Monday, July 1, 2019

USA Africa Dialogue Series - Between Economics and Security, between Academic and Political Literacy : Debate Between Southern Nigerians on Plan by Muslim North Led Fed Govt to Settle Fulani Herdsmen on Lands Across the Nation

Southern Nigeria is rich in diversity of opinion. Even when the majority seem to have come to a conclusion on such an issue as the Northern Muslim led Fed govt plan of implanting Fulani herdsmen, whose miltia has been wreaking murder and massacre in the country, in lands belonging to others across the nation, some Southern Nigerians are able to argue for the govt side as shown in the  intelligent Facebook post and rich discussion below.


To what degree do the post and the discussion demonstrate economic and political sensitivity?


RUGA, NOW AND TOMORROW


Let me give you a racy analysis of the thing then you will understand the challenge better and quickly too. I've not seen the official papers on Ruga but from what's in the air, each is about 30,000 hectares (300 million sqm or 60,000 football fields). On a naturally maintained pasture, irrigated in dry seasons, a 10,000-ha pasture can sustain 30,000 heads of cattle. Notice the irrigation factor, it is important. This means a Ruga will take roughly 100,000 heads which is 3.6 million heads in 36 states. That is a fifth of our present cattle population. This indicates that there is still a lot more work to be done, even with Ruga. 


If you manage a 10,000-ha farm the modern way, producing haylage and silage at the appropriate periods (the time you cut makes a lot of difference as the plants have different nutritional levels at different times), you can increase the animal population around six fold if you combine irrigation, fertilizer usage and effective management. So, we are back to the same challenge: how to incorporate modern and scientific practices into our systems, the need to admit that the old ways are no longer sustainable due to changes in lifestyles, land use etc, induced by population pressures. This is the fact that needs to be addressed and it seems to me the cattle owners are not willing to address that but as much as possible they want to maintain the old ways of doing things in the name of culture. Applying fertiliser to a pasture will sound queer to many of our cattle owners, let alone other more complex practices that needs hundreds of millions in investment, plus land. That is why countries with little land must become net importers of beef and dairy products. Our land in Nigeria (93 million square kilometers) is shrinking (that is, it is becoming increasingly unavailable for agricultural use) because of increasing population (urbanization) and lack of management. You have millions of hectares of useless forests all over the place. . . 


I see this system buying a few years of relief at best and then one day, you will simply see some people leading their animals out of the Ruga to graze somewhere on nice, green vegetation - maybe the nearby gulf course that's a bit overgrown! Just look at the numbers and you will get it, you will see the future clearly.


If I am to use the Brazilian statistics as a model and keep a bit below it, Nigeria should be looking to increase its cattle population from its present 19 million (14m cows and 5m goats and sheep as at the last animal census of 2011. I use 19m for cattle only, for now) all the way to about 150 million for the trade to impact the economy beyond subsistence. This calls for serious minded investment across the entire value chain and also serious research input especially on how resistant to trypanosomiasis improved breeds will be (don't worry, the core people and pathologists understand that). How resistant are they and how resistant can we get them. Of course we shouldn't be here by now and we should have all those figures and genetic products at our finger tips. But we don't because we have held ourselves down for many years with useless things and we are now starting out late - but, maybe 'better late than never' applies now all the same. 


Nigeria is facing the consequences of population growth and increase in awareness and desire for a better life. We have to change our lifestyle, our emphasis and the attitude of our government if we are to survive and thrive. If we insist on keeping the new wine in old wineskins, we are the exact candidate for an explosion right at the dinning table.

