Jibo is and has always been an incisive thinker, but on this herdsmen issue, his inexplicable loyalties have clearly clouded his analytical lens. The bromide of the pro-herdsmen propaganda machine is a skewed, self-serving interpretation of the "constitutional right of free movement." That is of course a red herring, since there are, as we have pointed out many times, many peaceful Fulani communities all over the country who subject themselves to local authorities, respect the limits set by host communities, and respect the existential sanctity of farmlands when carrying out their grazing activities. Of course, there are also many urbane, sedentary Fulani professionals working and living freely all over the country. There is thus no anti-Fulani conspiracy, much as Buhari, Dan Ali, and Jibo want us to believe that there is. This conspiratorial mindset is responsible for their jaundiced perspective, which comes across as justification for mass murder and armed herdsmen aggression.
-- As a scholar, Jibo knows that one person's freedom stops where another's begin, and that freedom of mobility or of any other action does not authorize one to encroach on or erode another person's livelihood or their freedom to exist and pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Even freedom of speech has limits; it is circumscribed by the "fire in the theatre" clause, which means that you cannot cause panic and terror by falsely screaming fire, fire in a crowded theater and claim that your action is freedom of speech. If the constitutional freedom of mobility was absolute there would not be laws against trespassing, we would not have notions and laws on private property, and it would be chaos, a Hobbesian primitive chaos.
No constitutional framers would be foolish enough to make laws to justify unbridled freedoms that trample on other citizens' right to exist and earn a living, so the freedom of movement of herders cannot be interpreted to override or supersede the right and freedom of farming communities to exist and subsist on their agricultural endeavors. We know that in Nigeria, land tenure is communal and governed by rights defined by notions of communal ancestral rights and autochthony. As others have pointed out, a group of Tiv, Ogoni, Idoma, or Ngas people cannot leave their ancestral lands and travel up north to Bebeji in Kano or Daura in Katsina and set up a farming community that usurps the farmlands of the community without consulting the locals or seeking their permission, and then violently attack the autochthons when challenged. If they do so, they cannot claim that their actions are protected by the constitutional provision on the right to move freely and reside in any part of the country.
And, of course, while Jibo is performing this specious constitutional interpretation, he would not comment on why the herdsmen, against Nigerian law, are walking around with sophisticated military weapons, why they insist on practicing a transhumance herding culture that threatens other people's livelihood and existence, and why they have resorted to violence to make farmers yield to their quest for grazing land. As I write this, four villages in Agatuland in my ancestral neck of the woods are occupied by herdsmen and their cattle, the same armed herdsmen that killed over 500 Agatu people last year and destroyed their towns and villages. Whether by design or outcome, it is now a forceful takeover of territory by the armed herdsmen. The same phenomenon of forceful occupation is even more widespread in Southern Kaduna and on the Plateau, where many villages and their surrounding farmlands have now been occupied by herdsmen who cleansed them of the indigenous populations.
Jibo is speaking with forked tongues. On the one hand, the report he co-authored and published several weeks ago, called for setting up grazing reserves in the Northwest and Northeast as a solution to the problem. But here he is contradicting his own report and insisting that the herdsmen and their armed militia have a constitutional right to graze cattle nomadically anywhere in the country and that farmers should accommodate their transhumance. Which is it, continuing with transhumance at all costs as he now suggests, or establishing grazing reserves for the herdsmen in the Northwest and Northeast as his report recommended?
Like Defense Minister Dan Ali, Jibo is living in a provincial bubble and is probably exposed only to a self-reinforcing cacophony of incestuous discourse on the herdsmen issue. The pro-herdsmen propagandists are underestimating the extent to which the ongoing herdsmen violence is ripping the fabric of the nation. The irony of it all is that what they, urbane Fulani intellectuals, are doing is not even in the best interest of the transhumant Bororo Fulani, as Drs. Raji Bello and Nura Alkali, both Fulani, have argued.
