Ban On Open Grazing Divides The Senate. Can Opposing Northern Senators Turbo Charge The Race Against Poverty In Their Region ? Yes, But..
The Oasis Reporters
June 8, 2024
Video depicting how cows devastate farmlands in Isoko North LGA of Delta State and render/ push farmers into poverty and destitution. Yet some northern Senators insist it must be their own way of life. Watch:
Events in the past few days in Nigeria’s Senate saw the jostling match between northern Senators from the Middle belt (most of them, Christian agrarian farmers) lined up against their far north counterparts (many of them, muslim cattle herders).
The bone of contention was the issue of open grazing of cattle.
Deeply quiet but largely concerned Senators from the South with clear alarms written on their faces, were watching.
Yet generally speaking, the federal lawmakers were divided over a bill seeking to establish a National Animal Husbandry and Ranches Commission which has passed second reading in the Senate.
The bill, sponsored by Senator Titus Tartenger-Zam from Benue State, proposes ranching as the sole viable alternative for cattle breeding in Nigeria and aims to end herder-farmer clashes nationwide.
However, far Northern senators opposed the bill, arguing that it infringes on the constitutional right to freedom of movement by confining pastoralists to their states of origin.
While the bill was being debated, a far northern Senator, one time governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo was having the constituency project of water provision for the people of Gombe state he initiated, being commissioned.
It was a clear sign that politics apart, the north holds the key to its prosperity, but playing to the gallery seems to be an endgame, while killing human beings for the cow to live in an archaic kind of life continues. They seem not to appreciate the commonsensical solution of solving the endemic problem whereas they have the solution in their hands.
Titled “A Bill for an Act to Establish the National Animal Husbandry and Ranches Commission for the Regulation, Management, Preservation, and Control of Ranches throughout Nigeria, and for Connected Purposes, 2024” is the matter for passionate debate.
Senator Adamu Aliero opposed the bill, arguing that it violates the constitution by restricting herders’ movement.
He stated that as Nigerians, they should be allowed to move freely within the country.
Aliero urged that the clause limiting ranches to herders’ states of origin be removed.
Despite efforts by some Northern senators for the bill to be stepped down, it was rejected by the sponsor, Senator Titus Tartenger-Zam, who insisted on a vote, which resulted in the bill passing its second reading.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe noted that Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso introduced the bill in the 8th Senate, but it failed to pass.
He emphasized that ending open grazing requires re-examining the law that gives states control over land ownership.
Abaribe stressed that state government consent is crucial for progress on ranching, and the Land Use Act must be addressed to resolve farmer-herder clashes.
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe expressed the view that the bill could be a solution to the clashes between farmers and herders if properly managed.
He recommended the amendment of the constitution and the Land Use Act to simplify the management of lands within the respective states.
Former Gombe State Governor, Mohammed Goje, and Senate Committee on Sports Chairman, Suleiman-Kawu, shared concerns that the bill is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
They argued that restricting herders to specific locations violates their constitutional rights and will compound existing problems between herders and farmers.
The reality on ground shows the play to the gallery of the Senators who know the right thing to do but prefer to look the other way while voicing the seemingly correct things to ensure their correctness before their voters.
See what Senator Dankwambo did.
In a release sent to The Oasis Reporters, Dankwambo’s legislative assistant, Abu Ubaida said:
“Dankwambo has installed solar security lights across the 5LGAs of Gombe North and provided boreholes in various communities in Dukku Local Government Area to ensure access to clean water.
He breaks the long-standing record phrase “Babu Ruwa a Dukku” (no potable water in Dukku) by providing boreholes in many locations such as Waziri North at the emir’s palace, Jamari, Zange, etc”.
The greatest problem in northern Nigeria is the lack of water, further exacerbated by climate change. Northerners are mostly into animal husbandry. Without water, animals die and this ruins the economy of most families.
The north has a large expanse of land. There are local governments in the north that are larger than states in the south, especially the South East and the South south. Therefore the South with little land is densely populated, to the extent that towns are building up to merge with neighboring towns.
In the 70s for instance, there was a distance between Oleh (headquarters of Isoko South local government and the next town, Irri within the same LGA. Forty to fifty years later, both towns have merged. One would hardly know when he leaves Irri to Oleh or Vice versa.
But the North still has vastly uninhabited land. But less surface water. The South has enormous amounts of surface water.
With worsening climate change and improvements in the treatment of trypanosomiasis (tse-tse fly caused disease that kills cows with sleeping sickness), all cow herders want to migrate to the south with their wide bodies cows, causing the same environmental damage they used in destroying Katsina State and turning the once fertile state into a desert.
The South and Middle belt states are agrarian farmers. The gross indiscipline and spite the cattle herders exhibit in their relationships with aboriginal citizens of the South and Middle belt has led to farms being completely annihilated, leading to hunger and wars of attrition in the belts concerned.
The argument by the cattle herders is that they must get water anyhow, even if they shoot people dead with their rifles. Arguments of their senators seem to be helping them a lot.
Whereas the commonsensical solution and approach is there. And they know it. If the north where the cattle herders are from is drying up with no surface water and green grass, water is underground. By an accident of geography, it is far cheaper and far easier to drill a borehole and get clean underground water in the north than in the south.
To drill a borehole in Ibadan South West Nigeria for instance can cost between one to two million naira. Or more.
But it may cost about a hundred thousand naira or slightly higher with adjustments for inflation in the north. I do not have current figures here now.
Drill these boreholes using solar powered water pumps for water to gush out and the north with it’s rich and fertile soils would sprout forth luxuriant green grass for the cows to eat.
Problem solved.
It is also possible to cause a new cold room industry to emerge with refrigerated cold room trailers, plying the roads transporting meat to markets in the south.
Or in the alternative, using the phone technology to be calling in truck drivers with live cattle to come. This idea of constantly over-populating the South with millions of cows that must look for grass to eat, thereby destroying farm crops is asking for big trouble.
Deep anger against this archaic practice might tempt the South to line up behind the new technology of lab based meat production using a cell based method to produce meat faster, better and cheaper without feeding cows with grass and water.
It will knock out the need for cows. As GSM replaced Nitel in Nigeria, horses and camels gave way to automobiles and people travel faster with airplanes, the cattle industry would soon find itself without buyers. Then the nuisance value they hate to tame would disappear on it’s own.
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
