My take on Fulani herdsmen

Sometimes in June, the internet was filled with news of killings purposefully perpetrated by the Fulani herdsmen in Plateau state. Today, opinions, planned actions on how to forestall a similar thing from happening seem to have subsided. And like we always do in Nigeria, other news (mostly irrelevant to the lives of the people) has actually occupied us.

For the sake of non-Nigerians by the way, Fulani is a tribe from the Northern part of the country who are not just nomadic in nature, but predominantly rears cattle for a living. People of obscure origin who abides not only in Nigeria but also in other countries like Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina faso, Ghana, Benin, Cote d e voire and Cameroon.

On the caption list of ‘Information Nigeria’s web page however, you’ll be amazed at the long list of news on Fulani-related killings like;

·         Ondo police arrests armed Fulani herdsmen.                    

·         Herdsmen attack NNPC officials  in Benue State.                         

·         Fulani herdsmen stab driver to death in Ondo state.

·         Herdsmen attack primary school teachers in ogun state.

·         Herdsmen burn down 22 hectares of cassava and rice plantation land.

·         Robbery on ayetoro roads by Fulani herdsmen.

·         Herdsmen kill police officer in Benue State.

·         Herdsmen kill pregnant woman in Ekiti State, etc.

Sad, is it?                                       

For as long as I could remember, the Fulani people are never a peaceful guest to their host communities. It is always a case of being at loggerheads all of the time and their host communities? Oftentimes crop farmers. The reason is not far-fetched by the way. Fulanis are often Cattle-rearers and they are fond of not making efforts at stopping their Cattles from feeding on the crops of their hosts. Farming, usually being the source of livelihood of the latter.

And in as much as I am always skeptical about writing on very sensitive issues like this one, especially one that might portray me as being very sentimental, maybe a nepotist, I pledge to remain objective.

You obviously cannot beat the fact that an average Fulani herdsman is particularly an ignoramus who transacts his cattle business regardless of whose ox is gored. And as long as his cattle are able to feed on seeming green grass which could be the cassava leaves on the farm of a crop farmer, or a maize that is  due for harvest, he would be content. But then these are sweats of others regardless. Needless to say that they are quite defensive, a group of people who are quick to bring out weapons at the slightest provocation.

                                   

It is a common knowledge to all that a Fulani man could kill a hundred human just to save the life of a cow. Such that a supposed graduate of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), equally a Fulani man with the facebook profile  ADAMU EATHER JAURO publicly declared on his timeline in the peak of the plateau killings that;

“ I values the life of my 300 cows to 3 million useless peoples’.

 He had written in his incoherent English.

Meanwhile, an Honorable of the Federal Republic representing Dukku/Nafad Federal Constituency of Gombe State,  Hon Aishatu Jibril Dukki, a Fulani too, confirmed in one of the interviews she granted during the plateau crisis that the  Fulani values their cows, even to their own lives.

 I could not agree less, as I even re-affirmed this fact when I was a neighbor to the Fulanis during my University education days.

 My landlady way back in school, (I stayed off campus) was elderly. She relied on rents as a means of survival. Mama once lamented the rate at which most students weren’t forthcoming with payments. Angrily, she gave the student-defaulters a quit notice only to rent rooms to Fulani herdsmen, people who newly migrated into town particularly that year. Six months rent was all they paid after which they forcefully chased mama away whenever she comes around for rent. It was like that for almost two years before they migrated again.

That is not even the crux of the matter. Bringing to light the interpersonal relationship I had with them and their perceived personae. Somehow, I became very good friends with Fatimah, the first daughter of the eldest Fulani man in my neighborhood who though was married off already, sneaked back home to her mother in her pregnant state. We were about the same age group and she speaks very fluent Yoruba (my language) because they had migrated to the South Western part of the country since she was a toddler.

My closeness to them reaffirmed the myth making rounds on the love they have for the survival of the lives of their cattle over theirs. One day, Fatimah’s father lost one of his cows to an unknown illness and this man refused to be consoled for a few days. His daughter even told me that he wept profusely when he had to dispose the dead meat eventually. He also spends so much on the survival of the animals, which he considers his wealth (obviously) but never dropped a dime for his daughter’s ante natal sessions.

 One time, when Fatimah was in her last trimester, she started convulsing in the middle of the night and at a point she went numb and we concluded she was dead. Her parents were beginning to get in talks with their kinsmen around on how to prepare her for burial before dawn, albeit too suddenly for people like us to understand when she again jerked back to life and had to be rushed to the hospital. Surprisingly though, her father couldn’t bear to keep his own daughter in the hospital for more than two days, proffered that she should be returned home to him to start taking local concoctions instead.

A telltale sign to how he values his own daughter’s life to his cows.

Fulani’s lack of exposure to civilization, coupled with a high level of illiteracy is the major factor why they have adamantly refused to dump their unreasonable and archaic ways.

So, as long as they would stop at nothing to feed their cattle with green grasses cultivated by hardworking farmers, farmers would always want to retaliate and reprisal attack would always be inevitable. Do we need now preach dissociation to forestall future blood lettings?