By Yusuf, M.A
In a political culture saturated with rhetorical excess and policy evasions, Distinguished Senator Sunday Steve Karimi has offered Nigeria something rare: a coherent, principled and intellectually grounded intervention on one of the most explosive security questions of our time—the urgent need to end open grazing. His position is not only defensible; it is unassailable when placed against global evidence, constitutional logic, and the lived realities of Nigerian communities.
Across comparative jurisdictions, from North Africa to East Africa, from Brazil to Botswana, livestock management has long transitioned from nomadic mobility to structured ranching. This shift did not occur because these countries hated tradition; it occurred because they loved survival. Senator Karimi’s reflections from Morocco—where hundreds of kilometres of highways host no wandering herds—reveal what governance looks like when a state takes its responsibilities seriously.
Open grazing survived in Nigeria not because it is efficient, but because the political system rewarded sentiment over science. Empirical studies consistently show that the farmer–herder crisis is one of the deadliest internal conflicts in West Africa. Reports by the International Crisis Group and Nigeria’s own security agencies acknowledge that rural banditry, kidnapping networks and armed militias exploit unregulated cattle mobility as logistical cover.
This aligns with Senator Karimi’s argument: ending open grazing is not cultural warfare—it is national defence.
The constitutional logic is equally compelling. Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution frames the security and welfare of the people as the primary purpose of government. Open grazing, which has produced mass displacement, agricultural decline, communal violence and economic devastation, is fundamentally incompatible with that mandate. No state can claim constitutional loyalty while enabling practices that destroy the very citizens it is sworn to protect.
Senator Karimi also speaks to a deeper philosophical point: governance requires courage. Nigeria is not too poor to ranch; it is too hesitant to reform. Countries with far smaller GDPs and weaker infrastructure—Niger, Rwanda, Malawi—have successfully transitioned away from open grazing. If they can do it, Nigeria’s refusal becomes a failure of will, not of capacity.
For Kogi West, Senator Karimi’s intervention is a badge of honour. He demonstrates that representation is not about echoing convenient narratives but confronting dangerous illusions. By situating his argument within comparative evidence and constitutional duty, he elevates the conversation from emotional theatre to policy intelligence. This is exactly the kind of leadership Nigeria requires at a moment when insecurity is accelerating and the agricultural sector is suffocating under the weight of preventable conflict.
The Presidency must treat this as more than an opinion piece; it must treat it as a legislative call to action. Modern ranching is the only viable pathway that simultaneously protects herders from extinction, shields farmers from attack, enhances national food security, and dismantles the forest-based criminal economies hiding behind cattle movement. No serious country entrusts its rural security to unregulated mobility. Nigeria cannot be the exception without paying the catastrophic costs we are currently witnessing.
Karimi’s argument is strengthened by evidence and sharpened by moral clarity. The longer Nigeria delays this transition, the more lives will be lost, the more farmlands destroyed, and the more difficult it becomes to restore public confidence in the state. Ending open grazing is not a political favour to any constituency—it is an existential necessity for the republic.
Leadership, as Professor Chidi Odinkalu often argues, is the capacity to disrupt the predictable failures of a system. Senator Karimi has disrupted Nigeria’s comfort with denial. And as Professor Farooq Kperogi constantly insists, truth in public life must be defended with clarity, courage and evidence. In this intervention, Senator Karimi embodies both traditions.
Nigeria stands at a threshold. One pathway leads to continued bloodshed, collapsing food systems and expanding criminal frontiers. The other leads to order, productivity and national security. Senator Karimi has pointed the country toward the only rational option.
The time for ambiguity has ended. The time for decisive policy has come.
– Yusuf, M.A., PhD is a lecturer, researcher, and public policy analyst, and a key strategist with the Kogi Equity Alliance (KEA). He writes on governance, equity, and democratic development.
Email: moooahmad@yahoo.com
Phone: +2348023856226
