Friday, July 21, 2017

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - VC begs Nigerian govtforrelocationof herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus [ FulaniColonizationCrisis inNigeria ]

Response to Olayinka in Relation to  Buhari as Chief Sponsor of Ongoing Fulani Terrorism


The invocation of Hamlet is a reference to the murder of the sovereignty of this country by Fulani terrorism. The cries of the murdered thousands are crying for justice as Hamlets fathers ghost cried for justice. So the allusion is most relevant.The anti-Fulani Taraba massacre as well as the Middle Belt leaders warning of of impending war are expressions of this outcry.

Terrorism through the Harmony of Political and Military Strategies 

You refuse to address the very specific incidents indicating an ethnic agenda of which a Fulani terrorist militia, in collusion with Fulani herdsmen and Hausa-Fulani politicians  are running a terrorist  ring. So, your perspective is an effort to ignore realities being directly  addressed by various Nigerians governors and interest groups in explicit recognition of this ethnic  centred scourge. 

You pretend to be unaware of the strategy of deception and intimidation  Buhari and his cohorts employ, in harmony with military strategy, thereby activating both political and military methods in subverting the Nigerian polity, preferring to escape from the painful realities you are being educated on into simplistic conflations of this reality with claims of military  dictatorship. 

        Silence and Verbal Detachment as Terrorist Strategies 

Abimbola Adelakun presents eloquently Buhari's strategic self distancing from identification with the massacred Agatu community members in "Agatu Killings and Buhari's Moral Weakness", where the states:

"Days after that vile act, the President's spokesperson, Mallam Garba Shehu, released a press statement that expressed simple "shock" at the incident. The statement was carefully worded to say nothing – it avoided any self-commitment and lacked a resolve. In fact, merely sending his voice through a proxy – rather than addressing the nation on the issue – showed how casual Buhari was about the affair.

 In the statement, Buhari promised they would "act immediately" (even though days had passed since the incident happened) and added that they would "conduct an investigation to know exactly what happened" because "the only way to bring an end to the violence once and for all is to look beyond one incident and ascertain exactly what factors are behind the conflicts. Then he added, "Once the investigations are concluded, we will act immediately to address the root of the problem."

The press statement itself smacks of administrative reticence and overall, a moral cowardice. We are talking about the massacre of whole communities and the man who took an oath to defend the life of every Nigerian says he is looking for the root of the problem? By claiming to search for "root causes" (which are not exactly obscure, mind you) Buhari makes it seem the mass killings are merely incidental to a more fundamental cause elsewhere. Even if the Agatus were personally responsible for any of the causes of grazing issues – for instance, climate change – they are in no way deserving of such brutal fate.

Why bring up a quest for "root causes" when you are faced with the more urgent task of confronting their killers and subjecting them to justice? By raising the issue of "root causes" Buhari merely distracts from the crime and seeks to etiolate the gravity of the violence by reducing it to an abstraction. That, in itself, is another form of violence against the Agatus. What good was that point of finding "root causes" and "looking beyond (that) one incident"? What is so painful and unbearable about sighting the decomposing corpses on the ground that they are in a hurry to "look beyond" them? This is like someone committing grievous murder and the Police Chief saying he will look beyond this "one incident" and find the root causes of psychopathy

Not surprisingly, there has been no prosecution for the Agatu massacre, eve though, as Adelakun observed:

 "the Fulani herdsmen who are alleged to have carried out these acts have not denied their involvement. Rather, they have sought to justify it, in interview after interview. One time, it was because they were avenging the death of their livestock. Another time, they dug up the death of their tribal chief in 2013 that was left unredressed. What they have not done so far is deny their own crime. Ironically, it is the agents of the state that have been helping them play down their heavy-handed brutishness and brutality. "

Campaign of Systematic Massacres Across the Nation vs Claims of Revenge Killings

I did not refer to tit for tat killings and neither am I referring to the incidents where Fulani have been killed bcs the Fulani terrorist campaign across the nation cannot be justified, in its systemic and national scope, demonstrated in thousands of killings across the nation cannot be explained in terms of the now disingenuous and pretentious claim of Fulani reprisals and the diluting and reality denying euphemism represented by describing this terrorism as 'clashes between herdsmen and host communities and farmers.  

