“A Fulani is a Fulani everywhere. If you think that a Fulani man from Nigeria is different from a Fulani from Mali, Cameroun, Futa Jalon, Senegal, etc, you are deceiving yourself,” the National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo said in an interview recently.
While commending President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for creating the Ministry of Livestock Development, he called for the opening of all grazing reserves across the country and Fulani should not be denied entry into Nigeria.
Bodejo explained that Fulani people are migrants who move in search of grazing land and water and cannot be tied down to a place without grasses and water.
Speaking further, he said that due to the insecurity challenges in the country, Nigerians Fulanis are leaving the country to other countries like Chad, Niger, Cameroun and others, and may likely remain there for several years. He said that they are not being prevented from migrating to those countries.
According tom him, “A Fulani is a Fulani everywhere. If you think that a Fulani man from Nigeria is different from a Fulani from Mali, Cameroun, Chad, Futa Jalon, Senegal, etc you are deceiving yourself. What I want Nigerians to understand is that Fulani who are bandits or carrying weapons are criminals and they shouldn’t be allowed to cross our borders to enter into our country. If a Fulani man is not a criminal, he shouldn’t be stopped from entering into Nigeria.
“We leave Nigeria and migrate to Senegal, Mali, and other West African countries and nobody stops us, so, in the same way, nobody should stop any Fulani man from other African countries from coming into Nigeria so long as he is not a criminal.
“Fulani is Fulani anywhere. We need justice and recognition and our rights given to us. We distance ourselves from other Fulani that don’t have regard for law and order.
“Because of the insecurity in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi, our people are leaving those States to Chad, Niger, Cameroun etc and they may stay there for maybe five years or more or less, and when peace returns to those States they would migrate back. You can’t deny them from migrating to other countries, in the same manner, you can’t deny other Fulani from other countries from coming into Nigeria so long as they are not carrying weapons or they are not criminals.
“Fulani people are migrants; they move from here to there. It is very easy, and it won’t take more than one year to solve the Fulani problem. Just give him a place where he would be rearing his cows, where there are grasses and water. No matter how good a place may be, if it doesn’t have grasses and water, you can’t tie down the Fulani man there no matter the level of security you put to prevent him from leaving the place.
You can’t stop a Fulani from migrating, it is our culture. Before, there were cattle routes from local government to local government, state to state, and international routes from Niger to Senegal to other countries. All the cattle routes are there if you see the map. Abuja- Kaduna road was a cattle route.
Now, you see very rich people, who made their money from government, buy about tens of thousands hectares of land and just fenced it. Nobody can go and farm there and cattle cannot go there and graze there. The government should revoke such land titles so that the villagers would see land to farm and herders would see places to graze their cattle.
Bodejo believes that with the new ministry, cattle rearers will be given needed attention alongside farmers.
“There is a Ministry of Agriculture, which is supposed to be for farming and cattle rearing, but what they are interested in is crop farming, while cattle rearing is relegated. During the government of President Buhari, huge sums of money were given for crop farmers, especially for rice, but nobody remembered cattle rearers. With this new ministry, so much attention would be paid to cattle rearing. If a herder has any problem or challenges, he knows where to lay his complains,” he said.
He appealed to President Tinubu to open all marked grazing reserves and carve out across the country.
“What I want the federal government to understand is that there are already some marked out grazing reserves in some places. They should carve out a place for them in every state and put them there. There is supposed to be a grazing reserve in every state.
” The problem is that people’s minds have been poisoned against us. Some of these grazing reserves are gazetted, while others are not. In the previous government, they were singing of RUGA, cattle colony, ranching, and grazing reserve, etc, however, there was no action taken, but now, action has been taken without any noise. So, Tinubu’s name is now President Action. He has done something that is very good. He should put facilities in those grazing reserves that were created by the colonial masters and put the herders there and let them continue with their lives. Nobody wants problem.
“You see people trekking from Adamawa to Enugu by road, some of them are in their late 70s, some are teenagers and infants. These people need to be settled in one place. Build school for them for them to acquire education, put medical facility, install electricity there. I don’t think that any herder, who later graduated, would start thinking of wielding Ak-47 gun to go into cattle rustling or other criminal activities.
“About 65 per cent of our youth don’t have jobs. You see a Fulani man with 33 children and they have only 25 cows to rear, how can they survive? If they were educated, some of them would go into civil service; some will go into various vocations.
God will continue to bless President Tinubu. This good work that he has started, he should go ahead to complete it, not minding the voices of the opposition. Some uninformed people would begin to say that the federal government would start taking their lands. Land belongs to the states and not the federal government. It is the state governors that have the power to allocate land. Any state governor that wants to solve these farmers-herders clashes can just create a place to settle herders.
“It is very difficult for a Fulani man to stay in one place, but now, things have changed. That is why we are educating and we will continue to enlighten them on this new development. That is why we say that Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, the Fulani socio-cultural association, is ready to support this new ministry wholly.
“If the federal government through this new ministry settles the herders in one place in each state where they have facilities for their cows to feed very well and see water to drink. This new development would come with its own challenges as it will be difficult for the herders to adapt or accept to stay in one place, but it is our responsibility to educate them to understand that the society is changing.”
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