Anthony Iwuoma
An amalgam of Fulani socio-cultural organisations in Bauchi State, under the aegis of Daddo Pulaku, has demanded that it be given 4 per cent of the state’s total landmass, as contained in the list of gazetted and ungazetted grazing reserves in the state, saying that is the panacea for ending ceaseless clashes between herdsmen and farmers.
The demand is contained in the memorandum signed by the group’s chairman, Muhammad Aminu Tukur, on behalf of other leaders of the associations and submitted to the administrative committee of inquiry set up by the Bauchi State government to look into land disputes in the state.
The Fulani group urged the state government to fully implement the state Castle Routes Law of 2018, which bars cultivation on both sides of all major roads in the state by 30 metres from the drains, arguing that the herders faced intense and increasing hostility.
It lamented that in those LGAs, some village heads and land officers are not only apportioning grazing reserves and cattle routes to themselves but also selling the same to individuals.
According to Daddo Pulaku: “It is our candid opinion that our people suffer most in the hands of village heads, district heads and greedy lands officers in the LGAs,” and urged the committee to visit even one of such cattle routes in any part of the state to confirm the veracity of its claim on apportioning and sale of grazing reserves and cattle routes.
The Fulani group, while submitting that a permanent solution should be found to the conflict between farmers and herders in the country, declared that farmers/herders’ conflict could degenerate into more violence, bloodshed and be a threat to food security.
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Furthermore, it said: “It is our opinion that for a permanent solution to the escalating conflicts between farmers and herders in Nigeria as the most pressing security challenge of our time which has the potential to degenerate into more violence, bloodshed, arson and destruction of the most needed essential food items we have in both crop production and animal husbandry, urgent steps must be taken by the government to check the tide.
“The federal system we are operating to this moment has vested most powers in the hands of the Federal Government by having an upper hand in the security arrangement in the country, having the police and armed forces under its command.
“It is never too late to start from the scratch by inculcating mass literacy, civil education and sensitization of the citizenry to appreciate one another most especially among farmers and herders.”