     Political Will and Legislative Action in a Climate of Terror

The argument is about Buhari, not Osinbajo. Secondly, the Osibanjo acting presidency is crippled by the struggle between Buhari's ethnic loyalists and the VP, so Osinbajo is operating purely within the shadow of Buhari.

Please point out to us other Nigerians at the level of Fayode and FFK who are able to speak up agst Buhari and the machinations of his ethnic cohorts. 

I  laugh at your effort to decouple political will from legislative action. Why have no other states followed suit to enact similar legislative measures as Ekiti and Benue and why did it take Benue so long to get there in spite of the years of slaughter and decimation  of their communities and people at the hands of Fulani terrorism, carnage of which the Ekiti killing that spurred Fayose are but a small fraction?  Are you aware that Fayose also initiated an armed task force to enforce the law? Are you aware of the level of attacks Fayose received for his action from fellow SW indigenes who were still wedded to the APC romance and so were ready to approve almost anything done by Buhari and his govt? Are you aware of the volume of defections to the APC in the name of political survival?

 In the light of the sheer desperation that often characterises the Nigerian political class, exacerbated by the current  climate of terror  in which practically all politicians are dumb  on the terrorist  crisis with a once expressive senator Ben Bruce now silent as the national leader has made clear his unflinching commitment to his ethnic agenda, do you expect any significant action agst this scourge without solid political will of the kind that is rare in Nigeria?

You stance is often to invoke  scenarios that have little relationship with political realities.


A Psychotic Flight from Reality

Your determination to avoid upholding political realities in your country represented by the hegemonic interests of right wing Hausa Fulani whose actions have led to the slaughter of thousands  and which the entire nation is struggling to address while people like you pretend it does not exist is  as a psychosis, a disconnection from reality in the interests of self created fictional world,a problem you need help with. Your engaging in this debate is thus a useful starting point for you, exposing you to perceptual  options outside your delusional mental cage.

The central organising factor in your psychosis is your belief that your identification with the Buhari govt, likely arising from your identity as a SW indigene in the Tinubu led power grab using Buhari, a situation that  deludes you  into thinking  you to do your best to excuse all kinds of evils. As it is, discussions like this one could help you peel back the layers of your delusion, so you can appreciate the bloody power play unfolding around you, rather than invoking non-existent scenarios.


You stance is often to invoke scenarios that have little relationship with political realities.

Your determination to avoid frontally confronting unfolding  political realities in your country represented by the hegemonic interests of right wing Hausa Fulani whose actions have led to the slaughter of thousands  and which the entire nation is struggling to address while people like you pretend it does not exist, is  a psychosis, a disconnection from reality in the interests of a self created fictional world,a problem you need help with. Your engaging in this debate is thus a useful starting point for you, exposing you to perceptual  options outside your delusional mental cage.

The central organising factor in your psychosis is your inadequately critical  identification with the Buhari govt, likely arising from your identity as a SW indigene in the Tinubu led power grab using Buhari, a situation that  deludes you  into doing  your best to excuse all kinds of evils. As it is, discussions like this one could help you peel back the layers of your delusion, helping you appreciate the bloody power play unfolding around you, rather than invoking non-existent or purely self constructed imaginary scenarios. 

Even when you clearly observe a struggle for power over the nation, you continue to insist that its business as usual.

It will help you to sustain discussions like this one. In your own interests try to withdraw  from continued  uncritical identifications like that with the character who holds that all we are witnessing are occasional killings and not massacres. Such efforts to refute evident history will not help you emerge from the delusion you share with political self delusioners who wallow in self deception as the nation burns.

Rather than your constant insistence on working through a compromised political system, it would help you to educate yourself on the complexity of Nigerian politics.

I wish you all the best in your recovery. 

Wole Soyinka and others who helped to lead us into this hell are already retreating.

  It will help you to learn from them.

thanks

toyin

On 21 July 2017 at 17:05, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Your allusion to Hamlet would have been more suitable after the murder of Aare Abiola in captivity so its a digression and diversionary here.  Now to the real substance of your long piece which again tardily conflates several issues:

You go on with the bogey of fear of Buhari as if he was still a military dictator but not a civilian Nigerian President elected by majority of multi-ethnic Nigerians of which the Fulani form a tiny minority of the electorate; so the narrative of Fulani sovereignty is misguided to say the least or most probably disingenious.

