Herdsmen Discover Banks

When you see a herdsman at the bank, do not panic. He came to make the manager smile, not to attack him.

This is a development I receive with mixed feelings, brought about by two factors: kidnapping and unrest.

Discussing with my herdsman few days ago, he said herdsmen that have many herds of cattle are reducing them to just one or two in order to escape attracting kidnappers and the hardship associated with limited grazing fields.

Before any other person, the crimes of robbery and kidnapping have for a long time hit the herdsman most hard. “Bagco” sacs are dropped at their homes by armed robbers who demand that they be filled with money before a deadline. In the absence of security, the old man has no choice but to comply. The demand is commensurate with the number of herds or heads of cattle the herdsman possesses.

Their daughters especially are also carted away for ransom and there is nowhere to run for help. The herdsmen sell a number of cattle to reclaim the poor girls, who often return badly raped and mentally damaged. They are not from Chibok, neither are the robbers Boko Haram. Hence, their story goes untold.

Earlier, the ethnic cleansing campaign against Muslims - and the herdsmen in particular - in the Middle Belt has affected herdsmen drastically. Despite the recent effort to defend themselves in many places, the size of their herds has been a big source of depression for many of their elders who cannot find sufficient land to graze peacefully. Reserves that served as sanctuaries for them have been distributed by many governors to their supporters and godfathers. The remainder few are dilapidated with silt filled dams and other abandoned husbandry and veterinary structures.

The herdsmen look at the horizon, as Nigeria slips into a failed state, but can hardly can they see a ray of hope. The best that this government could offer them, as it does to other Nigerians, are promises of “grazing colonies” and other dreams. The option of ranching which the elites suggest is still far-fetched given the absence on ground of even the preliminary ingredients to adopt it.

While others will cry aloud, the herdsmen suffer in silence because complaint is not part of their culture. But as all humans, survival is. Hence, naturally, they are beginning to find a way out of their problems themselves. Though not revolutionary enough to adopt my idea of abandoning their “masters” completely, their marriage to the bank manager, nevertheless, will ultimately lead to that.

Disposing of the cattle will presently delight the butcher, who will buy a cow cheaply and sell the meat at the same rate per kilo. Some others will celebrate the impoverishment of the Fulani herdsman. The victory, for the two, and for the gullible who bought the dummy of the killer herdsman, will however, be pyrrhic.

The present glut of beef if sustained will lead to its shortage in the long run. “A time will come,” I told Ali the butcher this morning when he came to discuss the sale of some cows I want to curl, “when the butcher will travel between Jos and Bauchi looking for a cow to buy but he won’t find one.” The price of beef will become so high that only exceptionally few people will enjoy it, may be between N6,000 and N10,000 per kilo. Ali suddenly became worried. I patted his shoulder and said, “Do not worry; you will find cows but from a different genre of herders.”

The elites will take over the business, with their outlandish concept of ranching. As government increasingly abdicates from providing subsidies and essential services like security, each cow will reach maturity only after sucking, possibly, a thousand dollars or so. If Malam Ali would buy from them, he must be ready to pay for a price in multiple of the present N80,000 average. And if you would approach him with N1,200, do not expect to get more than few pieces meat, instead of the full kilo that you can get now. That is if the likes of Ali still survive in the business because he is likely to be overtaken by elites who will establish their private slaughter houses. Ali the butcher may then not have the chance to smile anymore. Both him and his present herdsman partner have been dispensed with.

There would not be thousands of live cows for Nigeria to slaughter everyday at a cheap price. The herdsman who has been subsidizing beef for Nigerians would become wiser. He would no longer sleep with an eye opened, alone in the harsh weather of the savanna forest, away from social amenities and among hostile neighbours. He would be a settled man, partaking in the few virtues of sedentary life and diving into the ocean of its evil. He will, as did earlier settled cousins, enjoy the glamour of city life, the taste of scholarship, the benefit of artisanship and the gain of entrepreneurship, just as he will indulge in robbery, murder, drugs, kidnapping, “419” and baby factoring. Then he may even be civilized enough be found among the enslaved Africans in Libya. From his small hut and pristine life in the forest, his progeny will transform into an international figure that would be reckoned with in both crime and virtue.

Before the water of the beef and dairy industry finds its level, the country must contend with importing beef worth billions of Naira annually - in hard currency, something it is now relieved of thanks to the subsidy coming from the herdsman.

It is doubtful if that leveling would be achieved in a short while. If security continues to deteriorate and government continues to pay lip service to the livestock sector, then ranching itself will become impossible. That impossibility is already manifest in the Northwest as armed rustlers ransack hundreds of established farms in the past few years. “I do not want to see even a horn now,” one of the victims of those raids told me early this year.

The livestock sector is in for a serious unavoidable crisis. However, government, if serious, can still mitigate its effect. It can midwife a transition from the present free range rearing to cluster grazing by reviving its present grazing reserves and using them as centres for large scale genetic improvement and sensitizing the herdsmen on new husbandry techniques; improve animal security through tracking techniques and modernize regulations on animal movement and marketing; combat the menace of kidnapping and robbery; reintroduce robust veterinary services; provide subsidies for essential feeds and veterinary drugs; etc. Demanding as these measures would be, they are by far cheaper than using millions of hard currency annually in importing beef when the market of oil may no longer be there.

Meanwhile, let the herdsman continue to sell off his cows and deposit his money in the bank as others do, buying a house to settle and keeping only a herd or two nearby. Let Ali the butcher also bask in his huge returns from the present glut of cows in the market, and let us all smile that the “killer herdsman” is on his way to extinction. 😁😁😁

While we do all of the above, let us not forget that our children and grand children may pay for beef and a liter of milk through their nose in a society that will be less secured than ours. That is the life we have deliberately chosen for them. Bravo! 👏👏👏

That is why I said initially that the Fulani discovery of the bank comes to me with mixed feelings. As I celebrate his emancipation from the forest, I regret the difficulties ahead for my nation and the generations to come. They may enjoy alternative energy and electric cars but they will not enjoy beef at N1,200 a kilo. 😞

Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde
22 December, 2017