only to Nigeria citizens and definitely not cattle, an item of trade whose movement is subject to regulation for society’s safety, comfort and convenience.  Besides, the right to freedom of movement under reference is not absolute since Section 45(1) of the same Constitution subordinates those rights to any reasonable law enacted in “the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or
public health; or for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.” Imagine
Cattle rearers and their owners threatening a State Governor in his own State through the President of the Country and being able to execute that threat.                                                                                                                                                             (v) Failure of Governance by the Federal government: The Federal Government of Nigeria has failed and indeed abdicated its responsibility to Nigerian citizens whose security and welfare, according to section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution, are the primary purpose of governance.  In the case of Benue state Governor, then Inspector-General, Alhaji M D Abubakar, an Upper Northerner, impliedly told the Governor that he was not offering any help and the Governor, humbled, was forced to enter a peace accord with MACBAN, allowing the herders to graze their cattle anywhere in Benue but pay for damages by free ranging cattle!                                        
Nigeria is not a major Cattle breeding nation of the world. According to 1990/92 Nigerian Livestock Resources (RIM) Survey estimates, Nigeria had less than 13.90 million cattle.  Major cattle breeding countries of the world, by 2009 figures have as high as 285 million cattle in India; 187,087,000 in Brazil; China 139,721,000; U.S.A. 96,669,000; EU 87,650,000,Argentina 51,062,000; Pakistan
38,300,000; Australia 29,202,000; Mexico  26,489,000. Pastorialism or free ranging of cattle is not practised in most, if not all, of the above major cattle breeding nations, in the interest of public safety and health. Pastorialism is primitive, out-moded, uncivilised, and uneconomic; and has been long discarded by the civilised and productive world.                                                
(vi) The Ineptitude of State Governments: Several communities in States in the South-East have been variously under ferocious attacks by cattle Fulani herdsmen. Perhaps, as a result of hangover of defeat in the last civil war, or the seemingly general acceptance of these attacks as rightful to Fulanis, reactions from Governors and State legislators have been timorously bashful. In 2013 in Imo State, the Deputy Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, after enumerating series of unprovoked attacks on some communities in Owerri West, Ohaji/Egbema and Ngor Okpala local council areas by the nomadic herdsmen, which resulted in the destruction of crops, farmlands, raping of women and girls, as well as killing and maiming of the villagers, merely called on the security agencies to come to their
aid after organizing hearings and street demonstrations. In Enugu State, the State Assembly seemed
to have followed up on the 2011 abandoned defeatist leadership of the National Assembly by initiating a Bill to create grazing routes and reserves in Enugu State for Fulani herdsmen and their cattle as a means of eliminating the violence. I joined NGOs who attended the public hearings and shot the bill down.
6.  The Way Forward: The Cattle Fulani herdsmen menace is a byproduct of the dominion quest of the Fulani over Nigeria and driven by fundamentalist Islamic doctrine which makes slaying “the unbeliever” in Allah (kafir) by “the believer,” and taking over of his possessions including women, passport to paradise.  Sample quotes from the Quran: Surah 2: 191-193: “And kill them (the unbeliever) wherever you find them and turn them out from where they have turned you out.”
Surah 2: 244: “Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah heareth and knoweth all things.”

 (a) Location of markets and movement of cattle within States fall under the residual functions of States. States should therefore enact laws limiting movement of cattle by road to motorized
transportation and/or rail and their sale only in designated markets. Twelve northern States from 1999-200 enacted Sharia laws criminalizing movement, sale and/or consumption of alcohol in their various States and these laws are being enforced with even Sharia Police (Hizbah) created by state law in states like Kano in flagrant violation of Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended);                                                                      (b) The Northern states from where these cattle are transported to the South, should facilitate the establishment of ranches and/or grazing reserves in the home States of these cattle herdsmen who have untold proclivity for violence. Dams and bore holes to ensure all-year round availability of water and grass; and adoption of improved veterinary methods and technology should be promoted to improve yield.  Leopards and sheep are never bred in the same pen.