You havent produced the 'tardy' speech of Buhari which at least contradicts your narrative of collusive silence.

As you accused Farooqs write up of looking at one side of Kanu/Buhari affair so have you conveniently totally ignored the massacres you refer to as tit for tat killings where herdsmen have been killed previously.  As in the past your predetermined thesis has guided your selective presentation of facts.


You have not presented the persons identity connected with the statement that the Fulani are in control of governance in Kaduna state and at the Federal level.

You have constantly referred to the situation where the Fulani led FG has not brought culprits to justice when you are fully aware that the defacto President as we write is not Fulani but Yoruba so your argument is lacking in firm foundation and is disingenious.

You hold Fayose and Femi Fani Kayode as your role models on how to 'confront Buhari' conveniently ignoring the fact that the driving force of their turning human miseries into cheap political scoring points is their political ambition: their party PDP lost power to Buharis coalition because of the saga of their inept and corrupt governance; Fayose has never hidden the fact that he is eyeing the Presidency as his next political goal.  

The current initiative of outlawing grazing can at best be credited to the sharp witted legislators of Ekiti state and Benue state rather than the governors; Nigeria is not a dictatorship and the governor can only sign into law what the legislature presents to them.

Your egagement with Fulani domination is what can be clinically classified as a psychoanalytic case of delusional obsession which needs to be worked through.

As in psychoanalytic cases there is usually a trigerring factor which releases a string of associations.  In your case that factor is the image of Muhammadu Buhari the Nations President.  
This image in your mind is constantly  conjoined with his earlier political incarnation as military dictator .  The fact that he succeeded a southern minority President triggered the delusional obsession that the bad old days of military Hausa-Fulani hegemony are back because those bad old days were too long they left an indelible mark on your mind; people do change.


Even when you see Osinbajo signing Bills into Law you cannot help yourself seeing the Buhari hand of Esau signing such Bills.

 Informed rebuttals of your claims in this list serve can only constitute part of that working through process of a delusional obsessive reaction to matters of national significance.  Route all your grievances through the duo of Senate President Bukola Saraki and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo;  they are both Yoruba and not Fulani and that is democracy in action.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 21/07/2017 00:16 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - VC begs Nigerian govtforrelocationof  herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus [ FulaniColonizationCrisis inNigeria ]

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I shall not be responding to the other character who has difficulties with reasoned debate, whose language is of insults reinforced by largely  illogical reasoning with no grounds in the facts of the subject in question.We can all see his trademark in his last post. He has nothing of substance to offer so he can be ignored without loss.

I shall respond to Olayinka who is also trying to escape reality but who at least is making some recourse to logic in asking for evidence of Buhari's support for Fulani terrorism,  evidence open to anyone but which many perhaps prefer not to recognise or acknowledge bcs they cannot cope with the deeply disturbing reality.

Circumstantial Evidence of Buhari's Support for Fulani Terrorism

The evidence of Buhari's support for Fulani terrorism, the alliance between Hausa-Fulani politicians and terrorist Fulani militia using Fulani herdsmen as an invasion arrowhead, is what is known as circumstantial evidence.

Circumstantial evidence of sufficient strength is enough to earn a conviction in a court of law. Circumstantial evidence is evidence arising from a person's behaviour  that points, with reasonable certainty, to guilt, and possibly a motive for committing a crime.

Buhari's support for Fulani terrorism is tacit but eloquent, emboldening the terrorists and striking fear into many powerful Nigerian stakeholders, from governors to legislators, so that it took a most courageous governor Fayose of unusually combative stance towards  Buhari and his govt to initiate action agst the terrorists in the face of evident govt collusion by building a private state militia and enacting a no open grazing law.

 Benue followed his lead in law making possibly bcs their death toll from this terrorism  is so outrageous any other action  would be crazy. Most others cower in fear of EFCC, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, used by this govt as a means of caging political opponents,  or of facing the pastor Suleiman blackmail fate after he spoke out fiercely agst the Fulani terrorist scourge, a fear extending perhaps to wariness of other, more dire actions from a desperate group emboldened by their access to the apex of national power.

