ODA’s position on Fulani herdsmen, cattle colony and recommendations for lasting, win-win, peaceful solution
Background
The Okun people are a sub-national group of the Yoruba nation predominantly located in Kabba/Bunu, Ijumu, Mopamuro, Oworo,Yagba East, and Yagba West in Kogi state, an area of about 35% of the land area of the state.
Okun people are naturally loving, peaceful and accommodating.
The ODA is the umbrella socio-cultural and development organization that is the sole organ of the Okun people with authority to speak for and act on behalf of the Okun Yoruba of the state on matters affecting the way we are governed, our development and the sustainable livelihood of our people.
It is in the above capacity that the ODA makes the following statements as the stand of Okun people on the declared position of the state government on fulani herdsmen and the federal government’s proposed cattle colony.
This statement represents the aggregate views of our people after wide and comprehensive consultation with all interest groups in Okunland, including our revered traditional rulers, various community development associations, professionals, elected and appointed politicians, students, Okun men and women across all our local government areas, and Okuns in the diaspora. The consultation culminated in a meeting of the representatives of these groups in Kabba on Saturday 20th January, 2018.
What we know on the state government’s position on fulani herdsmen and cattle colony
From the various account in the mainstream and social media, the ODA has learnt of the state government’s position on fulani herdsmen and the cattle colony
From media account, we understand the following:
- That the state government has flung the doors of the state open to fulani herdsmen;
- That the state government has extended invitations to any fulani in other parts of the country having difficulties finding a place of abode or facing possibility of ejection from where they currently operate for whatever reasons to come to kogi state.
- That the state government has directed the different levels of administration in the state, including, state, local government and traditional councils, to accommodate the fulanis in their administrative machinery.
- That though this directive did not go down well with many of those to implement it. They are constrained in raising any objections and some have started the process of implementing it;
- That the state government has directed that fulani herdsmen should be given certificate of indigene; and
- That the state government has not only enthusiastically embraced the federal government’s proposed cattle colony policy but it has gone ahead to volunteer the state as the state to pioneer the cattle colony model
ODA’s thoughts on these
The ODA has remained deeply worried and troubled about these declared positions since they were made public.
The ODA does not know the degree of consultation that took place before these positions were adopted.
Whatever it was, we respectfully urge the state government to take a look at these positions again in the interest of the people it is sitting in government over.
These positions are clearly not in the best interest of our people in Okunland.
While we concede that the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, as amended, guarantees some constitutional rights for every Nigerian citizen, including right to freedom of movement, right to own properties, right to freedom of association, etc; these rights are not without limits. They are not absolute. The same constitution also prescribes when these rights can be curtailed.
Our experience in Okunland with fulani herdsmen.
The fulani herdsmen’s foray into Okunland can be traced back to many years. At the beginning, the fulani herdsmen reciprocated the peaceful, loving and accommodating nature of Okun people.
They were then known to carry only sticks, kettles and some personal belongings.
They would do all that was possible to get their cattle out of people’s farms or the community’s source of drinking water.
With time, they became more familiar with the bushes and areas outside the towns and villages, even more than the community landowners.
With this, they became more daring, more aggressive, and started to show that there were several sides to them.
Today, they have completely revealed what they truly are, emboldened by the tacit support they seem to enjoy as they unleash mayhem on their host communities. No one is in doubt any more. They deliberately march their herds of cow into people’s farms, and you dare not challenge them. Our people have almost totally abandoned farming for fear of attack by these herdsmen as they no longer feel safe in their farms. And yet farming is the only means of livelihood of our people.
The threat they pose to the security of lives of farmers and their harvested and yet to be harvested farm produce is real and should not be underestimated.
Many of our people in each of the six local government councils where Okun people are found have had to pay the ultimate price on account of attacks by Fulani herdsmen who invade their farmlands, destroying everything in sight, including subjecting them to slow, humiliating and agonising deaths.
We recall with sorrow that the following of such deaths were recorded. In Yagba East 5, Mopamuro 3, Yagba West 4, Ijumu 5, and Bunu 2
Our fears as a people
We note with deep concern that the widespread crisis that we see today between the herdsmen and some parts of the northern states had their seeds sown several years ago, long before some of their victims were born.
Who knows, if our forefathers did in their days what the state government is committing to doing today, we might have been suffering the same fate as the unfortunate people of Benue, Taraba and other affected states.
The present generation of Okun people do not want our children, our grandchildren and their own, to look back at us, the present generation, with regret, anger and agony of violent deaths in the hands of herdsmen.
The Fulani herdsmen crisis is real. Wishing it away without a well thought out plan will not help matters
The ODA’s position
The ODA considers the concept of a cattle colony, whichever way it is defined, repulsive and repugnant to fairness, equity and natural justice and reminds us of our dark days under the colonial masters which no one should bring back to memory.
The ODA believes that creating a cattle colony under any statute, that will forcefully appropriate any portion of Okunland for the purpose of promoting the business interests of some private individuals, deny the people their rights over their ancestral land and populate the colonies with the fulani herdsmen, is a clear danger that is only comparable to a time bomb.
The ODA submits that a cattle colony on any part of Okunland is a disservice to our past, our present and our future in Okunland and as such unacceptable to us.
The ODA is of the view that a cattle colony, defined in whatever way, is distasteful, dangerous, and with potential to snowball into a major national disaster
The ODA, for the above reasons and more, rejects in its totality the state government position on the Fulani herdsmen and the proposed federal government’s cattle colony.
The average Fulani herdsman is economically more empowered than an average farmer in Okunland. He only needs to sell a few of his cattle.
It is on account of this that we call on the state government to urgently review its declared position on the Fulani herdsmen and cattle colony in the state
Our recommendations
While stating her position as enunciated above, the ODA will like to make some recommendations towards an enduring win-win peaceful solutions
Cattle rearing is a private business like any others such as manufacturing, trading or services. There are regulations and guidelines in our statute books guiding the way these other private businesses and their owners behave. Why should the business of cattle rearing be different?
From our findings, the owners of these herds of cow are not the herdsmen that we see. The owners are the big and the mighty in the society across all divides.
This is where the secret behind the crisis lies.
The present approach to cattle rearing is an indirect way of providing an undue and undeserved subsidy to these private businessmen.
History has it that in the early days of this country, there were cattle ranches in different parts of the country. The first of these was the Obudu Cattle Ranch in the South South. There was the Mokwa ranch in the northern region. And there was the Akunnun ranch in the western region. We grew up to know a cattle ranch in Kabba that was under the management of Ahmadu Bello University College of Agriculture, Kabba.
The herds of cow in these ranches were robust and good looking as they did not have to do the life-sapping, energy-draining cross country journey.
The ODA strongly recommends that the state government and the federal government take necessary steps urgently to reactivate these ranches and encourage cattle owners to set up more ranches where possible for their private use.
Ranches will create more economic opportunities and benefits for the state and the country as it will encourage others to go into the business of providing feeds for these animals. It will reduce tension between the herdsmen and farmers. It will make the application of modern technology possible and easier. The herdsmen themselves will be able to train their children in schools for a better future for them, and such other benefits
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ODA will like to appeal to the state government to, in future, take into consideration, through adequate consultations, the long term overall interests of its citizens above any other interests in all its decisions and actions
Again the ODA emphasises that the Okun people are naturally very loving peaceful and accommodating.
The state government must help us to remain so.
Thank you.
Barrister Femi Mokikan
National President
Pastor Ben Ayo Abereoran
National Secretary
Okun Development Association (ODA)
