OPEN GRAZING PROHIBITIONS AND THE POLITICS OF EXCLUSIVIST IDENTITY IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Livestock have played a pivotal role in the development of human civilizations around the world and continues to play the same role in the present day local and global economy. It has done so by increasing the amount of food and nutrition available to people in four ways – by being a rich source of protein food, fertilizer and by pulling plows. It has also been a good source of raw materials for the leather and clothing industry as well as providing employment to those who keep it. According to [chambers, 1966], the growth of animal husbandry, including greater use of manure from livestock as fertilizer was the first of four factors that contributed to the agricultural revolution that ended the cycle of dearth and hunger that afflicted Europe for centuries. If the above views are correct, then it is imperative that society both at local and global levels must find a way of maintaining a steady production of livestock. In Nigeria like in other parts of the world, livestock keeping is known to all cultures and groups since ages and the need to provide food of crop and animal origin to meet the ever growing demand of its increasing population has often resulted in opening up of lands hitherto uncultivated. The industry constitutes a very important national resource with a great deal of untapped potentials. This derives from the fact that the country enjoys a tropical climate with distinct wet and dry seasons – a feature that makes it conducive for plant and animal food production. However, due to high population and overcrowding, agricultural production (both for animal and crop food) has intensified. Due to this kind of population-driven agricultural intensification, encroachment on farm lands that were hitherto left uncultivated for natural regeneration of the soil nutrients are fast disappearing, so also are grazing lands which have traditionally provided dry season grazing to pastoralists. Herding of animals or pastoralism, though practiced in other parts of the country, at least at subsistent level, is a major preoccupation of the Fulani in Nigeria. According to [Alhassan, 2013], the Fulani own over 90% of the nation’s livestock population which accounts for one-third of agricultural GDP and 3.2% of the nation’s GDP and so their contribution to the local food chain and national food security cannot be over-stressed. By constituting the major breeders of cattle, the main source of meat, the most available and cheap source of animal proteins consumed by Nigerians, they indisputably represent a significant component of the Nigerian economy. According to [odoh, 2012], the Fulani are undoubtedly the largest pastoral nomadic group in the world, herding goats, carmel, sheep, horse, mule and cattle. With their dominance in the Sahel region, they are the best known and most numerous of all the pastoral groups in Nigeria [Alhassan, 2013]. A typical Fulani herdsman keeps and sustains his herd through open grazing. This open or pastoralist system involves young men who do labor intensive herding while the women engage in culinary services, cook and sell animal products in the market, [Olayoku, Dimelu, 2017] According to [blench, 2010], one of the striking aspects of pastoralism in Nigeria is the contrast between its actual complexity and the simplified representations usually made of it. An important aspect of the nomadic Fulani pastoral group as a social unit is that permanent habitation is usually not a cultural trait. Camps are shifted frequently in the dry season and less in the wet season [Awogbade,Nze 2015] reckoned that the Fulani, by their culture, tradition and occupation, have remained an itinerant race who never owned lands nor had any permanent abode. In fact, they cared less about land ownership because they are always on the move. They simply lived with their cattle wherever there was abundance of fodder and absence of tse-tse-fly. This type of grazing has often meant travelling long distances from one point to the other and thus intruding into spaces long claimed by settled farmers and has become the source of potential conflicts between them and the sedentary farming population [Olaniyan, 2015]. As an occupation, they rear different species of cattle, such as the Keteku, Muturu, and Kuri, but the Zebu is identified as the most common [Awogbade 1987]. Fulani pastoralists pasture or graze their animals in the uncultivated wetlands during the dry season but with increasing population, leading to agricultural intensification and encroachment as well as factors imposed on them by changing climatic conditions especially in their traditional abode in the Sahel region and the advent of dry season irrigation projects, they have been denied access to this dry season grazing resource. These factors have imposed on them a southward migration to where the grass is much greener. Arising from this migration and other factors, roaming cows, sheep, and goats, scavenging around school playgrounds, golf courses, government residential areas, street shoulders, and railway sidings both at nights and during the day, have become common sights in our cities. They hinder traffic flows, endanger human and vehicular road users, and exacerbate city congestion, and most often, cause fatal road mishaps. In addition to all these, they mess up the ground and bring flies and stench. Our country’s news space have lately become awash with skirmishes between what has come to be known as the migrating Fulani herdsmen and the locals over cattle rustling, damage to crops/farm lands and pollution of the environment, including village streams that serve as the only source of water to the people. These conflicts are mostly prevalent in North Central Nigerian States of Taraba, Nasarawa, Plateau, and Benue where, according to [Awogbade, 2015], conflicts resulting from open grazing of cattle actually accounted for 35% of all reported crises between 1991 and 2005.