          Strategic Silence, Tardy Speech, Refusal to Investigate or Prosecute Heinous 
         Crimes, Arresting Nigerians Arranging Self Help in the Face of Govt Collusion               and Co-opting of National Resources to Serve Private Ends

Buhari's support for Fulani terrorism is demonstrated through silence as his preferred response to the atrocities of the herdsmen terrorists and even when speaking, doing so through tardy speech, by refusing to investigate or prosecute their crimes, by arresting Nigerians who seek to protect themselves agst the terrorists in the fact of govt collusion with the killers,  and through  use of the nation's resources in providing for their private businesses by attempting  to create laws to sustain these  businesses  and through using the army to legitimise and protect the effort to impose responsibility for these private businesses on Nigerians.  

These subversive initiatives  culminate in the fact that the nation's security agencies hardly ever arrest, much less prosecute the killer herdsmen, even when the terrorists  publicly justify the massacres they carry out or when their guilt is established beyond any doubt.  The fact that the killings and rapes they carry out are almost never investigated has lead to a continuous round of impunity, at its most grotesque and bloodthirsty being the massacre of communities and its most ludicrous evident in the taking over of the fied and classrooms of a school in Edo state  and the land of the University of Abuja  and of roadways in various cities by their cows, the cows being a  symbol of ethnic identity and now the symbol of their sovereignty over the Nigerian nation. As a report of their atrocities  in Southern Kaduna put it,  their stance is summed up by their declaration during one of their butcheries in that region as security agents looked on without acting "we have the President, we have the governor [of Kaduna] , what can you do against us?"

                  Strategic Silence and Tardy, Insensitive Speech

This strategy of silence from Buhari first emerged in his silence at the massacre of hundreds in Agatu by Fulani herdsmen who openly justified the massacre in a meeting with law enforcement  officers and community stakeholders, subsequently walking free till today. Buhari eventually commented only after  outcries from his intrepid  opponents, Ayodele Fayose  and ex minister Femi Fani Kayode, responding tardily, without  addressing the horrific loss of lives and the taking over of the massacred people's lands by the cattle of the killers. He thus sent a subtle but  eloquent message to the killers and to anyone else who was attentive that he is Fulani first and Nigerian next.

                   Symbolic and Functional Military Support

                         Inauguration of Task Force Agst Cattle
                         Rustling as Fulani Terrorist   Activities
                         are Ignored 

While Buhari and his government have refused to investigate, much less prosecute the series of massacres by Fulani herdsmen and their militia in the Middle Belt and the South East,  as well as individual murders and rapes across the nation, Buhari demonstrated in both symbolic and functional terms his support for the Fulani herdsmen in their association with terror by inaugurating a task force to protect them from cattle rustling, doing that in a powerfully symbolic ceremony to which he wore a military uniform.

He thus demonstrated that he is prepared to fight for their interests, invoking the nation's military might  in pursuing that purpose in his person  as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

By his blind eye to their terrorist atrocities, he has unmistakably communicated the message that  he is committed to using his position and the instruments of state in supporting whatever goals they are pursuing through the use of random murder and rape and systematic massacre.

            Use of Army as Cattle Ranchers so as to Legitimise Aspirations Pursued   
            through Fulani Terrorism

He persist in his use of the army in not only supporting the private trade represented by Fulani herdsmen but in empowering the carnage they are committing by using the army in creating and running ranches for them , manning those ranches  their their firepower. In a national environment in which Fulani herdsmen have become notorious for terrorist massacres and random rape and murder,  Buhari and his government has refused to acknowledge much less apprehend the terrorists, but provide military protection for them, as the terrorists walk free even as they openly  justify their crimes, thereby sending the message  that the rights of Fulani herdsmen to pursue their interests   using any means necessary  has the full support of Buhari and his government. 

                Use of Nigerian Govt Funds and Attempted Use of Nigerian Legislature  in 
                Sustaining the Private Businesses of Fulani Herdsmen in the Face of Govt
                Refusal  to Apprehend Killers  Escalating Fulani Terrorism


In the face of Nigerians crying out against the scourge of the Fulani terrorists, Buhari  has chosen to use the nation's resources in sustaining  their private business,  employing the country's  money in importing grass for their cows  from Brazil.  

