Date Published: 03/14/10

NIGERIA IS NOT THE GRAZING LAND FOR NAGE PASTORAL NOMADS By Farouk Martins Aresa

What happened in Jos last year, yesterday, today will happen again tomorrow while leaders play deaf and dumb as if we do not know the brains behind it. This greed for others’ farmlands to graze cows threatens all of Nigeria farmlands. A fanatic, who gambles with his own life because he values cows and cattle more than women and children, sees nothing sacred about the life of others. The reason the nage pastoral nomads is pertinent is the incessant killing of women and children as if we still live in centuries gone by. While the Hausa have been very accommodating, other Northerners especially Christians in the North and South have not been so complacent. The so called Fulani demand rights in any community nobody dare asks for in theirs.

You prevent encroaching desert by afforestation and reforestation. Stop running southwards or risk creating equally fatal formidable resistance. There is no reason to turn the whole of Nigeria into grassland for some nomads, into farmland for some farmers, oil-farm or fishpond for some fishermen. In the 21 st century, cows and cattle are raised scientifically and the whole of Argentina has not become a grazing land for some nomads. Raising cows, fish farm, corn or cassava is not to fall back to centuries old method of some nomads only related by one drop of blood claimed by some descendants to distinguish themselves from Africans.

We have to be frank with ourselves in Nigeria, Hausa farmers has consistently suffered in the hands of the nomads for ages. Yet Nigerians hardly protested because Hausa themselves rarely complain beyond villages and states where it is quickly nipped in the bud. The tolerance of some few Fulani that are dead and gone by Hausa has to do with conversion to Islamic religion. Acceptance of the religion has led to the forbearance of their descendants that have less than one drop of Fulani blood but behave as if they are still full blooded Fulani.

The real issue is between farmers and nomads. Hausa farmers suffer as much from the hands of the nomads like other ethnic groups. However, the other ethnic groups are not as submissive as Hausa to nomads grazing their cows into established farmlands. It is only in Nigeria where these nomads enjoy unprecedented wave of arrogance and power in spite of their limited number. In the neighboring Niger Republic, where Hausa also outnumbered the Fulani nomads, their power and arrogance are curbed and confined to grazing land.

There are few countries where so many people are dominated by so few. Not even in Togo, Ghana Benin or Chad and Niger where their leaders recruit mercenaries. Yet these few are tolerated by the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo who are the main ethnic groups in Nigeria. They are so much into Hausa bloodline; most Nigerians refer to them as Hausa/Fulani when in fact the Hausa farmers and talikawa suffer as much as other Nigerians. Fulani people hardly have anything in common with the descendants of Nok, Iwo Eleru, Igbo Ukwu but they do with the Arabs.

Those who do not consider themselves Africans because they have some drops of foreign blood in them must leave Africa in peace to where they considered home so that the rest of us can breathe and live in peace and harmony. Some Nigerians claim affiliations to ancient Arab, Israel, Egypt and Japan. Though Africans are very accommodating, rejects of other civilizations cannot pollute ours with their pastoral greed. By labeling others Kaferi or anti-Christ, they acquire the religious, social and economic power to dispossess others of life and liberty. Without them, we have enough of our problem to settle. Why additional alien despicable acts?

Acceptance of the religion has become a domineering tool to acquire economic, political and social power in the North. But it is not limited to the North, a good example of the repetition of the tolerance of Hausa for Islam, is vividly displayed in Kwara and other parts of Nigeria. Case in point is the Saraki that originated from Niger Republic. With less than a drop of Fulani blood left in them, they have used religion to dominate the economic, political and social fabric in Ilorin. A lesson learned from the time of Alimi before them. 

The same process is exactly true about the Christians. They came with religion and turned it into economic slave trade. Today, Christian social life is the way of life in most of the South just as Islamic social life is in most of the North. Some of us fail to see the connection between religion and power to label and control the destiny of others they have to degrade as subhuman.

This is why nomads with their Fulani one drop of blood roam about the Country, even to the Southern part grazing their cattle as if the whole Country belongs to them. The impunity comes from their religious dominance in the North which has bestowed political and economic power on them. Whenever they cannot get their way, they resort to religious power and call their opponents kaferi. Then each time we have ethnic riot in the North, it is over grazing land that does not belong to them but arrogantly, they think should have a free reign.

Religion is not new in Africa. There were Hausa Maguzawa, Igbo Chi and Yoruba Oduduwa before there was ever Jesus or Mohammed. The Christian crusade and Muslim jihad for gold and farmlands have no love for Africans as they always relate to where their great grandfather originated from. We are proud of our African heritage as farmers and must not be dominated by a few pastoral nomads encroaching on farms in the tradition of Christian or Islamic religion.

Until they bow in loyalty as Nigerians, instead of where they will never be accepted, these foreigners-miss-roads would not allow Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Ibibio, Jukun, Edo, Ijaw , Berom etc to enjoy what we have in common as Africans. Africa or Nigeria will never see peace as long as we have arrogance of birth in foreign places germinating in on African soil through one drop of blood, one seed or a religion with impunity. The way they claim other people’s land is the same way they steal others’ resources to their western and eastern admirers, resulting in the highest form of corruption in Africa.

We are struggling to get out of the darkness we were plunged into for centuries because of the same greed, but we are back to self interest of a few taking us to another long slumber in the wilderness. The amount of bile and barbarity displayed in the slaughter of our children and women mirrors the ancient ethnic and tribal wars before international slave trade killed African Continent, where civilization had spread to the rest of the world.

We know them but nobody is bold enough to call them to order because they hide under the religious canopy of Muslim versus kaferi or Christian versus anti-Christi. If anyone does not fall into their line of religion which is the easiest way into their line of thinking to achieve dominance, that person must be eliminated. Religion is the trap, dominance is the goal. It is no different from Christianity that came to save the non-believer from their local religion.

Our leaders know this but the political and religious power is so interwoven, disentangling it is like a time bomb in the face of whoever is brave enough to confront it. So no matter what the politicians say or how many commissions are formed, these riots will happen again tomorrow. We have to call a spade a spade and stop dancing around the solution. The days of crusade and Jihad are gone. What is left is political with economic realities covered by religious wrap to fool those of us that are naïve.