‘I went to bed hopeful they would recover, but awoke to dead cattle’

Listening to a 63-year-old man force back sobs as he narrates his experience losing the chunk of his biggest life’s investment is not a situation to experience more than once. It is difficult to know whether to offer words of comfort, assurances or simply be quiet. It took two days of back and forth conversations, […]

Listening to a 63-year-old man force back sobs as he narrates his experience losing the chunk of his biggest life’s investment is not a situation to experience more than once. It is difficult to know whether to offer words of comfort, assurances or simply be quiet.

It took two days of back and forth conversations, to get Malam Madaki Ya’u from Yobe State, who is currently visiting relatives in Dawaki, Abuja, composed enough to tell his story.

“I would go to bed praying that the drop in temperature at night would help alleviate the discomfort of the animals and that by morning they would have recovered a little. 

“But for one week, all I woke up to were my dead animals,” Ya’u said, using sighs, hisses and the words, “my sister, it wasn’t easy,”to suppress the subtle sobs that caused him to suddenly stutter.

“They died in twos, sometimes fours, or threes and at other times, one. I didn’t think I would survive it,” he added.

Ya’u lost over 50 cattle from his herd in 2016. In monetary terms this equals about N8 million.

“It was so hot last year and grazing was difficult. They took ill and I was helpless. I didn’t have the money to pay for any medical care. I treated them the traditional way I had seen my father and grandfather do, to tend our sick cows. But it didn’t work. This time, the heat was more than back then. I watched them die from the illnesses and/or from hunger.”

Alheri’s team harvesting what was left of their rice farm after herds had had their fill

There was another odd against Ya’u.

“Even in the harmattan when the cattle would usually feed on dry grass, bush burning made this impossible,” he said. The grasses, down to their roots are burnt off. 

With the harmattan approaching this year, the sleepless nights have begun for him, as he worries where he will graze his animals.

Muhammed Yuguda Abubakar and his family are not likely to return to Epogi community of Katcha Local Government Area, Niger State, where they had settled for about 17 years.

A violent conflict over farmland, on which Abubakar’s cows also graze, resulted in 21deaths in May 2017. The incident displaced hundreds of natives, while Abubakar, who is believed to be at the heart of the conflict, fled the community with his family.

On May 13, when Muslim faithful finished observing their early morning prayers, Fulani militias allegedly hired by Abubakar attacked the community.

Some of them were dragged out of the mosque and slaughtered in full glare of family members. At the centre of the unfortunate crisis was a flood plain owned by members of the community, which was also a grazing spot for Abubakar’s animals. 

The predominantly fishing community was said to have temporarily allocated the disputed flood plain to Abubakar, who was a resident then, until they had need for it. 

In the wet season, Abubakar commuted between Agaie local government, where part of his family resided, and would return to Epogi in the dry season. 

With the Niger State dry season farming initiative, the community decided to use part of the land for farming, an idea Abubakar vehemently resisted. The situation was said to have resulted in serious disagreements, necessitating intervention by the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, who prevailed on the community to allocate an alternative land to Abubakar. He refused this, as well as propositions that he waited until harvest season to make way for him.

The attack was said to have targeted all who directly or indirectly opposed his views. 

Since setting off from the Borno end of the receding Lake Chad, he has settled in two other locations. But clashes similar to Epogi’s have forced him to move. In all this, he has lost quite a number of herds and four family members.

Women and children fleeing Epogi by boat after the clash

Grazing grounds and natural water bodies have been dried up and degraded by drought and desertification. Also, growing populations, infrastructure expansion and land acquisition by large scale farmers are obstructing grazing routes. Insurgency and cattle rustling are other factors that have contributed to the forced exodus of herders and farmers to other parts of the country.

As at 1960, Nigeria had 415 grazing reserves, which were established by the northern regional government with only 114 formally documented or demarcated. There is no legislative backing to these agreements to guarantee their exclusive use or any preventive measures against encroachment. 

An earlier visit to Paikon Kore, a community of about 2, 000 inhabitants in Gwagwalada Area Council of the FCT, revealed that its only natural water source, River Iku, is in the path of one of these reserves. 

Children playing, women doing laundry and dishes, as commercial motorcycle riders wash their bikes in the water, cause ripples that slap the riverbank, taking some of the cow dung back into the already dung coloured and infested water. 

Women and children in this community, have a history of suffering from schistosomiasis also called snail fever or bilharzia, an illness which affects their urinary tract, liver and other organs causing them to have bloody stool and urine among other manifestations.

The World Health Organization considers the disease which is spread by contact with fresh water contaminated by parasitic flatworms – schistosomes – to be the second-most socioeconomically devastating parasitic disease, after malaria.

Organization considers the disease which is spread by contact with fresh water contaminated by parasitic flatworms – schistosomes – to be the second-most socioeconomically devastating parasitic disease, after malaria.