30Ja'afar Baba Muhammad and 29 others
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  • Sola Fanawopo
    Sola Fanawopo Someone is mailing the official paper to me this week.
    1
  • Vincent Okoawo
    Vincent Okoawo The size of Sambisa forest can the all the Ruga needed in Nigeria and field will still be available for grazing
    3
  • Mitterand Okorie
    Mitterand Okorie The cattle isn't owned by Nigeria so I'm lost on how you are advising "Nigeria" on how to increase its cattle production. RUGA is an illegitimate land grab scheme that favours select Fulani cattle owners and which will soon pit natives against the herdsmen population. Things will soon come to a head. Because I don't see how and why government is serving as launchpad to private business and want to convince people it has no ulterior agenda.
    6
  • John Ogunlela
    John Ogunlela People like Vincent Okoawo are not thinking of helping society solve a problem but just want to pick a fight. You are not thinking like a businessman also and that's not good for anybody with education in this age. The cattle business is not a northernpeople's exclusive zone when you open your eyes. And do you know that right now, about 60% of our beef cattle is imported? Think about it. Meanwhile, this post is not about the politics and processes of land acquisition for Ruga but about the socioeconomics of the cattle enterprise as a national challenge.
    6
    Hide 16 replies
    • Vincent Okoawo
      Vincent Okoawo John Ogunlela no Mr. John, it is not about picking fight. What I see to come in the future about herdsmen and the hidden agenda is the reason I am speaking like this
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi When a man has fed his spirit with bigotry, he sees fear everywhere, including running away from his shadow.

      Let those who are playing divisive politics of oppose everything about cattle business keep to their comedy, jus like everything else, a time       will come, they will still come back to beg for same solution they fought.

      I don't know how any sensible person can continuously oppose every effort to solve a problem.
      3
    • Vincent Okoawo
      Vincent Okoawo Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi this is no bigotry opposition. If you are a student of history , you will understand the surreptitious way they brutally murdered their Hausa host and took over their lands, you will understand that Ruga can be set up in the North and adopt John Ogunlela's method of fertilising the grazing field for them rather than taking people's land in the south for Ruga. Perhaps, will comprehend that such rude invasion will perpetually result in confrontations with the unwilling host communities. Let me ask you, How many farmers from the south will be allowed "Ruga land" in the North to farm? . It is pure cowardly to say give them land so they can stop killing or kidnapping your people . The rest is for you to answer
      5
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Vincent Okoawo, if we're to go back to history, it is not only the history of Uthman Danfodio that we will visit. We have to know how Oduduwa, our supposed progenitor took over the reigns of Ife and what happened to Agboniregun clan.

      We will have to l      ook at how Alaafin left Ife to occupy someone's land. We will even what to know how Bini Empire prospered by serving as the Savage route to slave traders and how they used Europe fire power to topple kings and install themselves in many towns in modern Ondo, Ekiti, Delta,. Anambra and Rivers. Or what do you think Great Bini Empire means if not the forceful occupation of others?
      3
    • Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole
      Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi but all you have written here further supports why people will be reluctant to allow foreigners in large numbers settle on their ancestral lands. If history has taught us that such large scale resettlement eventually lead to armed conflicts, why should people fold their arms and watch such unfold in their presence?
      5
    • Vincent Okoawo
      Vincent Okoawo Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi The savage era of the Danfodio et al is well noted , it is of importance to note that it is only the Fulani herdsmen who want to repeat such feat with their expansionist agenda albeit religion . When IDeoduwa (Oduduwa ) arrived Ife, leadership was thrust on him because of the problem in what is now called Yoruba land and, his leadership quality to handle the problem then. He was not brutal . We know the history of others. But, Othman Danfodio had a mission to conquer and take over. And that was what he did with the Hausas. However , Benin Era , yes, it was a savage era where the quest to dominate with brute force for economic reason was in vogue. Are we still in that era? No, but, why bring it back with Ruga?
      2
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Vincent Okoawo, lols. You actually referred to history and presented the impression only Filani had a history of power highjack. Even the current Tudor Family in England are of Germanic origin who also highjacked and dominated, yet, Scotland, Wales, Australia, British Isles etc have not allowed that to obstruct sensible national cohesion and development. Africans die in millions for dead history. We don't look positively forward but steep in the bitterness of yesterday.

