Concerned by frequent clashes between farmers and herdsmen with grievous effects on cropping and livestock farming, the Federal Government recently considered the establishment of ranches to minimise the movement of cattle.
Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, who announced the decision, said that 11 states had offered 55,000 heactares of land for the ranches.
Although the key stakeholders –farmers and the herdsmen — express different views on the government decision, governments at all levels, non-governmental organisations and corporate bodies have continued to enlighten the public on what is expected from the stakeholders.
Analysts observe that most of the fora had focused on addressing and allaying the fears, uncertainties, anxieties and mutual suspicions among the herdsmen and farmers.
For instance, Search for Common Ground, a non-governmental organisation organised what it described as high-level dialogue on grazing reserves in Jos recently to address the perceived fear by the stakeholders.
The dialogue brought experts, government officials, conflict managers, community leaders as well as herdsmen and farmers to have a common ground and create the needed understanding of any policy that would end the crises.
Setting the theme of the dialogue, Mr Shamil Idriss, President of the organisation, likened the mutual disagreements and distrust to the circumstances that led to the U.S./Vietnam war which led to the establishment of the organisation in 1982.
He observed that the intervention of the organisation and its activities through enlightenment in key areas of communication and search for common ground ensured the end of hostilities.
“We must seek and emphasise common grounds; the herdsman and farmer must be made to see, and work on common areas that unite them towards the goal of promoting peace for the benefit of their individual selves and the society,’’ he said.
Noting that a key part of peace building was to keep the process steadily ongoing, he pointed out that conflicts were normal in every setting.
“Conflicts are normal; we should never be scared of them. But violence is not normal and only crops up if we cannot control conflicts through dialogue to search for common grounds.
“There are fears, suspicion, anxiety and mutual distrust; these are natural in view of every human being’s survival instinct. They are natural reactions to any perceived threat to what one is used to.
“Peace building is certainly not easy. It is like breaking stones – tough, but inevitable,’’ he explained.
Corroborating Idriss, Mr Joseph Lengmang, Director-General, Plateau Peacebuilding Agency, emphasised the need to sustain the path of dialogue to resolve issues amicably.
“Plateau needs to work out a legacy of peace. We must promote mutually beneficial relationship between herdsmen and farmers by searching for common grounds and emphasising the gains of togetherness,’’ he said.
He called for more interactions via marriages, cultural performances and more stakeholders’ meetings where fears would be addressed and every issue tackled before it resulted in crisis.
Also, Gov. Simon Lalong of Plateau, said that the clashes between the farmers and herdsmen had remained a major area of concern for his administration.
He said that the state had yet to take any decision as to whether or not to establish ranches or grazing reserves.
He, nonetheless, said that the state had set up a 14-man committee to examine the issues involved and advise government, insisting that the state would be guided by the technical advice of the committee.
Prof. Garba Sharubutu, Chairman of the 14-man committee and President of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria, who shared his team’s findings with the audience, described the ranches idea as good.
“The minister of agriculture has told us that it is the local community that will rule the ranches.
`He has told us that we must involve the local communities in whatever step we take to minimise situations where animals could invade the ranches leading to the confusion and violence we have been trying to avoid,’’ he said.
Sharubutu emphasised the need for mass education to check apprehension, misinformation and rumour mongering, stressing that there was palpable fear, even among herdsmen, that ranches would “arrest’’ the cattle into one area and deny them their “right to freedom of movement.’’
He, however, suggested that the Ministry of Justice in Plateau and private lawyers should be involved in the planning of the ranches so that the rural community would know the legal implications of the policy and ensure that all interests were protected.
In her opinion, Dr Vivian Iwar, Head, Livestock Department of ECOWAS, said that the Nigerian government must “recreate and regulate’’ the livestock system if the ranches policy was to succeed.
“We have left so much undone for a long time; there are many challenges we did not prepare for, like the climate change that has thrown the herdsmen into wandering around the forest without any pattern in the search for grass and water.
“Sometimes, one feels very sorry for the cows that suffer through thick forests and have to cope with all manners of insects, disease, wild animals and all manners of weathers.
“If Nigeria does not regulate the sector, we shall fail because ranches are not in themselves the solution.
“They are only a path to the solution and required a much broader approach and strategy to reach the promised land,’’ she said.
Iwar emphasised the need to establish a policy where the crop and livestock farmers could cohabit and work together towards a symbiotic relationship since the herdsmen needed the grass, while the farmers needed the cow dung as manure.
“We must emphasise such mutual benefits and let the farmers and herdsmen see the need to work together rather than working at cross purposes,’’ she said.
In his contribution, Prof. John Wade, Director-General, Plateau Bureau for Research and Development, challenged stakeholders to work toward a successful establishment of the ranches.
“When we conducted a painstaking research on the violence in Plateau, we found that out of the 52 causes of the violence, half of them bordered on open grazing.
“We therefore started looking at how to tackle the persistent conflicts between farmers and herdsmen. We found that grazing reserves were obsolete and opted for ranching,’’ he said.
On the issue of security, Plateau Deputy Governor Sonni Tyoden, said that each ranch would have its security outfit made of trained members of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
“So, people using the ranches have nothing to fear. The cows, the herdsmen and the farmers will be well secured to avoid rustlers and clashes,’’ he explained.
In spite of this, Alhaji Nura Abdullahi, Chairman, Plateau chapter of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) said: “We prefer the grazing reserves and will never accept ranches until we are fully convinced.’’
He regretted that no one had taken the pain to speak directly with the Fulani on the ranches policy even when they would be more affected by it.
Alhaji Nafiu Bayero, who supported Abdullahi, said: “The Fulani man is generally seen as an insurgent, a killer and a criminal.
“Unless we erase that impression in the minds of the average Nigerian, no policy on cattle rearing can succeed.’’
Participants at the forum, nonetheless, agreed that the dialogue must be sustained with more efforts to convince MACBAN and other skeptics that the establishment of ranches represented the best effort towards ending herdsmen/farmers clashes.