Following the resolution of the 17 governors of the Southern states banning open grazing of cattle in the three geopolitical zones in the South, no fewer than eight states are now set to enact anti-open grazing law to give legislative backing to the governors’ pronouncement, THIS DAY’s investigation has revealed. Some of these states include: Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Enugu, Edo, Imo, Ogun, Delta and Anambra. However there have been stiff resistance on the prohibition of open grazing from some quaters in the country stating that it is not right for the governors to prohibit open grazing as the pastoralist are allowed to carry out their business in any part of the country. since the prohibition on open grazing some  northern politicians have been speaking against it by saying every Nigerian citizens have the right to live anywhere and carry out their business not minding that the activities of some of these herdsmen affect the farmers in their host community. And this has also caused insecurity to be at an all time high in the country . trying to exclude the herdsmen from the prohibition on open grazing not minding the insecurity that came along with it says a lot on the exclusivist politics played by some politician in Nigeria.(T. Duyile)

1.2 Statement of research problem

The prohibition on open grazing in some region in Nigeria has been met with many positive reviews from fellow countrymen and it has also met with negative reviews from  some politicians especially the ones from the northern part of Nigeria. Stating that the right to live and carry out business operation in any part of the country has been infringed upon. And also that different measures should be carried out to solve the issue of insecurity instead of placing a ban on open grazing. Playing politics of exclusivist by some politician in the Northern part of the country has made citizens put pressure on their various leaders to place a ban on open grazing this is because  they are at the receiving end of the problem open grazing have caused ranging from killing and maiming  of farmers, destruction of farmers crop, burning down the houses of people who oppose them from grazing on their farm , raping of women on their farms , fear of loss of lives and property to the herdsmen, and also kidnapping.  These are some of the problems associated with open grazing  and  will be discussed in the study

1.3 Objectives of the study

The primary objective of the study is as follows:

1.     To find out the reasons why open grazing was prohibited.

2.     To find out why  politics of exclusivity is been played in Nigeria.

3.     To find out the acceptable way open grazing can be limited.

4.     To proffer an alternate  solution to open grazing in Nigeria.

1.3            Research questions

The following questions have been prepared for this study:

1.     What are the reasons for the   prohibition of  open grazing?

2.     Do you think anti grazing law has been unsuccessful because of  the  politics of exclusivity on  the herdsmen in Nigeria?

3.     Do you think building of private ranches can  limit open grazing?

4.     Do you think there is a solution to open grazing in Nigeria?

1.4 Significance of the study

The significance of this study cannot be underestimated as:

This study will examine  open grazing prohibitions and the politics of exclusivity identity in Nigeria.

The findings of this research work will undoubtedly provide the much needed information to government organizations, political parties, NGOS and academia.

1.5 Scope of the study

This study intends to examine open grazing prohibition and the politics of exclusivity in Nigeria.  The study is delimited to GUMA local government area in Benue state  and as such will be used as a case study.

1.6 Limitations of the study

This study was constrained by a number of factors which are as follows:

 just like any other research, ranging from unavailability of needed accurate materials on the topic under study, inability to get data

Financial constraint , was faced by  the researcher ,in getting relevant materials  and  in printing and collation of questionnaires

Time factor: time factor pose another constraint since having to shuttle between writing of the research and also engaging in other academic work making it uneasy for the researcher

1.7 Operational definition of terms

Open grazing: this is the age old practice of roaming ruminant animals in open fields, plains and bushes in search of pasture or foliage

Prohibition: the action of forbidding something, especially by law.

Politics of exclusivity: is the practice of being exclusive, mentality characterized by the disregard for opinions and ideas which are different than one's own, or the practice of organizing entities into groups by excluding those entities which possess certain traits

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