His  govt has also  struggled to pass a grazing law that would allocate land to them in various states as well as provide designated grazing routes for them, a move, which in the midst of the terrorist onslaught they have wrought on Nigerians, suggests  he is   is more is committed to  protecting the interests of his fellow Fulani cattle rearers   rather than those of other Nigerians  as he ignores the necessity of encouraging these cattle rearers  to  build ranches  using their own  resources,  land appropriation moves from Buhari and his govt  a number of governors have had to publicly resist. 

                    Arresting Nigerians for Creating Self Help Initiatives against Fulani  
                    Terrorism

As the govt colludes with the terrorists through various strategic  initiatives, from  silence to   tacitly supportive speech, non-arrest, non-investigation and  deployment or attempts to deploy national resources in their interests, Nigerian communities and individuals  have tried to muster self help initiatives  to protect themselves  against the massacre and rape for which these herdsmen are known but the security agencies arrest people who engage in such self help initiatives while the terrorists  walk free.  

A Sudan Scenario Using the Fault Lines of Nigerian Politics

What we have here is a situation akin to Omar Al Bashir's deployment of the Janjaweed militia in Sudan, but in this case, the sensitivity to the reality of the carnage and danger is blunted  by the weakness of Nigerian politicians who are driven by fear and self interest  as well as by misguided Nigerian citizens who for various reasons, prfer to ignore the evident patterns of collusion between the Fulani led govt and the Fulani miltia in a terrorist drive.


"There is Something Rotten in the State of Denmark"- Shakespeare's Hamlet

There must come a reckoning for that which some are refusing to acknowledge and which others wholeheartedly support. The ghost of the murdered king, the murdered  sovereignty of a nation, washed in the blood of thousands of innocents,  rears its head, demanding justice, which must come.


toyin 
 








On 21 July 2017 at 03:45, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Toyin:
You have NEVER presented any  shred of evidence that Buhari supports their activities  the way Farooq presented evidence of Buharis antipathy to  Biafranists yet you keep on repeating the defamation and guilt by ethnic association.



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 20/07/2017 20:34 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - VC begs Nigerian govt forrelocationof  herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus [ Fulani ColonizationCrisis inNigeria ]

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What is my argument?

That what we are witnessing is a systematic terrorist, colonising agenda by Fulani militia, using herdsmen as an arrowhead, and supported by Hausa-Fulani politicians, with Buhari at the head.

Do you have any evidence that negates that in the light of the history of this phenomenon?

Moses is invoking Benue and Ekiti without addressing the desperation that drove those states to self help measures in the face of fed govt collusion with this terrorism.

Its only when we can address the mix of systematic massacre coupled with govt support for this terrorist drive that anyone should be taken seriously.

A response that describe efforts to address this scourge that has made the nation catch fire and led to the death of thousands, leading to Benue elders calling to avert impending war   as 'Constantly insulting all Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and sensationalizing the violence'' ís not worth  taking seriously.

toyin




On 21 July 2017 at 02:20, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
I too I'm quite uncomfortable with inflammatory and Othering rhetoric of Toyin regarding herdsmen. As someone who is from the region devastated by herdsmen violence and who has written to criticize the open grazing model and called for the ranching solution, I do not see how demonizing Fulani herdsmen in such broad, general terms serves any purpose. People in my state of Benue, Ekiti, and others are already working to sensibly solve the problem through the legislative route. Constantly insulting all Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and sensationalizing the violence that has marked their recent grazing activities in the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria can only undermine these common sense legislative measures being carried out by affected states in the face of the inertia of the federal government. Fulani herdsmen have been part of the Nigerian ecosystem for a long time, even before were were born. There were and still are productive interactions between them and farmers all over the country. In fact one could argue that the herdsmen making trouble are detached from those historic communities of nomadic Fulani who respected their host communities, sought their permission and protection, and submitted themselves to the juridical authorities of their traditional institutions. Clearly, something has been happening in the Sahel lately to destabilize the equilibrium of these historical interactions and produce a new group of belligerent herdsmen, which has, through their aggression, even undermined the interests of the historic and familiar Fulani nomads who do not cause trouble and want to live in peace with host communities. As we say in Nigerian pidgin parlance, the trouble-making, AK-47 wielding herdsmen, most of them climate change refugees, have spoilt the market for everyone, including their more embedded, more historical nomadic kinsmen in the affected states. 

