Land-Use Conflict: Ending the Scourge of Cattle Herders and the Looming Food Crisis in Nigeria.
Introduction
The victory of Cattle is the defeat of Grain. There’s an obvious corollary to this; the defeat of grain is the beginning of hunger. Hunger, as history has shown, is the harbinger of social unrest and class conflicts in any civilization. Take it or leave it, the pride of herders, as well as the systemic public menace of a privileged few, specifically the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), is a denial Abuja cannot sustain for too long. It’s packed with unimaginable repercussions. Therefore, ending the reign of terror in our agrarian communities and the indiscriminate destruction of commercial cash crops by cattle herders is the beginning of wisdom necessary for ending the looming food crisis in Nigeria.
The Scope of the Crisis
The emerging nationwide food shortage is inexorably linked with nationwide insecurity, especially in the Middle Belt region – the food basket of Nigeria. The traditional Middle-Belt farmers, the vibrant youths, and the vigorous hands that service the soil with a historic passion have deserted their ancestral homeland – on the move and in search of a new beginning across Niger.
In their abandoned homeland came the beneficiaries of the brutality of unknown soldiers – the marauding forces who pledge no allegiance to green-white-green, but in totality, bent on unleashing a most horrendous form of savagery on helpless native landowners.
Murder they wrote and killing they preach with a conquest resolve to vanquish anything standing for Cattle to reign. It’s a pattern, dating back to pre-independence. Thanks to the timidity of Nigerian leadership in confronting the lawlessness and conquest mission of MACBAN, there is no end in sight to the food crisis.
Following the Christmas Day massacres in two local government councils in Plateau State (Bokkos and Barkin Ladi), the President stated: “These envoys of death, pain, and sorrow will not escape justice.” They did escape justice. As I write, I’m not so sure there is anyone among the hundreds of the Jos Murderous Mission who has been apprehended or facing prosecution today. They are never caught. They enjoy absolute immunity.
The failure of members of law enforcement to respond in commensurate brutality and fish the perpetrators out of hiding was how this administration demystified itself of any semblance of military strength. Inadvertently, they established in the minds of potential kidnappers, bandits, and invaders a narrative of docility when a fast and furious counter-offensive is required.
Now that the Cattle and the Herders are winning and new settlers have begun their nomadic exploits unmolested in the conquered communities, new unrest has just begun, not from the displaced landowners, but the usual beneficiaries of state largesse. They need grains, they need bread, and they need them now, fast, and free. Otherwise, the unpredictable will happen, warned the Sultan of Sokoto a few days ago.
Moving Forward
Until President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his security team accept the disturbing truth and begin to confront kidnappers, bandits, land grabbers, terrorists, and armed herders as the real enemies of peace in Nigeria that must be defeated by any means necessary, this country will not know peace.
To ensure sustainable victory in its war against enemies of peace in Nigeria, our Armed Forces must begin to purge itself of the enemies within its ranks and files. The enemies within are predominantly the so-called redeemed members of the Boko Haram sect and other ex-convicts, alleged to have served their time in jail that President Buhari embedded into our security apparatus in the name of integrating them into the larger economy.
As long as these imported foreign elements remain within our armed forces, we should simply say bye-bye to confidentiality, trust, and a sense of esprit de corps within the Nigerian Armed Forces.
There are officers within the Nigerian Armed Forces who harbor no loyalty to the Nigerian nation-state, but wear the uniform only to earn wages and ensure the continuous destabilization of Nigeria by marketing strategic confidential security information to enemies of the state.
Have you ever asked yourself how terrorists could invade communities, inflict maximum casualties, and disappear into the tin air without being caught, or why counter-attacks from the military have never been fruitful? The military must first heal itself.
Conclusion.
The more unchecked the scale of conquest missions, indiscriminate killings, and kidnappings for ransom in the farming communities in Nigeria, the more we will continue to experience a massive exodus of native landowners and commercial farmers from their farmlands. The consequence of that is the disappearance of basic food items in our markets nationwide. Thus explaining the inevitability of social unrest. Much as the reality of the moment calls for more hands in the rich vegetation of the Zamfara and the Benue/Plateau axis, we cannot overstate the urgency of the dismantling of the excesses of MACBAN and the prosecution of members of its armed wing.
Barr Alex Ehi Aidaghese
Port Harcourt, Rivers State
