The Ranching and Cow Colony Debate
Nigeria is a confederation of nations amalgamated into Nigeria by former colonial master, Britain, without regard for cultural, historical, or linguistic harmony.
It was a union that was tested six years after independence by a bloody civil war in which other confederating units banded together to restrain and stop the Igbo from succeeding from Nigeria for over 30 months.
Since then a United Nigeria supported by its confederating units have suppressed other uprisings from other confederating national units like the Ogoni and Boko Harem trying to break away from Nigeria.
Nigeria inherited a regional parliamentary based system from the British which it has over the years tweaked to a presidential system of government with supreme authority vested at the center.
No longer do regions or states control their mineral resources, all royalties and monies accrued from the sale of their mineral like oil are payable to the center and disbursed to the confederating units, previously regions, now states, based on some formula were the center retains a majority of the commonwealth.
Further, the federal government also asserted its authority over confederating units by instituting a land use decree giving it the ability to appropriate land at will albeit after paying compensation.
These actions over the years have almost eradicated the control of confederating units over their ancestral lands and resources to the federal or state government that can appropriate land unto itself for projects and landing infrastructure for national development.
On the other hand the amalgamation of these confederation units has also involved the union of grounded indigenous nationalities on their ancestral land and the Fulani, a migrant pastoral people whose lifestyle revolves around their cattle and the circular migration through Precolonial and present day Nigeria in search of previously abundant grazing land to feed their cows and a world view that the earth belong to all and is owned by nobody.
several factors including deforestation, urban development and less grazing land up north has forced a downward migration of the Fulani and their cows setting it on a collision course with the former confederating units because their herds of cattle now interfere and destroy agriculture.
This formerly manageable situation has now spiraled out of control as clashes between these pastoral herdsmen and native have increased with each group launching reprisal attacks against each other over the defense of their perceived rights aided by Nigeria descent into lawlessness from banditry, thievery and rustling cattle.
This conflict presents challenges to Nigeria and its federal government not totally understood by a majority of Nigerians or its conferating units.
The first issue is that the Fulani are the custodians of Nigeria cattle aka meat supply, the very protein the nation depends upon and they cannot be wished away. They are also for all intents and purposes Nigerians who must be accommodated due to their nature however intrusive due to their peculiar responsibility.
Two, Nigeria has had to suddenly come up with a solution to the migration of herdsmen and their cattle and the conflict it now generates in the form of ranching even though the country has never had a history of ranching from precolonial times.
Three, Nigeria has advanced to the point where it is now a priority to herd its cattle supply into controllable areas to safeguard the Fulani and their way of life to prevent not only their extinction but those of their cows and for Nigeria to grow the wealth accruing from cattle, possibly export beef in the futures while also enjoying the benefits of keeping this source of vital protein intact for the country. Along those lines Is the need to ensure that cows are inoculated for public safety and to improve the health of dehydrated and emancipated cows.
Four, even though the obvious solution to unrestricted grazing is ranching, individual Fulani herdsmen and clans are not in a position to buy the land on a vast scale from confederating units across the country without federal assistance.
Five, most of the cattle routes of the past have been blocked by urbanization and Nigeria has no organized system of transporting cattle by any other way accept through the activities by independent families and clans of the Fulani blindly findings their way to demand points in every corner of Nigeria for trade.
Through the possible forecasts from the ministry of agriculture about the falling cattle supply and a need to deal with migrant Fulani including for national security concerns the Federal government which has already made the decision for the provision of grazing land and colonies to Fulani herdsmen within regions of confederating units has to nevertheless deal with all these issues all at once.
Presently, the delay in implementing solutions to these issues stems from being caught up in the apparent violence being launched by the Fulani militia and the vexation and growing resentment of confederating units about the perceived arrogant power of the federal government to reallocate federal land to non-indigenous natives irritants fueled daily by increased killings by the Fulani militia.
Summarily as with the able use of the wealth from oil sales from the Niger delta and other parts in the south east and the previous annexation of territory like Abuja to build the federal capital and other projects, history has shown that the federal government has the long term upper hand power in creating ranching colonies over the protests of confederating indigenous units who will have to overcome their suspicions and doubts about the national priority objective of these solutions.
As a matter of urgency in order to reverse the drift to a situation where Nigeria will have to import beef, the Nigerian government must find a way to overcome this imminent threat to Its thinning meat supply and imminent extinction of the custodians of Nigeria’s meat supply as soon as possible even as it strains to organize its internal security forces to control the violence between Fulani herdsmen and indigenous land owning tribes which is impeding political and administrative acceptance of the solutions of allocating land for cow colonies and ranches to address Nigeria’s declining cattle supply.
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