      Fulani cattle breeders are not historically the same as the jihadist that Fodio represented. They're economically marginalised and oppressed. In my town we have four fulani settlements, they have been there for over sixty years, they still live in mould houses, no former leadership structure but within 10 years of prosperous stay, the Igbo already desires to be Eze Ndigbo with a palace and pomps to show off. They soon put themselves up for local elections and sometimes win, yet, they make the loudest noise about Fulani takeover.
      3
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole, so, Lagos should mount wall to prevent further immigration from other parts of the country, especially from the East where the highest migration is traced to and people are even talking of a hidden "igbonisation"of Lagos. Won't that be cool?
      1
    • Vincent Okoawo
      Vincent Okoawo Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi I am not an Igbo man. If herdsmen are so peaceful as you claim, who are those in the forest committing the atrocities we hear about every day. The kidnapping, the rape and the near annihilation of communities in Benue, Zamfara, etc . Indeed they are peaceful
    • Vincent Okoawo
      Vincent Okoawo Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Name one Ibo man in Lagos that seized land and occupy same in Lagos?
    • Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole
      Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi were you in Lagos during the last election? Did you see or read about all the fracas that happened in the Igbo dominated areas? And that was perpetrated by Yoruba hooligans who don't have access to Military grade weapons o. Now j…See more
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Vincent Okoawo, criminals! Rapists! Murderers!

      The way we say Americans should not profile us all as fraudsters even though we know many Nigerians of Yoruba origin are the majority culprits, most drug peddlers to China, Malaysia and Indonesia are Nige      rians of Igbo origins, the first set of people to turn kidnapping to industrial business are from Igboland, the Evans, the Oshishioma, etc yet it would be irrational to start getting paranoid with every Yoruba and Igbo outside Nigeria. Where is cult killings, land grabbing, ritual killing rampart in Nigeria? 
      Crime is everywhere. This moment will soon fizzle out. Even when we are shedding tears, must not be blinded.
      2
    • Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole
      Bobajo Ebenezer Omowole See the Federal Government can set up ranches and Ruga farms to accommodate cattle herders. The problem is trying to force feed everyone with it. The Land Use Act vest the totality of lands in a State on the Governor. If the Governor of a State and his constituency says they don't want their land to be used for a particular project, abeg take the project to people who want it. Nor be by force
      1
    • Tunde Akogun
      Tunde Akogun John Ogunlela 
      My dear brother John, if cattle business is not the exclusive preserve of the Hausa/fulani, how come the policy bears a Hausa name?
      2
    • Bishop Kenneth Ebolum
      Bishop Kenneth Ebolum Vincent Okoawo
      Rest your case. You have tried in presenting facts that its not about the RUGA ,but about the intention behind it.
      Anyone who fails to see it from your viewpoint and for what it is, should go ahead. Time will vindicate the right person.
      1
    • Ismail Ibikunle
      Ismail Ibikunle Vincent Okoawo but I've not read it anywhere that FG has forcefully taken over any piece of land for RUGA programme. I think we should just try and ask questions so as get clarification, it won't do anybody any good if we deliberately catch in on this to settle political, regional or religious scores.
      1
  • Eunice Alonge Obaro
    Eunice Alonge Obaro We need population control.
    1
  • Kelechi Deca
    Kelechi Deca Ruga is a business proposal, thus should be left for those who are interested to pursue it. Niger State promised to provide all the grazing land needed by Nigeria's herdsmen, why are they not taking up that offer?
    4
  • Daniel Ocheja
  • Daniel Ocheja
  • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
    Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi The major challenge with our development and nationhood is the fact that land remains a spiritual entity than a factor of production.

    The concept of ancestral land, indigenes and traditional institutions to oversee them, are antithetical to democracy,     capitalism and economic growth. We are truly what the rest of the world call us, a primitive people who can't leave beyond their fears.

    Same people who want to be American president two days after migration can't accept the right of cattle breeders who are Nigerians and have lived there for decades to do his business on their "land''.
    4
    • Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi
      Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi 
      And when fishermen on the Atlantic shelf and inland have no more fish to catch, you turn other Ppl s property into fish ponds for them?
      Waow
      1
    • Kayode Salman Banjo
      Kayode Salman Banjo Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi Fishermen are not a clear and present danger, the alternative is roaming about with their cattle, Albert give us a solution these people are Nomadic and don't understand buying they have to be thought
      1
    • Adebomi Olusola Olugbenga
      Adebomi Olusola Olugbenga That's if these people also believe in the local populace. Their lifestyle is different. You locate them where the people around them have the same value. 