On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 12:39 PM, Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Beautiful write up. Kudos to Benue and Ekiti state on this problem solving initiative.

This is now the time for the FG to step in to take care of the post-November situation of herdsmen from these states



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Date: 20/07/2017 16:03 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - VC begs Nigerian govt for relocationof  herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus [ Fulani Colonization Crisis inNigeria ]

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Placing History in Perspective

 Punch editorial on herdsmen centred   Fulani terrorism

July 20, 2017

           Herdsmen Attacks

 Benue Law Offers Sensible Model

WEARIED by the continued Fulani herdsmen carnage, the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has moved to sign the Anti-Open Grazing Bill into law. It is chiefly aimed at curbing killings and destruction of farmlands associated with open grazing in the state. He has also given an ultimatum to herdsmen to either ranch their livestock or leave the state. The law is an improvement on an earlier version promulgated in Ekiti State, where activities of nomadic Fulani herdsmen have also provoked ethnic suspicions, tension, devastation and reprisals.

Assenting to the bill, the Benue governor chillingly noted, "Between 2013 and 2016 alone, Fulani herdsmen killed more than 1,878 men, women and children in cold blood from 12 local government areas." In addition, 750 people were critically injured, 200 still missing and over 99,427 households destroyed. This toll is mindboggling. During the gory invasion between February and March 2016, they massacred over 500 persons in the Agatu community, according to former Senate President, David Mark.

Mike Inalegwu, the sole administrator of the Agatu LGA, estimated that herdsmen slaughtered 3,920 persons from 2013 to 2017. At the weekend, herdsmen reportedly abducted Zakari Sada, the external auditor of the National Health Insurance Scheme on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway. The crisis has produced thousands of internally displaced persons across the state. The Global Index of Terrorism prepared by a global think tank, the Institute for Economic and Peace, ranked Fulani nomads as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world in 2014/15, after their killing spree in several parts of Nigeria.

Emboldened by the apathy of the Federal Government, Fulani herdsmen have become notorious for rape, trespass, mass murders and destruction of crops of agrarian communities. Their cruel imprints are pronounced in (Southern) Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba, Delta, Nasarawa and Benue states. In April 2016, they slaughtered 40 persons in Ukpabi Nimbo, Enugu State.

In truth, this law is long overdue. By making ranching mandatory, it elevates animal husbandry to a big, modern business, which has been the preferred model the world over for centuries. The five-month moratorium for herdsmen ensnared by age-old open grazing practices to leave Benue by November is in no way harsh.

The law to ranch livestock is a courageous move by the state parliament and the governor. It is argued that ranching eliminates the friction over land between farming communities and nomadic livestock owners. Conflict arises principally as Nigeria's 20 million strong cattle stock, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, are seeking fodder because of the advancing desertification in the North, which has encouraged the Fulani to expand their sphere of influence with impunity to the Middle Belt and the southern states.

 In comparison, the FAO credits Brazil with 211.7 million heads of cattle (the world's largest stock), the United States with 89.2 million and Argentina with 51 million. In these climes, ranching is the standard practice. It eliminates the outdated roaming of cattle across the length and breadth of the country in search of fodder.

 Open grazing endangers food production. On the other hand, ranching protects against livestock rustling because the animals are properly enclosed. A research by the US National Wildlife and Refugee System warns that open grazing also disturbs soil surfaces. "Trampling, pawing, and wallowing by ungulates disturb the soil and in some cases, completely destroy soil crusts," the study said.

 But in its favour, ranching is a very lucrative business. This ought to persuade the cattle herders to cotton on to it. While farmers in Benue State lost N95 billion to Fulani herdsmen invasion in 2014 alone, according to Ortom, Australia's 117-year-old Anna Creek Station, the biggest cattle ranch in Australia, was worth $370.7 million in 2016. It covers 100,000 square kilometres. In total, Australia exported fresh beef valued at $2.5 billion and frozen beef of $4.5 billion in 2015, says a 2016 report by Geneva-based research outfit, International Trade Centre. Brazil's total beef export in 2015 was calculated at $4.69 billion, while Nigeria is missing out because of unsustainable age-old grazing practices.

With the Federal Government offering only platitudes, Benue, just like Ekiti in 2016, has started on the right path to ending Fulani herdsmen's atrocities. But it should not just make the law and go to sleep. The political will to enforce it after the five-month grace is crucial. Other states being tormented by herdsmen should take the sensible legal route being charted by Ekiti and Benue.

