Mr President, you upset me last week Monday during the commencement ceremonials of the food security and agricultural mechanisation programme in Niger State. You said you would fix the farmer-herder crisis in three weeks off the cuff.

I expected you to focus only on the laudable project of the Niger state government that is expected to “focus on the deployment of technology for large-scale agro-value chain development” similar to what Seyi Makinde, Oyo State governor has started.

Dabbling on the very controversial farmer-herder crisis is the least I expected from you. An exhortation of the rest governors in the country to emulate Makinde and Umar Bago by spending government money on productive activities would have been proper. 

Two threads can be discerned from your Niger outing. One is an acknowledgement of the “economic sabotage for roaming cows to eat up the crops and vegetation of our lands”. Two is the need for re-orientation of the herders and provisioning for ranching by soliciting lands from the governors for grazing.

If the farmer-herder crisis was simply one of encroachment, one could say it is solvable for the reason that solutions have been proffered since Nigeria’s independence. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late sage and former premier of Western Region, once prescribed a two-way economy for animal husbandry, especially cattle rearing.

Instead of roaming the entire Nigerian landscape, recommended abattoir domiciled in the north where cows can be slaughtered for consumption and moved, using air-conditioned containers by rail transport, to the south of the country; and correspondingly, haul back fodder to the north for feeding of the cows. Simultaneously, it engenders specialisation and harmonious exchange.

Today, even in the face of climate change, the sage’s prescription sounds reasonable. Truth be told, all the cows roaming the Nigerian space are not owned by the peasant Fulani but by members of the Nigerian ruling elite, namely, serving and retired generals, traditional rulers, and government officials among others. It is predominantly a private business, these businessmen and women can be persuaded to acquire land for ranching. Period.

The problem goes beyond the picture painted abroad. The problem is that of land grab by non-Nigerian Fulani in the Nigerian territory, goaded by their kith and kin, who dominate the governing class armed with a blueprint of take-over of the country, a country of indigenous people who by nature are territorially segregated.

Under the Buhari administration, this sinister plan was put into play and has met fierce resistance from Nigerian nationalities in the Middle-Belt, West, East, and South-south of the country. Some state governors started to pass anti-grazing bills into law. Partisans of the land grabbers, such as former Vice President Abubakar Atiku promised to reverse the trend by creating RUGA in every state upon being elected president of the country. 
 
Mr. President, recall that the occupation plot has taken the form of Grazing Bill, Cattle Colony, RUGA, later disguised as the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP), and the National Water Resources Bill, and was resisted respectively by Nigerians. In 2021, Benue State gained attention as a killing field of herdsmen. About 19 out of 23 Local Governments were affected by attacks by Fulani herdsmen resulting in the loss of lives, property and a huge population of Internally Displaced Persons put at about 483,692 persons (see Governor Samuel Ortom’s letter to President Buhari, February 18, 2021).

How would you account for the ruthless and relentless massacre of Nigerians in the Middle-Belt States that climaxed on December 23 to 25, 2023, killings in Bokkos and Mangu Local Governments of Plateau State? Therefore, it is tactically wrong to dabble into this issue, and I hope this is not about 2027 general elections. 

Mr. President, your Niger declaration is not different from the NLTP project. The latter, a partnership between the federal government and the states, farmers, pastoralists, and private investors, was designed to run from 2019-2028 with the assistance of the National Economic Council.

States like Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba, and Zamfara had bought into the project. The Netherlands government had even injected €400,000 into the project. Professor Yemi Osinbajo, then vice president of the country, sought to re-assure the nation of its good intentions.

He argued that the NLPT programme was unlike RUGA settlements introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture that created the fear of land seizure. Nonetheless, The Guardian, in its editorial of March 11, 2021, noted that “animal husbandry is a private business, public investment is not abhorred. State governments are free to create commercial farms but not one that is being imposed via dubious sponsorship by the federal government for a particular ethnic minority to occupy indigenous spaces and locations across the country”.

Furthermore, the editorial noted that “For a complex country like ours, controversial Policies seeking to aggrandise a particular group must be avoided; more so as it runs against the grains of federalism. In an ideal federation, the central authority could give grants to component units willing to invest in any venture beneficial to its people and the country in general. But sectional interest aimed at changing the national demographics for aliens cannot work in this country.

Restructuring to meet the substance of a federation that the founding fathers arrived at through various constitutional conferences before independence should be prioritised at this time than parochial policies bound to fail”.  

Mr. President, for your information, it took the likes of General TY Danjuma, Olusegun Obasanjo, Rotimi Akeredolu, and other vocal ethnic nationalities to save Nigeria from internal colonisation. Indeed, Danjuma vehemently advised the victims of herdsmen to arm themselves while alleging complicity by the Nigerian Army in the atrocities.

The scheme is by no means over. Please note that Nigeria, plagued by dire existential issues, is in an emergency room. Your duty is to provide intensive care, turn around the fortune of the naira, refine petrol locally and bring the price of petroleum products down, and deal with security challenges traceable to alien infiltration of our country. Regarding your public speeches, you need to be guided by your handlers, sir.