      You learn become American and behave as such. Americans will not learn to be you.

      The case of Fulani are different who will rather wants to force the local population to accept them as lords one day
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi, just like when Nigerians find life difficult here, they migrate to Europe and they get integrated, buy houses, set up businesses on Anglo-Saxon land!

      If people can't get fish to catch, we create ponds for them and teach them n      ew skills.

      A responsible government will not say they should bury themselves in the sea, after all, they fish for us to live.

      That's why government helps farmers to clear land, provide fertilizer, grade farm roads and even buy off the produce to keep the farmers going. Cattle rearing is also farming with its unique nature and practice. Let's modernize and capitalise it for peace and prosperity.

      The anti fulani propaganda has not and will not chase away the fulani from the south, we are only delaying our peace and prosperity with the meaningless hate campaigns that helps no one.
      3
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi Adebomi Olusola Olugbenga, will you accept this apartheid policy for other Nigerians too?

      Let's relocate Igbo in Kano to the East where their values find a home.
      3
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela I am just wondering if creating prosperity will ease attachment to land. It is just possible especially when you look at the history of land ownership across the world. Primordial poverty is one of the key factors behind clinging to land - one of the factors, I've said. I hope we can get there some day.
    • Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi
      Sunday Aikuirawo Aniyi John Ogunlela, it will Sir. We waste land because we don't economically maximize it, so we think we don't have enough and so, fight people who"want to take over our land''. The Yoruba are paranoid of Igbo domination in Lagos and elsewhere, the Igbo won't even welcome one another, because land is life there, and the south feal insecure with the visibility of "strangers". But if understand that what we get on 10 hecter can be produced on a hecter. If the primitive fulani vagrants know that they are just wasting away in their aimless wandering, that they don't need to trek the whole African to feed a handful of cows, we won't have this chaos on our hands.
      3
  • Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi
    Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi This John Ogunlela is just out of this world.
    Private property, land belonging to families and individuals many of whom have been using them for their own personal development and survival!
    And all you have to say is this stuff about the land being insufficient?
    I can't believe this.
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela I can see you just scanned over the post and then you mentally cherry-picked to arm yourself for a predictable position 😀. I have not said a word about the process of land acquisition because I haven't seen the details of the government paper establishing it. There could be disinformation going on and I want to read for myself. I am only addressing its socioeconomics and the enterprise projected data in an environment where the Ruga is established by the owners of the land themselves. If you have the facts about the politics, bring them out. Now, suppose you read the last sentence of the post again.
      2
    • Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi
      Albert Oladapo Ogunwusi John Ogunlela 
      I read every word John. Every word. You trawled the area of the sufficiency of the RUGA for our economic needs as a nation.
      You are an intelligent person who understands communication. What is said is usually interesting. What is left un      said is sometimes far more interesting. It is like a bikini. It reveals interesting things and conceals more interesting things.
      There are other problems, some of them even more serious than the Fulani and their warbearing trade. 
      The danger to private property and the lives of Nigerians are far more potent than looking for beef to eat.
      We had no rice to eat, nobody lost his land by fiat in solving the problem.
      You are now ignoring the mechanics of brining ppl to form constructive military settlements nationwide, and talking about how many cows are needed and what they would eat.
      So we should turn schools and private farms into grazing land for fully armed herders who have showed over time what they are capable of doing. With consistent impunity too.
      4
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela I understand all those issues to some extent of course, but that's not something In want to deal with in this post or in this format. Again, who knows, maybe by defining the end we can better address the processes and the means. It is just possible if we are not all essentially blinded by malice. I do hope we are not, but just a word in the direction you are nudging me, I believe the cattle owning elite are the issue here. There is an economics they are tapping into that they don't want to let go, but they can have even better figures if they will take more pains with their business and do the right thing. Now, in a scenario where people's lands are grabbed for the benefit of a few cattle owners and such, what are we going to have? Chaos and interminable spiral of conflicts of course. I hope we don't walk into that.
      1
  • Tunde Alabi
    Tunde Alabi John Ogunlela please is the concept of RUGA the same as Ranches? I ask this question because every time RUGA is mentioned it is described as Fulani settlement while anyone can establish a Ranch.

