Here are five unedited comments on Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim's write-up on the inalienable right of cattle and herdsmen from Premiumtimes.com where it was originally published. (https://opinion.premiumtimesng.com/2017/11/10/the-dangers-of-boxing-in-the-pastoralists-1-by-jibrin-ibrahim/).
Jibrin is the Chairman of the online news platform's Editorial Board.
Read On:
On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 2:51 AM, Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:
Toyin, I think the problem is that my good friend Okey and others have heard only one side of the story and are obviously not aware of the thousands of herders that are being killed regularly. There is a real problem with the one sided information available.Okey, I have not changed, I am still very much for progress and human rights but do try to be a bit more open minded.Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior FellowCentre for Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17On 12 November 2017 at 00:29, Okey Iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com> wrote:I'm sorry, Toyin, but I beg to differ with you interpretation of my post. The debate in my post is very clear. That is, how does an otherwise reasonable person go from defending human rights to arguing for the "rights" of cattle and the murderous "herdsmen" taking precedence, if not being more important, than the rights of Nigerians whose only crime is that someone with an inalienable right to "freedom of movement" brought his cattle to their villages and farms to destroy their livelihood and murder them, should they complain? How "serious" could such "scholarship" be, even if the author of this odious justification for conquest and impunity had been a "serious scholar" in another setting?--On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 2:56 PM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:Okey:Where is your argument in this post other than heaping insult on Jibrin whom no one can accuse of not being a serious thinker.Tell us how to:graze animals without enclosure and grass in a run down state.And we can debate.Please no insult
Sent from my iPhoneProfessor Jibrin Ibrahim
Formerly a pseudo-Marxist lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University;
formerly a trade unionist fighting knowledge for progressive change and good social order under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Nigeria (ASUU);
Formerly a human rights and pro-democracy and democracy activist; and
Now, Chief Resident Fellow of Back to Stone Age Agriculture and Intellectual advocate and identity broker for the Rights of Cattle to freedom of movement which must remain sacrosanct and more important than human rights, including herdsmen murdering of farmers and their families and sacking communities, destruction of their livelihoods.
All funded by human rights philanthropic foundations based in countries where cattle probably don't exist?
Sad!
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On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 9:32 PM, 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com > wrote:
Dear all,
This is shocking to me; that a respected colleague could defend the indefensible in the 21st Century. Am sure tomorrow, one of us will write to say that we should all go back to being hunter gatherers, as this will contribute less to global warming and maintain the cultures of our primitive human ancestors. Incidentally, Dr. Ibrahim did not mention a single civilized place/country in the world where civilized society allows migration of flock from one community to the other, with all the attendant problems and challenges.
I asked myself, what exactly is the goal of this essay? Who is the target of this essay? To what end? To victimize the victim all over, so that those who have suffered loss of family members, property and community to "pastoralists" can be condemned for ever raising an eyebrow against the invasion of their communities by foreigners bearing weapons of mass destruction, accompanied by emaciated flock, foraging in and around other peoples' agricultural endeavours? Am I missing something? Are we actually trying to build a humane country where there is respect for the different communities that make up the country, or is this country truly for some people and others are just cannon for fodders? What is this about?
To cap it, Dr. Ibrahim says he will next week "explore how State laws banning open grazing is further boxing in the pastoralists and depriving them of their constitutional rights of freedom of movement". This carried the ball beyond the boundary of decorum. What arguments is he now going to advance to say to states not to protect the interest of their citizens, but allow cattle into the byways, alleys, farms, backyards, etc., of their citizens, wringing their hands helplessly while persons who borrow money from banks and credit unions find their labours and investments destroyed by cattle from the "North"?
Some of us remember when certain "intellectuals" from a certain part of the country claimed that the oils in the delta was actually swept there by the Niger from their backyards, hence that the oils belong to them. It seems now that when I plant corn, yam, cassava, etc on leased land in my town, the crops belong to my brother pastoralists from the "North" to ravage, consume and destroy without me being able to raise a finger of protest. If my state government were to have the audacity to complain or pass laws to protect me from bankruptcy, destruction of my livelihood, and death, then the state government would be infringing on the fundamental human rights, constitutional rights and freedom of movements of my pastoralist oppressors, tormentors and destroyers!
Some people have claimed that we are not in the same country. That this is a typical "monkey dey work, baboon dey chop". Some of us have looked the other way and hoped that good sense will prevail. We continue to hope upon hope that reality and enlightened self interest will prevail to show that certain things are simply unacceptable in the treatment of fellow country men and women.
Take the example of Botswana, where cattle rearing is serious national business. Do not forget that Kgalahadi Desert is also a serious phenomenon in the country, and that the Basarwa are also the inhabitants of the desert region. Yet, Botswana engages in serious cattle ranching as business. Colleagues have cattle post, and one of the main possessions of farmers in Botswana is what is called the "Backe", the Pickup Truck. Yet, a colleague, working in a Centre for Democracy and Development in Nigeria is canvassing that we must go back in time, like Trump and Coal, to enable primitives to roam freely through the roads, corridors, and yards of other people to feed their investments.