In the end, it is the Nigerian state that will benefit from decreased violence, improvements in crop production and increased cattle stock for domestic consumption and export income. The states in the North should stop paying lip service to animal husbandry; they should educate and engineer Fulani cattle owners to commit to ranching. Just like in Brazil, the Federal Government could encourage investments in ranching by easing access to affordable loans for livestock farmers, instead of just burying its head in the sand like the ostrich while Fulani herdsmen wreak unmitigated havoc on defenceless citizens, nationwide.

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All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: editor@punchng.com






On 20 July 2017 at 20:19, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Gloria,

Are you following the role of Hausa-Fulani politicians and the Fulani national leader Buhari in the terrorist drive across the nation, with Fulani herdsmen as the arrowhead, a terrorist drive that has decimated the Middle Belt, inspiring a recent call for averting war by Middle Belt elders, including second 1966 coup and civil war veteran Yakubu Danjuma, a crisis reinforced by the collusion of the Fulani led DSS, and the invulnerability of the Fulani terrorists across the nation, from the recurrent and recent massacres in Southern Kaduna, to the Agatu Middle Belt and Enugu state Nimbo massacres, crimes often openly admitted to and justified by the Fulani terrorists  without any reprisal ,  to the efforts of the Fulani led govt to appropriate lands of other Nigerians to accommodate the private business represented by Fulani herdsmen to the announcement that the Nigerian army will now run cattle ranches, these being moves various state governors have had to publicly oppose, some developing their own military systems and laws to tackle this scourge in the face of the govt's open support for this terrorist colonization drive?

Even if you dont agree with my analysis of the ultimate direction of a development in which Fulani herdsmen are now in control of Nigeria's roadways and educational institutions, occupying land and classrooms in Edo state with the governor  helpless to occupying land in the University of Abuja, with the VC crying for help, please share with us your views on the historical facts presented unless you dispute those facts?

Fulani terrorism is worse than Boko Haram bcs of its nationwide spread and longer persistence, along with tacit and open support from Hausa Fulani politicians, becoming Nigeria's greatest security challenge and one of the world's deadliest terrorist groups, according to the Global Terrorist Watch, which keeps data on attacks and numbers of  deaths from this terrorist organization.

Your trivialization "What do you have against the Fulanis, Toyin It's Fulani this and Fulani that. .......", makes me wonder if you aware of at least the  factual aspects of these developments, as different from my interpretations,  or if you have been carried away by a cocooning within USAAfrica Dialogues Series, where this evil is excused by vocal voices blinded by or protecting investments in the current govt.

I would be pleased if you address my questions frontally, summed up by- do you believe the Fulani herdsmen militia wing are a terrorist group? If not, why, given the scale of attacks, scope of killings and systematic character of their attacks across the nation and their use of sophisticated military grade weapons?

Do you believe they have protection from the Fulani led govt? If not, how do you explain the virtual invincibility they have enjoyed in spite of openly justifying massacres of other Nigerians as well as the govt's efforts to appropriate  Nigerians' land in sustaining their private businesses?

Do you believe the crisis has gone beyond a simple issue of pastoralists? If not why have state governors had to develop private military and new legal methods to tackle them? Why are they now so bold they compete with traffic on Nigerian city streets as in Abuja, and occupy school land and classrooms in Edo and university land in Abuja?

Thanks

toyin




thanks

toyin

On 20 July 2017 at 18:47, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

This is not about Fulani colonization.

This is simply about the realities of  nomadic pastoralism in the past and present.

Work on converting nomadic pastoralists to sedentary ones. That is the challenge. 


What do you have against the Fulanis, Toyin. 

It's Fulani this and Fulani that. .......





Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Chief Editor- "Africa Update"
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
8608322815  Phone



From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 6:18 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - VC begs Nigerian govt for relocation of herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus [ Fulani Colonization Crisis in Nigeria ]
 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alukoro Agbaye lukoroagba@gmail.com [talkhard] <talkhard@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 20 July 2017 at 05:14
Subject: [talkhard] VC begs Nigerian govt for relocation of herdsmen, cattle from UNIABUJA campus



 
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