On Sat, Jan 27, 2018 at 5:12 AM, 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Dear all, Good day,When, sometime ago, Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim wrote the two part disgraceful apology for primitivism, I raised issues relating to the wastes taking place in nomadic cattle rearing:HideHornsWoolHoofsBonesManureSkinTeethMeat qualityMilkHuman traffickingChild LabourProductive man hoursPoor education of nomadic youthPoverty, waste, disturbance of peace and violence.When Dr. Ibrahim and is ilk suggest that the issue is about free movement of persons across the length and breadth of Nigeria, his callous disingenuous position require us to ask: Has anyone ever had any issue with anyone moving around Nigeria legitimately? Intellectual honesty require that we answer NO!The challenge is not moving around Nigeria. The challenge is moving around Nigeria with livestock on foot which feed on other people's property, destroying livelihood, endangering lives with disease and germs; plus the disturbance of peace, violence, death and destruction attendant to the primitive practice of pastoral herding.Probably what the government of Nigeria needs to do is liberalize trade, so that we can import animal protein from Botswana, Kenya, New Zealand, Argentina, Jamaica, etc. It will be cheaper, better quality, healthy (not traumatized meet that has walked from Sokoto to Lagos on foot with child labourers in tow) and save lives and maintain peace.The proper thing is to rear your animal in a healthy environment, without child labour, sweatshops, or other slavery-like conditions (trafficking youth across West Africa). That preserves the quality of life of the cattle, the human herders/keepers, increases the productivity of beef, milk, manure, etc. But no, our magomago barawo bandoolo, fake intellectuals wish to say that freedom of their kinsmen's movement mean unfettered access to my child's school classroom, my brother's corn plantation, the highways and byways of Nigeria at any time of the day or night. And if I say, what about my own constitutional right to privacy, property, security of my life, they draw their primitive daggers and whiteman produced AK47 and unleash barbarity on me and my household. And they call their Dr. Ibrahim to justify it!Does anyone remember famed Babs Fafunwa's failed nomadic education - the one who in old age discovered his Arabic name? How do you make education follow itinerant students? What is most dangerous has been the tendency towards rank intellectual, moral and religious dishonesty. The elites of the North have near zero capacity to appreciate what is called enlightened self-interest. They continue to use religion to conceal their disdain and contempt for the humanity of their talakawas; they do not think the poor among them are humans who should rise above rankadede panhandling on Fridays at Jumat. They steal, lie and engage in the worst forms of immoralities and yet expect the rest of us to keep quiet and turn the other cheek. Collectively, most rational persons condemned the half-baked insulting rant of one Kanu, but that was because we thought that collectively we can find solutions to the challenges that affect us all, because together we are stronger, we can have better Nigeria, serving the interest of all of us, not knowing that some of the persons we thought we could dialogue in good faith really do not see us as equals, they see us as of less worth than the cows of their rich!I have always argued that at the base, religion is founded on human need for survival - economics - hence my essay "Prolegomenon to an Economics of Religion". I would even guess that the spiritual component of religion is less than 10%, to be charitable to those who genuinely believe that their religion have nothing to do with their stomach. Some may have been miseducated into accepting the fake news of thinking that their religious leaders are not about maintaining their privileged parasitic positions, therefore genuinely being victims of spirituality hoax.The same thing goes for identities. Ethnicities as identities are tools in the hands of dishonest elites, dedicated to exploitation of fellow human beings - my response to Sen. The same goes for race: the highest bloke in religion and politics must do what New Yorkers say - eat and s--t. If we don't, as humans, we need very serious help. Some do these things in expensive environments, but the bottom line is that we are all the same, and can't help ourselves. So, why does a Dr. Ibrahim think he can hoodwink intelligent people into accepting that fallacious deception of free movement of citizens to mask greed of cattle owners who don't want to spend money to feed their holdings, or equate movement of persons to movement of cows?When Femi Taiwo published his Manifesto - Africa must be modern - some of us argued that as valid as his injunction is, there is some gap there, because civilized portions of Africa were always way more modern than any European society has ever been. The records are there to show it in virtually all aspects of life. But his perceptive view is that there are pockets of backwardness, with their champions like Dr. Ibrahim and the enablers of mayhem, who continue to obfuscate/conflate free human movement with destructive animal foraging on other people's livelihood.If, as black people, derided as "sh--hole countries", denigrated as inferior and less than human historically by the two Abrahamic religions, fail to see that we are complicit in our own destruction, then something is fundamentally wrong with our reasoning capacity. Why do we want Rwanda or South Sudan in Nigeria?Let me use an analogy: That I have a right to free movement, does that mean I can enter Dr. Ibrahim's house and just continue to live there, eating, drinking and laying to waste his live investments and resources? What would his family say? What would his neighbours say? How would he react?I can imagine he would not be happy. But should he complain, should I wave the Constitution in his face, and say the DSS Boss says it is my constitutional right to move about Nigeria and stay wherever I wish? Should he continue to object, should I bring out an AK47, made by white people, kill Dr. Ibrahim, rape his daughters, slit his son's throats, cut up his wife's stomach to bring out the fetus for killing?If there is an outcry about my evil, should