It is retired Lt. General T.Y. Danjuma who once observed that Nigerians are typical copy cats. That once they observe that someone or a group has made a success of any venture, they all move in droves to that venture whether or not they have a calling, passion or the necessary training and skills for it.
In the course of my adventure into agriculture, I have discovered that the retired General’s observation is spot on. I noticed that in my community- the Bekwarra of northern CRS- there has arisen ‘native or indigenous Fulani’ who rear cows as a business or side business in addition to their main businesses of politics, trading or civil servanting. I don’t know which of the villages it first started in but it is generally held to have started in Gakem, and has now spread to other parts of the LGA. Some prominent and not so prominent members of the community now think it is either fashionable or being business savvy to fatten cows and sell, especially during the many festivals or burials when demand for cows is at its peak.
And I hear it is becoming a trend across the entire nation. Many people you see leading cows all over the place to graze now are not necessarily the original Fulani; no, they are your brothers and uncles who have taken to the latest lucrative business in town. I am told that it takes less than 20 thousand Naira each to acquire a reasonable calf that in three or four months you can fatten and it can then sell at about N60,000. In the Nigeria of today very few businesses can give you such a handsome return. And so Nigerians are now becoming ‘Fulani’ men keeping cows and causing all the problems which the original Fulani cattle breeders are known to cause for the Nigerian federation.
These men raise the capital and some do recruit the ‘original/real’ Fulani from states in the North to come and do the actual grazing of the cows in the way we know Fulani men to do. Others make the money available and recruit unemployed youth who are trained to move the cattle about to graze. The Fulani come and live in the community and in the homes of their masters to do the business. Some of the Fulani recruitees have stunned their masters or business partners by running away with the cattle!
As is the case with the real Fulani herders, these new and indigenous cattle men are creating a lot of problems in our community. Their cows eat up people’s crops and the people do not like it at all. The new cattle owners forget that people resent the Fulani not because they are Fulani. They do so because the way they earn their living is at the expense of other people.
Like the real Fulani do, the native Fulani are not any different. Once they commence business of cattle rearing and the community people begin to complain about the harm the cows are doing to their farms, these native Fulani proceed to bribe the traditional authorities, local politicians and the vocal members of the community and buy them over to their side.
The Fulani, whether original or indigenous, are parasites who live on the sweat of farmers which explains why while the Fulani become richer and richer and can acquire money to buy sophisticated guns to defend themselves or to mount offensive to scatter villagers so they can more easily possess their lands, farmers become poorer and poorer every day.
Many idle person in the big cities talk angrily about the rising cost of food crops. None of them bothers to find out why in spite of this so-called rising prices of foodstuff, farmers are still the wretched of the earth. One of the reasons is the ugly activities of Fulani of all hues, whether native or autochthonous.
The Fulani are despised, hated and resented not because of their physique or their ethnic origins but mainly because of the pain they visit on the indigenous people. We must solve the Fulani problem of this nation. If you must rear cows, have a fixed address where you conduct your business. Do not roam around killing and seeking which farms to destroy. We farmers resent that.
The rise in the number of native Fulani is a good example of the observation that when you permit one evil it reproduces after its kind. Since the original Fulani have been allowed to operate with impunity, the native Fulani are following in their footsteps.
As I have now discovered, farmers have been too docile. My dream is to one day see farmers embark on a warning strike to protest the injustices farmers face all over the country especially in the hands of the various Fulani who torment their lives. Farmers are the unsung heroes of Nigeria. No farmers, No nation. People do not depend on cattle rearers for their food needs; they depend on us farmers. Our nation will have a serious problem on its hand if we farmers decide to provoke hunger as well as suffer hunger a bit for the sake of making our point.
If President Buhari leaves office in 2o23 without addressing this ‘Fulani problem’ I will consider that his greatest failure. Farming will not be meaningful if cattle rearers are not regulated and compelled to rear their cows in ranches. Insisting that Fulanimust be federated and permitted to roam wide is a great disservice against Nigeria.
Nobody is against anybody rearing cows. What we demand in the interest of peace, harmony and the socio-economic growth of Nigeria is that anyone who chooses to fatten cows should not do so at the expense of farmers. Let such persons buy land and do their business without incurring the wrath and resentment of other stakeholders in the community.
