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The National President of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo has said that those opposed to the new Ministry of Livestock Development are benefitting from the crises between the herders and farmers.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the Lamido Fulbe, who spoke for the first time after his detention for over four months, by the Department of the State Security (DSS), while showering encomiums on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for creating the ministry, called on him to open up all the grazing reserves across the country.
He also said that theaAssociation has started enlightening the herders to be ready to adopt to the new life style and challenges that the new ministry might throw up.
What was the reason for your arrest and detention by the Department of State Security (DSS)?
Yes, the DSS arrested and detained me for over four months. Thank God we have a law and constitution in the country. I’m a Muslim and I believe that everything that happens to me has already been designed by God. My ordeal in the hands of the agents of the state is to me a blessing from God. It was because of this vigilante issue in Nasarawa State, which I have already put behind me.
What was your experience while in detention?
You can’t compare any place where security agents will keep you with your house; it can’t be the same thing with your house. If you believe God, it is part of test. This is the first time I agreed to talk to any journalist. While in detention, they treated me well; they interrogated me deeply. They asked me so many questions and I told them what happened. They didn’t manhandle me; but nothing can be compared with your home.
The federal government has created the Ministry of Livestock Development. What is your view on this?
That is a welcome development. It is what I have been pursuing for almost 12 years now to have the farmers and the Fulani herdsmen conflicts resolved. We started pursuing this issue since the government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to create this ministry to take care of the Fulani cattle rearers. It was a great surprise for me when I heard about it on Tuesday. Not only me, all the Fulani people in Nigeria are very grateful to President Bola Tinubu because what he has done is the only solution to end these clashes.
Tinubu is a listening president; he has good plans for Nigeria and is prepared to deliver them to Nigerians. I believe nobody can poison his mind to stop the good work he has started.
We pursued this during the time of Goodluck Jonathan, but we didn’t get any result. We continued to pursue it during the time of our Grand Patron, President Muhammadu Buhari, but we didn’t get headway. I believe Tinubu has very good advisers and he listens to them and some other stakeholders across the country. We are grateful to Tinubu. I just came out of a meeting of Fulani elders, and they all are happy about this development. We are going to support its implementation to the fullest.
Do you see this as the blessing arising from your detention as you said earlier?
Yes. This is what I have been preaching and fighting for. After spending between four and five months in detention and came out to behold this, which is making my people to be very happy, I should count it as blessing. Like I said earlier, my detention was God’s making; I didn’t kill anybody, I wasn’t involved in robbery. Maybe, to the security agencies, the vigilante that we established was not right, but the Nasarawa State governor, other securities agencies in the state and myself didn’t see what the DSS saw.
I don’t want to comment further on my ordeal. Even many journalists have asked me to talk but I refused. The blessing is this new ministry for our people. I’m one of the Fulani rearing cows in the bush.
Some people are opposed to the new ministry; they argue that it would further embolden the herders to do more harm that they are doing presently. What is your take on this?
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If you want to do something good in Nigeria, don’t listen to every voice. Even as a president or governor, if you want to construct a road or build a hospital in any community, you would see some people would come out to oppose it, even though it would benefit the people.
Those opposed to this new ministry are the people who don’t want the Fulani in this country. Some people whose minds have been poisoned by the rubbish the social media are publishing against the Fulani people. But this is the best thing to happen to the Fulani in this country. It is something that will bring solution to our problems with farmers. Those opposed to this new development are benefitting from the crisis between the herders and farmers.
The opposition argues that it means to bring in Fulani from Mali, Niger, Senegal, Cameroun etc into Nigeria and they begin to cause problems. How do you address that?