One would have expected that if the colleague is deficient in understanding modern animal husbandry, a team would have been commissioned to take a global look at how integrated animal husbandry had become. There is no part of the cattle that is wasted: hoofs, innards, bones, entrails, teeth, hide and skin, etc. But in Nigeria, this is not the case. The cattle roams till it becomes so malnourished and famished, such that the trauma of moving from Sokoto to Lagos would have caused DNA transmutation into calamity for the human consumers that the protein is no longer protein. Yet my colleague thinks he needs to persuade us that in a global market system, this is the only way that cattle rearing can be conducted.
Remember the so-called Nomadic Education of our own Babs Fafunwa, who finally discovered his religious name in old age? The fundamental flaw of our collective intellectual pretense is that we never seem to learn from experience, and we always want to re-invent the wheel. Very soon we will hear that the Atlantic Ocean actually was created so that our pastoralist brothers and their harem must be able to water their flock from the ocean. By then there would be nowhere left for growing the starch that is needed to feed, because our humanity depends on the protein from the famished cattle that comes from Sokoto to Lagos by foot!
Did it even occur to Dr. Ibrahim that there is nothing which human creativity cannot do? Has he heard of about Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Israel, etc., and animal husbandry? What is wrong with using solar and thermal energy to tap underground water to irrigate tracts of land to ensure that desertification does not lead to migration of cattle from Sokoto to Lagos for waste farm products? Whose waste farm products is he actually telling us about? Is the waste not part of the nutrients for the land to rejuvenate? Does one need rocket science to understand that selling a six for a nine is simply 419?
I suggest that a serious debate is called for in Nigeria over so many issues, but hoodwinking people into thinking that there is great scholarship in defending any way of life that belongs in human past is, apart from historical and cultural value, beyond the pale. It should remain there and we should find better things to debate.
Would anyone remember when we used to have the invasion of trailers on Lagos - Ibadan Expressway, where one could leave Lagos at 6 am and sleep on the way to get to Ibadan the following day? It is only in Nigeria that such could happen and there would be so serious repercussions to the society. Or, should I say it as it is, it is only among a highly civilized population that such gross abuse of others could be condoned without serious repercussions.
I must say that I always read Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim's essays with expectation to learn something interesting. But to say am disappointed by this is to be very charitable. This takes the handshake beyond the elbow. It is like he is saying that because our ancestors had always been taking their cloths to the stream to wash, we should not use washing machines, and since the cloths line or grass is there, we should not use drying machines, but always spread our cloths outside to dry in the sun.
As usual, this was supposed to be short. But how do you convey the gravity of something as serious as this in a sentence or paragraph. I hope you understand my anguish here.
Ire o.
Tunde.
On Friday, 10 November 2017, 16:01, Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:
--The Dangers of Boxing in the Pastoralists – Part OneJibrin Ibrahim, Daily Trust Friday Column, November 10th 2017People often talk of the Fulani being in power in Nigeria but the majority of Fulani are pastoralists and the reality is that they have very limited voice in national narratives and are constantly maligned. There is consistent presentation in the media of pastoralists as "armed herdsmen" rampaging all over the country, killing farmers and taking over their and. The narratives are reinforced by social media that each day present pictures of alleged armed pastoralists slinging Kalashnikov rifles on their shoulders and marching on to create mayhem. No one wants to know that the pictures are photoshoped on the Internet and are part of the growing industry of fake news. As kidnapping grows all over the country, the emerging narrative is that the kidnappers are Fulani youth on a mission to extort innocent Nigerians.These narratives gain credibility because in any case, people have great difficulty in understanding the logic of pastoralism. In the popular imagination, nomads are often conceived of as people wandering from place to place without any logic. What is better understood is the culture of farming, which is rooted in a specific location and has activities that take place in a regular pattern. This lack of understanding of the culture of pastoralism makes some people susceptible to the temptation of subjecting its practitioners to gratuitous innuendos and aspersions. Today, they are the Nigerian armed robbers, cattle rustlers, rapists, kidnappers, and even perpetrators of scorched earth policy.Transhumance pastoralism involves the regular movement of herds between fixed points to exploit seasonal availability of pastures. This mode of production in Nigeria involves sending part or all of the herd to access crop residue in adjacent farms or graze in open range and in some cases even move further southwards as the dry season becomes more severe and returning home (North) with the advent of the rains. Transhumance pastoralism is an enduring form of livestock production involving seasonal and cyclical migration between complementary ecological zones which is today under threat in Nigeria and indeed in West and Central Africa.Pastoralism is the main livestock production system in much of Africa. It is above all an efficient way to produce livestock at relatively low prices through the use of non-commercial feeding stock. Historically, pastoralists have been able to meet the meat demand in West Africa with a relatively high level of efficiency without government subsidy for generations. Different methods through the use of farm residue and open range grazing has allowed this trend to flourish. Nigeria has a landmass of 98.3 million hectares, 82 million hectares of arable land of which about 34 million hectares are currently under cultivation. Farmers utilize only about a quarter of the total biomass they produce. The other three quarters is in the form of crop residue and low quality crop, which is not directly useful to people. It is this residue that cattle (ruminants) convert into meat and milk. In addition to this, cattle also utilize grasses