By Usman BulamaSIR: With a litany of daily woes, one is already inured to news of violence and mayhem across the country. The decade-old Boko Haram is not abating; so are the bandits of the Northwest, and the age old skirmishes in the Middle Belt. Bad news is all that is available for the ears to hear; and as the abnormal becomes the normal then it is no more a news. Therefore, when one heard the recent feuds involving Fulani herders and residents of the Southwest, one only saw it as news because the Southwest has managed to hold sedate and calm while the rest of the land is boiling.The latest conflict however, must not be viewed as unique or an isolate from other herder/farmer conflicts. The Fulanis being pastoralists and engaged in transhumance for centuries have for long traversed the West African region up and down in search for pasture. In the process they have had conflicts with almost all sedentary farmers because the later quite genuinely detest cattle destroying their farms while foraging. As frequent as these clashes were, in the past things were sorted out amicably between the two groups as resource constraints werent as tight as they are now. And the relationship between farmers and herders could be so cordial that they engaged in trade by barter. Farmers supplied grains to the Fulanis, while the later gave out milk and butter in return. But times have changed, and no thanks to the ballooning human population with consequent shrinkage for lands to till and some taken away for developmental purposes.Besides, climatic factors made once fertile lands transform into deserts. Hence, the feud between sedentary populations and the foragers got amplified due to the severe decline of natural resources. Worst, even as food production dwindled, the little yields were not spared by the herders. The more the lands up-north got barren, so did the number of Fulanis fleeing southwards. While Fulani populations are still ubiquitous amongst the northern and middle belt areas; their population in the south swelled rapidly. What more, the Boko Haram conflicts and the frequent clashes in the Middle Belt have all fuelled Fulani incursions into the south.The fact that sedentary farmers in the south started witnessing unprecedented Fulani migrations than they ever knew was alarming to them. Naturally, there was going to be conflict; and the conflict went beyond the normal herder/farmer feuds. Fulani cattle were rustled and in turn most of them got impoverished. In the circumstance, the once serene and placid Fulanis moving through the bush with his cattle, and every tribes favourites for cracking jokes became wild and carried AK 47 guns to defend himself and his cattle. Some of them either buoyed by the guns they hold or out of frustrations that they have lost their cattle to rustlers became kidnappers. With these developments the state was set for the violent conflicts that occurred in Ibadan and other places in the south.Be that as it may, and even plus the consequent killing of Fulanis, their cattle, and the arson on their dwellings; what was worst is the ethnic profiling that every Fulani is a criminal!That those they are grouped together with as Hausa/Fulani; or other tribes from up north with similarity in culture were all targeted makes issues more complicated.And ditto; there is no rationality in the consequent embargo of food supplies from the north to the south; or the threats by the later to embargo its own supplies to the north. The north and south are in a symbiotic relationship and their economics are interwoven such that partnership and trade if disrupted is to the perils of both regions.The salient issue that must be addressed is the failure of government and its institutions to plan ahead and implement measures that would forestall such untoward troubles. Twenty or thirty years ago, government must have noticed the increasing population, declining natural resources and potential exacerbation of feuds over natural resources. And, even when such plans are put in place the failure to implement them due to ineptness, inertia and corruption makes such plans to fail.One example suffices, the River Basin Authorities established in the 1970s were meant for food security along with adequate plans for livestock fodder that would have curtailed Fulani migrations. Alas, all the River Basin Authorities are now comatose or near comatose. And this failure, along with other dysfunctional plans brought us where we are and trouble spews all over.Usman Bulama, Main Village, Maiduguri.
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