    I will appreciate a robust explanation, thanks.
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela The story out there sounds like what you think sir but we need to really find out due to the emotional nature of the subject. I hope to follow up on this post once I get to see the government paper guiding the Ruga scheme. A friend closer to the details told me its a ranch where anybody can establish a livestock enterprise, just to directly address your view.
      1
    • Tunde Alabi
      Tunde Alabi Thanks and I will appreciate a feedback. Someone sent this to me yesterday to confirm government's seriousness.
      No photo description available.
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela I've seen the paper too, but the figures tell me that hefty as this move seems, it is still papering over the problem. Its a palliative
      1
    • Tunde Alabi
      Tunde Alabi I agree with you and like your original post, we may end up with something that may look like solution but which in actual fact may be the beginning of another problem.
  • Juba Adedeji
    Juba Adedeji God bless the day I found you....being wondering how much I've lost in the past
  • Kayode Salman Banjo
    Kayode Salman Banjo My Brother How you know book reach this level, sometimes l feel like polishing your shoes, and washing your sucks 
    Kilode and you are from Nigeria!!
    You are just to much!!
    3
  • Adebomi Olusola Olugbenga
    Adebomi Olusola Olugbenga I can see you are being diplomatic and at the same time trying to emphasise on the importance of planning. 

    Business isn't first, survival is... Nobody wants a shrewd businessman in his domain. 

    It isn't a bad idea if someone proposes that the Ruga should be established in Sambisa Forest. It is even the best idea. The space will be put to use and the army will be there to secure the environs. Putting Sambisa to use will reduce incursion and make Nigeria more secure
    3
  • Noble Ofugha
    Noble Ofugha John, I think you have rightly dealt with the economics of the cattle business and your focus is largely on the benefits of the Ruga or ranching polich to the country. I agree with you. But the problem with the policy is its politics, especially given …See more
    1
  • Bishop Kenneth Ebolum
    Bishop Kenneth Ebolum John can convince an eskimo who lives on ice to buy a refrigerator when he knows the eskimo doesn't need. There's even no electricity to power the fridge 😂
  • Wole Ajewole
    Wole Ajewole But can we get 30,000 hectares in our state? Such land is not available. Talking about comparative advantage, Ruga is better in most northern states with large expanse of land. Can Ekiti get such land ? I read somewhere about existing but abandoned Ranch in Mokwa. Is this REALLY TRUE ? We can make use of such existing facilities. Please do more research on if Zambiza forest can really be converted to RUGA or Ranch. This will surely solve many problems.
    • John Ogunlela
      John Ogunlela Ekiti and Ondo have 10,000 each, both lying fallow.
    • Wole Ajewole
      Wole Ajewole John Ogunlela 
      There is pressure on Land by the local communities. If RUGA is established to be run and manage by locals, it's welcome. We need to create jobs for our own people. Many of our youths are no less.

      Have a look at Sambisa Forests statistics *
      It is:
      * 686 square kilometers;
      * 6.8 million hectares;
      * 68 million plots of 100 feet by 100 feet; and 
      * at 5 cows per plot, it can take 340 million cows.

      340 million cows is 18 times the current number of cows in Nigeria.

      If these stastitics are correct, let the federal government develop this forest into RUGA or Ranches and solve the Fulani herdsmen crisis in Nigeria.
  • Lasun Ladipo-bada
    Lasun Ladipo-bada John Ogunlela, you are making a fundamental mistake in your assumption 

    You are assuming that all cattle ranches will also grow Hay hence your calculation of heads of cattle is lower.

    In North America, ranches specialize and focus on raising cattle.....tgey don't spend capital also trying to grow hay for the cattle. It is cheaper for them to buy it from the hay farmer.

    That is the way it is in industrialized countries.
    • Like
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  • Chuks ManDore
    Chuks ManDore Is cow business a Federal Government project? How on earth will a Federal Government go about establishing the business of a sect throughout the whole Nation? What is it all about? Is that part of governance? What is the economic contribution of the Herdsmen to Nigerian economy? Can we for once get serious in this Country?

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