on fallow lands, non-arable poor quality lands, open ranges and fadama in the same manner. Pastoralists move their animals to these locations to access these opportunities. The normal practice is that to access crop residue on farms, pastoralists usually negotiate with farmers. If, however any conflict arose from this arrangement including from encroachment of farms into stock routes, these are usually amicably resolved, with the pastoralist often paying fines to settle the matter.Over the past thirty years, major changes have occurred that have created mayor challenges to pastoralism. There has been an increase in population of the country leading to an expansion of urbanization accompanied with infrastructural and industrial development. At the same time, the surface area used for agriculture has increased significantly as more farmers engage in subsistence farming and the impact of these trends has been the reduction of available land for grazing. The irony is that the same population growth and urbanization have also increased the demand for food of animal origin, which in turn calls for expansion of animal production. One of the indices for economic development of a country is measured on the amount of meat consumption per person. Therefore, as our economy improves so will the demand for more cheap meat and milk by all including those calling for the heads of pastoralist today.We should not forget that historically, pastoralists even in pre-colonial Africa are known to be generally law abiding. They paid cattle tax (Jangali) and any other legitimate State tax, for right of passage and also to secure State protection. This makes sense as they own relatively large quantum of mobile capital (cattle), moving with their entire families and would therefore be ready to pay for protection. Nigerians must try to understand that fundamentally, trouble and unrest works against the interests of pastoralists because they can lose their herds and general insecurity in society leads to attacks and further loss of their cattle. When threatened or attacked however, they will fight to protect their honour, family and assets. And when they fight, they fight hard because they can lose everything and also need to make the point that they no weaklings or ease preys.Pastoralists-farmers' conflicts in Nigeria have grown, spread and intensified over the past decade and today poses a threat to national food security and livestock production. The pastoralists often are vulnerable because they are concentrated in zones that are too dry to permit intensive farming. They are the most affected by the vagaries of nature such as climate change given their migratory lifestyle. Virtually the entire country is today affected by growing conflicts between pastoralists and sedentary communities. The growth and spread of herders'-farmers' conflicts is today transforming into communal clashes that are developing logic of their own. What we have in contemporary Nigeria is the breakdown of State authority and the growth of rural banditry. The problem is not herders, its bands of criminal gangs.For many reasons, the pastoralist system of production is simply dying and the main victims are Fulani pastoralists who today have reduced access to their traditional pastures. The Chad basin for dry season pastures is affected by the Boko Haram insurgency and insecurity. The Zamfara/Katsina wet season pastures is closing due to rising insecurity (mostly cattle rustling and kidnapping). Other traditional grazing lands such as Dandume/Birnin Gwari area as well as the prized sparsely populated areas of Kebbi State are also becoming insecure. The Falgore/Ningi grazing forest zone has been taken over by criminal gangs and the pastoralists have had to run away.Pastoralists are also major victims of extortion by the police, lower courts and increasingly the army. These security agents frequently arrest and charge Fulani pastoralists to court, sometimes for no just cause and force them to sell their cattle to pay huge bribes. The effect is that they are making Fulani lose their herds and as they become destitute, they are more likely to seek for arms and move into crime. There is also very weak leadership of the pastoralists. Many of their appointed leaders collude with Police to extort the innocent cattle herders over minor issues. There is a huge enterprise of extortion going on, and it's cattle herders who pay the price.In many areas of the country, the blockage of transhumance routes and loss of grazing land to agricultural expansion, combined with increased southwards movement of pastoralists, has led to increased conflict with local communities. This is particularly the case in the Middle Belt – notably parts of Plateau, Kaduna, Niger, Nassarawa, Benue, Taraba, and Adamawa States. In some of these states and in the north-west, including Zamfara State, rampant banditry has further inflamed farmer-pastoralist conflicts. The conflicts often have localised dynamics, but primarily involve Fulani pastoralists and local farming communities. Both sides are affected, leading to many fatalities, the destruction of livelihoods and property, and internal displacement.As violence between herdsmen and farmers has grown and developed into criminality and rural banditry, popular narratives creating meaning, context and (mis)understandings have been emerging. The narratives emerging on rural banditry in the media and in popular discourse are becoming part of the drivers for expanding conflicts in the country. The protagonists in this saga are often presented as being nomadic Fulani cattle herders, who are mostly Muslims, and sedentary farmer communities of several other ethnic extractions, who are often, but not always non-Muslims. These two distinct groups are usually depicted as perpetrators and victims, respectively. Perspectives of the social, religious and ethnic characteristics of these rural communities are framed into expansive essentialist discourses that actively breed and sustain suspicion and distrust. The result is negative stereotyping between "the one" and "the other" that lead further to ethnic and religious bigotry which fuels the hate process, culminating in further chains of attacks and counter or revenge attacks being exchanged between these different groups. In the end more lives are lost, properties are destroyed, communities are dislocated and misery grows.Next week, we will explore how State laws banning open grazing is further boxing in the pastoralists and depriving them of their constitutional rights of freedom of movement.Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior FellowCentre for Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
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