The Cattle Fulani herdsmen need orientation in the rights of every Nigerian citizen to life, property
and decency before they venture outside their home States;                                                                                                                                        (c) The Nigerian Police must enforce the existing laws on sophisticated weapons carried by these herdsmen and also enforce state laws on movement of cattle, whenever such laws are enacted;  
                                                                                                                                                                                     (d) States in the SE zone must reinvigorate animal husbandry as initiated by Dr. Michael Okpara’s Eastern Regional government of the 1960s to produce more live stock from within.                                                                                                                   (e) There shall be an Igbo Institute where dedicated thinkers should be permanently addressing Igbo issues like the
 (f) The Federal Government must assist states in the establishment of ranches and enhanced animal husbandry.                                                                                                                          
 (g) All political, religious and traditional leaders in the North who are sincere on indivisibility or indissolubility of the Nigerian Federation must openly condemn the nefarious activities of Hausa/Fulani herdsmen whose activities threaten Nigerian federation even more than Boko Haram.                                             (h) The Senate bill no. SB. 114 seeking to enact an Act to Provide for the Establishment of the National Grazing and Reserve (Establishment and Development) Commission for the Preservation and Control of National Grazing Reserves and Stock Routes and for Other Matters Therewith and its sister bill in the House of Representatives no.HB.11.10.30: An Act to Establish a National Grazing Route and Reserve Commission. Establish and Manage National Grazing Routes and Reserves in the [Entire] Nation and for Other Incidental Matters should be thrown out the window as an assault on the psyche and sensibilities of Nigerians in general and the victims of the Hausa/Fulani herdsmen’s rampage and the affected areas under siege, in particular. Besides, it assaults the fundamentals of federation. Instead, the National Assembly should enact a law prohibiting all movement of cattle on hoofs all over the Federation, in consonance with state laws on the
 (i) Effort should be made by all concerned in the North to reform Islamic fundamentalism, as it is practiced in most of the North-West and North-East, to liberal or moderate Islam as it is practiced in such progressive Moslem nations as Turkey and Malaysia and in the South-West zone of Nigeria. Islamic fundamentalism, NOT ISLAM per se, is antithetical to federalism in a religiously plural state. It is intolerant of secularity of any kind in a federal state and both are therefore mutually exclusive. Wherever they mix, there is constant friction resulting in violence. It is my profound view that Criminal Sharia Law, which is the bedrock of Islamic fundamentalism, is antithetical to Common Law and therefore inconsistent with secular democracy. Controversies in managing the two have resulted in Muslims being involved in over 90% of all the wars and terrorism in the world today.
Conclusion: Cattle Fulani Herdsmen Menace is a more serious national security threat than Boko Haram and is over-running the entire country. Unchecked, today’s misery of the people of Plateau, Benue, Southern Kaduna, and Nassarawa states would be the lot of South-East and other Southern zones  in a matter of 20-30 years. Nigeria continues to be a failed State projected to disintegrate
between 2015 and 2030, not just 2015. The twelve principal indicators of State Failure areprominently in Nigeria and growing by the day – demographic pressures (inability to cope with disease, environment, malnutrition,  population growth, youth bulge and immorality; Refugees and internally displaced persons; group vengeance (militants); chronic and sustained human flight;  uneven development along group lines; poverty and sharp and/or severe economic decline; criminalization and or de-legitimization of the State - endemic corruption and impunity; progressive deterioration of public services (infrastructure decay); Human rights and Rule of Law violations; Security – states within a state (armed groups); Rise of factionalized elites; and Intervention of other States – foreign military assistance.
Surviving the 2015 election in which blackmail guns were pointed at the heads of sections of the country to force election of a particular candidate and during which election, there was massive movement of population from one  part of the country to the other, in anticipation of such post-election violence in the event of loss of a preferred candidate;  and prevention of  prominent
presidential candidate from campaigning in other zones under threat of violence, are serious indications of State failure and not success as some prominent Nigerians glibly gloat.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, the Bible says. “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free” was the mantra of Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th President of United States (1861-65) as he started the campaign against Slavery in Springfield Illinois on 16th June 1858.
Unfortunately for Nigeria, there is no open acceptance that a division exists among the over 350 ethnic nations that make up Nigeria  and therefore no effort of any kind being made to promote any common unifying identity which sustains nations.  The oligarchy pretends Nigeria is one when it suits it but when it comes to sharing power, it excludes all others.