Dr. Bolaji Aluko not come to my defense and argue that I was only being normal, moving around like my ancestors always did, and Dr. Ibrahim should learn to be accommodating of intruders, invaders and terrorists?If we are going to live together, should there not at least be a minimum of mutual respect that we should accord each other? Why are the elites of the North so dishonest about virtually everything - from religion to sexuality, from economics to humanity? Why? Should some people continue to think they have monopoly of violence, especially using the tools manufactured by others? It is about time then that they need to wake up and realize that all human beings are capable of brutality, barbarism and destructiveness. Those who canvass peace are not to be taken for granted, they are not cowards. To assume otherwise is to tempt human nature - which Rwanda taught us. Even the most genteel population can be the worst destructive humans.Some of us believe that Buhari can still redeem his tottering, nepotic and corruption infested presidency and the mandate Nigerians gave him. But he needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Even if because of the fake mess of pottage that those Ministers from the South in his Cabinet are enjoying they have lost their voices and humanity, there are those of us who hold it as responsibility to our communities, and our ancestors, the duty to speak the truth about the disaster that Dr. Ibrahim and his dishonest ilk are going to unleash on this country, if they are the only voices goading the President into complacency. Some of us have reached out long enough, offering positions that constitute best practices in other parts of the world, but our support should not be taken to mean there are no red lines. And there are no powerless people anywhere in the world - even slaves in Haiti defeated all the European armies over 200 years ago to claim the first free country in the Western hemisphere.I want to leave Dr. Ibrahim with these parting questions: What does he honestly thinking about grazing colonies over and above the disguised land grab that it is? Why is using technology to fuel ranching so odious to Northern elites? Is it because it will convert their slave populations into educable masses no longer available as instruments of oppression? What percentage of pastoral cattle, compared with ranched cattle, is economically useful? Why does he use the technology to send his views out and not use his ancestral boucal cavity to shout his ideas to me across the Atlantic?Ire o.Tunde.On Saturday, 27 January 2018, 2:54, Okey Iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com> wrote:
"...there is no commercial production of hay in Nigeria to feed the animals ..."Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim:You -- and indeed all Nigerians -- should be ashamed to make the statement referenced above!Agric Minister, Audu Ogbe recently said Nigeria has a population of 34.5 million goats, 22.1 million sheep and 13.9 million cattle (Premium Times, June 2, 2016). By your assertion, none of the owners of the 13.9 million cattle (as well as the millions of goats and sheet) have seen the economic potential of investing in hay farming/production. Instead, you insist that 13.9 million cattle must feed on other people's farm--and they must be murdered, if they refuse the cattle their "constitutionally guaranteed freedom of movement"-- because cattle-rearing is the only business in Nigeria, whereas farming is not. The Fulani must never be asked to change, but everyone else must accommodate their archaic transhumance.In case you haven't seen this, I'd like to invite you to peruse the table below (one of thousands of info out there) and, hopefully, advise your cattle-owning Fulani elite friends to consider investing in hay production -- right now.Has it also occurred to you that there is more abundant land in the Far North for cattle-rearing than in the Benue-Plateau and the south of Nigeria? Just consider the following factoids:SAMBISA FOREST686 square kilometers6.8 million hectares68 million plots of 100 feet by 100 feetAt 5 cows per plot, Sambisa Forest can take 340 million cows340 million cows is 18 times the current number of cows in Nigeria -- huge export potential, bigger than the non-existent oil in Lake Chad.If you and your friends cannot see the economic potential of investing in hay production (preferably in the Sabisa Forest) , then youhave not told us what exactlyyouare looking for. I can assure you, however, that Nigerians now know. Hence, they are saying a fat "No" to "colonies" -- an odious word and project that they believe disappeared into the night with the lowering of the Union Jack at Tafawa Balewa Square back in 1960.Okey--On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 2:13 AM, Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:--Pastoralist/Farmers Crisis in Benue and the Search for ModerationJibrin Ibrahim, Friday Column, Daily Trust, 26th January 2018I spent the weekend in Benue State with a Delegation of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), which had gone there on a fact-finding mission for the association. The NBA President A. B. Mahmoud led the mission, with some members of the executive committee and other lawyers. At the stakeholders meeting in Makurdi, the basic narrative of the State Branch Branch of the NBA was that it is a ruse to say that the violence that had been on-going in the State was due to the anti open grazing law passed by the Government last May. We were told that before the said law was enacted; there had been 49 attacks on Benue farming communities by Fulani terrorists engaged on a genocide mission that is coordinated by the Miyetti Allah and its leader, President Muhammadu Buhari. That was the tone of much of the discussions.President A. B. Mahmoud made a passionate plea for moderation but the atmosphere was highly charged with numerous narratives of massacre, slitting of throats, cutting up stomachs of pregnant women and killing of children. Two psychologists gave testimonies on how the direct victims, especially children and the wider community has been traumatised by the atrocities and that the impact of the trauma is likely to remain for generations. The anger was palpable and some of the participants explained that the killings continue and security agencies have refused to