Pastoralists: A national dilemma
In the last few years reports affecting pastoralists have loomed large over the national landscape, in most cases, for the wrong reasons. The reports have now gone beyond the normal herders/farmers conflicts to what amounts to a state of war, pitting whole communities against pastoralists leading to reprisal attacks. High government officials at all levels […]
In the last few years reports affecting pastoralists have loomed large over the national landscape, in most cases, for the wrong reasons. The reports have now gone beyond the normal herders/farmers conflicts to what amounts to a state of war, pitting whole communities against pastoralists leading to reprisal attacks. High government officials at all levels are just gnashing their teeth and wringing their hands in an outpouring of frustration and not doing the needful to contain situation. The grazing bills that are sponsored by a few state governments are merely long shots that may not get to the root of the problems. There would need to be a more holistic approach involving all stake holders to be led by the federal government.
I discussed my concern with stakeholders across the board and one of them was agitated enough to send me a contribution which I shall share with readers today. The writer, Dr. Mohammed Lawan Yahuza, is a vet that has been associated with pastoralist issues in the last 40 years or so. He began his career in the late 1970s in the Livestock Department of Chad Basin Development Authority, Ngala. He became Project Manager, South Chad Irrigation Project at New Marte, from where in 1985 he was picked to be a Commissioner in the old Borno State Government. Thereafter, Dr Yahuza transferred his services to the National Livestocks Projects Division, Kaduna, where he spent the bulk of his career dealing directly with pastoralists in a World Bank sponsored project. His contribution is titled: TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION TO THE PASTORALISTS/FARMERS CONFLICT IN NIGERIA. Please read on:
The purpose of this article is to make a modest contribution towards the current effort in finding a sustainable solution to the perennial pastoralist/farmer conflict. This conflict has over the years transformed from minor skirmishes in fadama lands around villages and towns in Northern Nigeria, to a full scale war with unfortunate loss of lives and property. Over the years grazing land became unavailable or drastically reduced as a result of availability of chemical fertilisers that enabled marginal land to be cultivated. Fadama land, a traditional dry season grazing area has also come under intensive cultivation. This greatly hindered pastoralists’ access to grazing land resulting in conflicts and fatalities on both sides.
Past conflicts were solely due to overlap of farm lands with cattle routes, where farmers grow crops on the routes. However, recently, this conflict has escalated, taking a dimension of ethnic and religious differences with little effort from government or community leaders aimed at addressing them. Of recent we have seen one sided reporting by the media, half backed research articles and interested parties. Majority of those reports tend to highlight and report cases in which the pastoralist attacked farmers and tend to ignore the other side of the story particularly their heavy loses. While most on-the-spot assessment tended to point to the fact that farmers encroachment on traditional cattle route seemed to be the spark in most of the conflicts. Furthermore, land grabbing by rich individuals exacerbated the problem as pastoralists could no longer find their trekking routes and also where to rest. Developments made on this type of land had completely replaced the traditional cattle routes around cities where cattle competing with motorists for right of way were very common sight. Other causes of conflict are blockade of waterways by farmers and reprisal attacks by sedentary farmers when ethnic and religious disputes occur elsewhere.
Recent upsurge of deadly conflicts particularly in the North Central area were direct consequences of displacement of herdsmen from the North-East as a result of terrorist activity and to a lesser extent cattle rustling in Zamfara, Katsina and parts of Kaduna States. The North-East alone is home to about 12million heads of cattle. Since no provision has been made for the pastoralist and his cattle in the IDPs camps, movement elsewhere was inevitable and in this case the North Central which was a perennial dry season grazing area was the obvious choice. Traditionally, the herdsmen move their cattle to the North-Central area in the dry season and return to their base during the rainy season. However when there was crisis at the base the herdsmen tended to remain in the North-Central. And with their large number of cattle there would inevitably be competition for land with farmers, leading to a round tripping of killings and reprisal killings.
These conflicts have direct impact on the lives and the livelihood of those involved. They disrupt and threaten the sustainability of both crop and livestock production in Nigeria and reinforce the circles of extreme poverty and hunger, destroying social status, food security and affecting mostly the marginalised groups such as women and children. This further eroded the mutually existing farmer/pastoralist relationship. These crises worsened as population increased and more land is brought under cultivation. The situation further worsened especially in the North-Central where the farmer or the pastoralist could be categorised into a group relating to religion, tribe or region. Then it looked like an invasion with various interest groups taking sides.
A number of interventions have been tried by government to address the problem of pastoralist/farmer conflict. The Nigerian Grazing Reserve Act of 1964 was passed for the purpose of accessing grazing land by the pastoralists and this Act created and gazetted 313 grazing reserves mostly in the North-Central, covering a total area of 2.8 million hectares representing 3% of the total land mass of the country. This law was duly incorporated in the Land Use Act of 1978. Even in the years past this could not be termed a success.
In my view unless something drastic is done the future of implementing the current policy on grazing reserve development is bleak. Rapid increase in population is bound to put pressure on land requirement for food production. Excellent pasture areas such as the North-Central region where population density was low when the Act was passed in 1964 would now not be available. The population density in the North-Central is now as high as any part of the North. Therefore, the current policy would have to be reviewed in order to align it with the realities of the moment. Setting aside land for grazing in populated areas would cause only dislocation of farming population with consequent ill will.
The recent enactment of laws banning “open grazing’’ would also not provide a solution to the intractable pastoralist/farmer conflict. Both ranching and grazing reserve are based on identification, demarcation and adjudication of land. The difference lies in size and ownership. Ranches are individually-owned and a grazing reserve is communally-owned. Ranching would in the long run exacerbate the upsurge of conflict, as pastoralists would no longer find where to pass or to stay. Nigeria’s cattle population is about 19.5 million and contributes substantially to the GDP and also provides livelihood to millions of citizens.
In view of the above, Governments, particularly state and local where livestock plays important roles in their economies must move quickly to identify land not suitable for crop farming, but with little improvement could support livestock. Such areas could be identified using satellite imagery. Out of our total land area of 91million hectares, 82 million could be cultivated, but only 34.4 million hectares are currently put under cultivation. Thus 47.56 million hectares remain uncultivated. Some 18 million hectares out of these is permanent pasture which gladly is mostly located in areas with comparative advantage for livestock production. The remaining 29.56 million hectares are covered by woodland and forests.
With careful planning and investment of adequate resources, including intensive advocacy, sedentariness could be achieved in the short and medium term. Incentive in the form of infrastructure like dams, veterinary clinics and milk collection centres as was successfully carried out under the defunct World Bank project in Kaduna State could attract pastoralists to settle and greatly minimise or even eradicate conflicts.