A Fulani is a Fulani everywhere. If you think that a Fulani man from Nigeria is different from a Fulani from Mali, Cameroun, Chad, Futa Jalon, Senegal, etc you are deceiving yourself. What I want Nigerians to understand is that Fulani who are bandits or carrying weapons are criminals and they shouldn’t be allowed to cross our borders to enter into our country. If a Fulani man is not a criminal, he shouldn’t be stopped from entering into Nigeria. We leave Nigeria and migrate to Senegal, Mali, and other West African countries and nobody stops us, so, in the same way, nobody should stop any Fulani man from other African countries from coming into Nigeria so long as he is not a criminal. Fulani is Fulani anywhere. We need justice and recognition and our rights given to us. We distance ourselves from other Fulani that don’t have regard for law and order. NBecause of the insecurity in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi, our people are leaving those states to Chad, Niger, Cameroun etc and they may stay there for maybe five years or more or less, and when peace returns to those states they would migrate back. You can’t deny them from migrating to other countries, in the same manner, you can’t deny other Fulani from other countries from coming into Nigeria so long as they are not carrying weapons or they are not criminals. Fulani people are migrants; they move from here to there. It is very easy, and it won’t take more than one year to solve the Fulani problem. Just give him a place where he would be rearing his cows, where there are grasses and water. No matter how good a place may be, if it doesn’t have grasses and water, you can’t tie down the Fulani man there no matter the level of security you put to prevent him from leaving the place.
You can’t stop a Fulani from migrating, it is our culture. Before, there were cattle routes from local government to local government, state to state, and international routes from Niger to Senegal to other countries. All the cattle routes are there if you see the map. Abuja- Kaduna road was a cattle route.
Now, you see very rich people, who made their money from government, buy about tens of thousands hectares of land and just fenced it. Nobody can go and farm there and cattle cannot go there and graze there. The government should revoke such land titles so that the villagers would see land to farm and herders would see places to graze their cattle.
This new ministry will be like RUGA, cattle colony or grazing reserve?
There is a Ministry of Agriculture, which is supposed to be for farming and cattle rearing, but what they are interested in is crop farming, while cattle rearing is relegated. During the government of President Buhari, huge sums of money were given for crop farmers, especially for rice, but nobody remembered cattle rearers. With this new ministry, so much attention would be paid to cattle rearing. If a herder has any problem or challenges, he knows where to lay his complains.
With this new ministry, doesn’t it mean a particular area in every state will be carved out for the Fulani herders?
Yes. What I want the federal government and the implementers to understand is that there are already some marked out grazing reserves in some places. They should carve out a place for them in every state and put them there. It is going to be a good thing. There is supposed to be a grazing reserve in every state. The problem is that people’s minds have been poisoned against us. Some of these grazing reserves are gazetted, while others are not. In the previous government, they were singing of RUGA, cattle colony, ranching, and grazing reserve, etc, however, there was no action taken, but now, action has been taken without any noise. So, Tinubu’s name is now President Action. He has done something that is very good. He should put facilities in those grazing reserves that were created by the colonial masters and put the herders there and let them continue with their lives. Nobody wants problem. You see people trekking from Adamawa to Enugu by road, some of them are in their late 70s, some are teenagers and infants. These people need to be settled in one place. Build school for them for them to acquire education, put medical facility, install electricity there. I don’t think that any herder, who later graduated, would start thinking of wielding Ak-47 gun to go into cattle rustling or other criminal activities. About 65 per cent of our youth don’t have jobs. You see a Fulani man with 33 children and they have only 25 cows to rear, how can they survive? If they were educated, some of them would go into civil service; some will go into various vocations. It will be good for them and the society. This is a simple thing. God will continue to bless President Tinubu. This good work that he has started, he should go ahead to complete it, not minding the voices of the opposition. Some uninformed people would begin to say that the federal government would start taking their lands. Land belongs to the states and not the federal government. It is the state governors that have the power to allocate land. Any state governor that wants to solve these farmers-herders clashes can just create a place to settle herders.
Will this new ministry bring an end to open grazing?
It is very difficult for a Fulani man to stay in one place, but now, things have changed. That is why we are educating and we will continue to enlighten them on this new development. That is why we say that Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, the Fulani socio-cultural association, is ready to support this new ministry wholly. If the federal government through this new ministry settles the herders in one place in each state where they have facilities for their cows to feed very well and see water to drink. This new development would come with its own challenges as it will be difficult for the herders to adapt or accept to stay in one place, but it is our responsibility to educate them to understand that the society is changing.
The Tinubu campaign team visited you during the electioneering. Was this ministry part of your demand to get your support?
We have supported many presidents in the past. It’s not everyone that you have supported that would even remember to do what you had requested of him. This current president has a good cabinet and they know the issues about Fulani people. It has been our expectation and we are grateful to Tinubu that he has brought it to pass.
