Grazing Land for Transnational Citizens?

How should one react to the news that the cattle Fulani is demanding grazing land across the 36 states of Nigeria in line with their right to fend for themselves and their families? How does the grant of land to the Fulani in all states amount to food security? Who subsists on beef and milk alone? These and more questions agitated my mind after reading the new last week and it has been a struggle to react in a most civilized or acceptable manner, inspite of the obvious provocation. The right to fend for oneself in a universal right, not an exclusive preserve of the Fulani. The age long nomadic lifestyle is a choice of the Fulani, as no one imposes it upon them. It is a way of life that can be modified and the change can favour the herds and the herders. The technology of ranches is a relatively simple one and has been found to be a better alternative to eternal nomadism. If the Fulani refused to explore the ranching alternative, how does that amount to marginalization by Nigerian farmers who refuse to submit their farmlands to despoliation? It is a universal truism that people live by the choice they make. If ranches hold no attraction for the Fulani, could they not try some other methods? Could the Fulani try to carry along their ancestral lands since they are hooked to nomadism? By this, there would be no quarrel with other Nigerian farmers. The problem of grazing land would have been solved once and for all time. If there is one single biggest threat to food security in Nigeria, the Fulani cattle herders is it and so, to claim that the Fulani is at the receiving end of insecurity is, a gratuitous insult to other Nigerians who have been victims of Fulani cattle herders’ violent aggression . Again, if after over 20 years of the practice of Nomadic Education funded by the federal government, there are still up to 12 million cattle – rearers whose children are not in school, is it not time to scrap it as it is wasteful and unfruitful? By the way, how did they arrive at that number of Fulani cattle herders? Ethnic nationality and religion were outlawed in the 2006 census. And if the Fulani is as illiterate as their leaders claimed, how come they counted themselves in millions up to that figure? Moreover, if there are 12 million cattle –herders, with an average of 300 herds of cattle per person, Nigeria should be having 3.6billion heads of cattle and every one of the 160 million people of this country should be a proud owner of 22.5 cows, including day-old babes! Incredible, you say? An American politician is often quoted as having said that “your freedom to stretch your hand ends where my nose begins.” The rights of the Fulani to roam the land with his cattle ends where the rights of other ethnic nationalities begins. The federal government is an artificial creation of ethnic nationalities and as such, has no land of its own, so also are state governments regardless of the so-called Land Use Act. For any government, whether state or federal to designate any portion of land as grazing land for the Fulani alone amounts to enslaving the owners to the suzerainty of the Fulani. How many ethnic groups have enjoyed compensation for their houses burnt down by the various bands of the Fulani militia? Why does the Fulani thinks they deserve compensation for the loss of cattle even by flood? Other Nigerians have suffered worse fate than the Fulani as a result of ethno – religious crisis and natural disasters such as bush fire and flooding and no government has paid them any compensation so, the Fulani experience is no different. Universal rights are the rights of individuals and ethnic nations, without exception. The current demand of the Fulani to be granted grazing lands in all the 36 state is akin to the 21st century version of the take – over of Hausa kingdoms in the 19th century. The Fulani came from Senegal with the declared aim of teaching the Hausa pure Islamic and Arabic language but ended on the thrones of the Hausas by jihad, whom they dethroned by force! As a transnational tribe, any lands so granted will be occupied by Fulani from Cameroon or Gambia or Senegal, who by virtue of dual citizenship and double nationality, will distort our demography and deprive native Nigerians of their natural heritage rights in favour of foreigners. Or how many Nigerians are granted unfettered access to land in those countries where the Fulanis are natives? In a country where no agreed term of mutual existence or reciprocity obtains, land is the natural resource of their owners and cannot be toyed with at the altars of a phony citizenship or at the behest of a transnational tribe who owes you no obligation. Many states have suffered untold loss of active farmers and farm crops due to the nefarious activities of cattle Fulani whose origin are quite dubious. The organization speaking for the Fulani today will disown and dismiss them at the time their crimes are made manifest. And victims will be left to guess which of the Fulani committed the mayhem – the Senegalese, the Gambian, the Cameroonian or the Nigerian Fulanis? However, experts in animal husbandry and cultural anthropology could be assembled to assist the Nigerian Fulani on alternative method of cattle-herding, especially the option or adoption of the kraal system. If necessity is the mother of invention, the Fulani should better invent other methods of raising cattle as no tribe is prepared to surrender their land to foreigners or aliens of dual nationality.