intervene to stop it. What we heard was a clear narrative from a community that is convinced that the Nigerian State and its security agencies were active collaborators in the atrocities that had or were being perpetrated against the people. The crisis had been allowed to fester for too long and minds had been made up.Some voices explained that they were aware that due to climate change and over-population in the country, Fulani pastoralists had been forced to move southwards with their herd but they were emphatic that there was no land available in Benue State for pastoralism so the only solution was the ranching proposed in the Benue law. Many speakers expressed the sentiment that the Federal Government was trying to seize land and fund the development of the said land for Fulani herders. They decried investment of government funding into pastoralism on the grounds that keeping cattle is a private business. I reminded them that the Buhari Administration has been investing huge amounts of money on the Anchor Borrower's programme to help farmers grow more crops so why not do the same for pastoralists and I was shouted down and told the "real" Buhari plan was one of colonisation and the proof is in Minister Audu Ogbe's insistence on the establishment of cattle colonies. I felt bad at the thoughtless decision of the Minister of Agriculture to talk about the establishment of cattle colonies when narratives of colonisation have already become part of the problem.I was alarmed to hear Bishops and the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Benue State expressing the sentiment that they had; "lost confidence in the unity and oneness of Nigeria" and one of them openly said that the way forward was; "to procure arms and free themselves". There was one voice of moderation, a former Attorney General of the State and former Ambassador who explained that there were other countries in Africa who have more cows than Nigeria and they have been successful in managing their pastoralism without excessive conflicts. He blamed the Nigerian crisis to the way in which conflict resolution mechanisms and planning and administering pastoralism have been abandoned.We visited the two IDP camps in Daudu where 9,865 people were living in terrible conditions without adequate shelter, food and water. We saw a baby born less that 24 hours before our arrival lying on the flour, without clothes and with chicken running around. Clearly, the suffering and misery that followed the January 1-4 2018 attacks on some communities in Benue State had become the last straw that has created conditions for the extreme antagonism that had developed towards Fulani pastoralists in the State. The IDPs described how they were attacked at 10 pm while sleeping as the mayhem started leading to the mass killing that occurred.The problem with the visit was that there was no one to tell the other side of the story. The Miyetti Allah Association was invited but both the Benue branch of the NBA and the association itself said it was not safe for the Fulani to come into Benue. We did notice that we saw neither pastoralists nor cows in our travels in the State. Given the situation, the NBA has decided to invite the association to its headquarters to hear their own story in the spirit of the principle of fair hearing.Benue State has of course passed a law banning open grazing. The law specifically prohibits; "pasturing livestock to feed on dry grass, growing grass, shrubs, herbage, farm crops, etc, in open field without any form of restriction". People who rear livestock are required to buy land from the owners of the land to establish ranches. Following acquisition of the land, the new owners are then to apply to the Governor through the Livestock Department for a permit to set up the ranch, upon the annual payment of a permit fee. The permit is only valid for one year and must be renewed each year. It beats the imagination to understand why anyone would invest on the purchase of land to establish a ranch that is valid for only one year. I asked the Attorney General of the State why so little time was allowed before the full implementation of the law and his position was that the six months period before implementation was sufficient. What struck me about the law is that as most farms purchased would not be bid enough to provide sufficient food and water for the animals and there is no commercial production of hay in Nigeria to feed the animals the law has been designed not to create a pathway to settling pastoralists but for sending them out of the State and that is what happened as they all had to move to neighbouring states. As more states adopt similar measures, the pastoralists would be cornered and their cattle might be starved to death. This process is likely to exacerbate rather than solve the crisis.Nigeria's former Director General of the State Security Service, A. A. Gadzama argued yesterday (Daily Trust, 25/1/2018) that we should not forget that; "The Fulani like every other Nigerian has the right to reside anywhere and move freely in any part of the country. The constitution guarantees them this." He therefore advised that a solution that excludes the other is not the best option. I agree with his core argument that the problem has been the failure of security agencies to stop the wanton killing of Nigerians by herdsmen, I would say criminals, and that the solution is for the said security agencies to do their job and stop the killings and destruction of property. Today, too many communities are convinced that the mission of pastoralists has been transformed from following the green grass to seizing the ancestral lands of some communities. This perception is so widespread that even if it were not true, people who believe it would act on the basis of their belief. The State has a responsibility to show that it is a neutral arbiter that has the duty to protect the lives and property of all Nigerians. As religion and politics have fully entered the equation, confidence building, a lot of dialogue, negotiations and sensitization would be required to put our communities back to the path of problem solving and away from the cycles of reprisal killings.Professor Jibrin IbrahimSenior FellowCentre for Democracy and Development, AbujaFollow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
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