By Tawfiq Abdullah
At the peak of the clashes between Fulani cattle herdsmen and farmers across the country over the destruction of farmlands during the grazing of cattle by the Fulani pastoralists, President Mohammed Buhari’s administration introduced the cattle colony policy. The Nigerian public backlashed the policy. Attempts by the federal government to find an enduring and peaceful solution to the cattle rearing problems have been stymied since then.
The adverse reaction from the public was expected because the policy was goofy from the planning stage, both in communication and policy analysis.
The word “colony” elicited the ugly, perhaps ambivalent memories of colonialization of Nigeria under the British rule. Colonization is the occupation of peripheral territories by a powerful central government. It is dated back to ancient civilizations. The Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians colonized regions for farming, sourcing of raw materials, trade and other reasons.
Fast forward to the modern era, we had European countries like Britain, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, and later the United States in the 18th century that colonized Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
Colonialism through the ancient time, the medieval period, and to the modern time have one thing in common. Some aliens come into territories of locals seeking land for settlement. After being granted some initial space, they overran the locals, claimed more area, and dominated their land, socially, economically and politically.
Labeling a policy as “colony” in the 21st century Nigeria is, therefore, tactlessly framed. The policy was inadvertently designed to receive pushback from Nigerians. Neither did the overbearing attitude of Fulani herdsmen who had recently taken to militarism to flourish their cattle business helped the situation, nor the indifference of the Fulani-man-led federal government to the herdsmen’s excesses.
Cattle colony is not a new idea. It is initially a Pakistani invention, and it still has the "colony" appellation as practiced in Pakistan till the present time.
Pakistani society is homogeneous and close-knit than Nigerian society. There are more similarities among the people than what differentiates them. They have more things in common than what separates them. It is a predominantly Islamic country with about 96.4% of its population as Muslims. Other religions are less than 4% of the population. There are fewer ethnic groups in the nation compared to Nigeria. About sixty languages are spoken in the country with Urdu as lingua franca and English as the national language.
The high homogeneity that distinguishes Pakistan makes it a fertile ground for cattle colonies because there are little differences among its population culture-wise. The differing minority can be subsumed under the dominant majority without a snag in the polity. Cattle colony was established there with little or no friction.
The implementation of cattle colonies in Nigeria would not be a walkover for Buhari's administration and any other after it because Nigeria is different. The Nigerian society is highly fragmented. Nigeria has over five hundred ethnic groups and languages, including the major ones. There are diverse religions in the country with Christianity and Islam being the major ones.
The heterogeneity of Nigeria is vast and cultural divergences are enormous. The pushing of the federal government to have the presence of cattle colonies in all thirty-six states would not sit well with all segments of Nigerian society because of the inherent cultural diversity that defines Nigeria.
What is the way forward?
Communication must be integrated into the core of policy formulation in the country. In the public and private sector, communication is strategic and professional communicators should be allowed to polish the communication aspect of government policies. The government realized this late as seen in the Agriculture Minister’s thread of communication flip-flop on the policy of cattle colony as he has been giving it different names: ranching, grazing settlement, cattle colony and recently dubbed it National Livestock Transformational Plan (NLTP). From Audu Ogbe’s analysis of NLTP, it is the same thing as cattle colony as practiced in Pakistan.
The NLTP can only succeed if there is symmetric communication among all the stakeholders in the cattle business. For the newly renamed cattle colony to work out, the federal government must climb down from his high horse, invite the states, local governments, and traditional institutions concerned to the roundtable for negotiation. Everyone concerned must negotiate on a leveled pedestal. They must negotiate from the same level of power. Each one’s fears and concerns should be heard and taken care. Every stakeholder’s opinions must be received and mutually respected in the policy formulation and outcome. The end must be a win-win for all parties.
The federal government needs to be sincere in intention. The cattle colony policy and the recent version, NLTP, look more like a hoodwinker to grab the land of other ethnic groups for the Fulani group. It is more suspicious and vexing with the fact that the government is headed by a Fulani man. This is a government whose security council is a Fulani-dominated one. The policy is perceived as both an attempt to beguile and use superior political power to dispossess other ethnic groups of their land.
The sincerity of intention must translate to a clear policy. Clarity is important to avoid suspicion, brick walls, and conflicts in the way of policy formulation and implementation, especially a sensitive one as cattle rearing. Audu Ogbeh said in his analysis of the NLTP that herdsmen would be allowed to move their cattle from one colony to the other. Nigerians want a zero-tolerance of cattle movement in the open as in civilized climes. This is the reason for the call for cattle ranching, and the federal government must respect the wishes of the people.
The federal government does not need a blanket policy or law to solve the constant clash between farmers and pastoralists. Nigeria is a federation, and the peculiar differences of the federating units should be considered in policy matters. We do not need cattle colonies in the thirty-six states of the country. Some states have kicked against it in consideration of their local interests. The federal government should respect states and local governments’ preferences.
Where the states have accepted to have a cattle colony located in their territories, a one-size-fits-all and rigid approach should be avoided. Each states' preferences as enshrined in the state's grazing law must be respected.
The cattle colony idea would have been achieved with a decree in the military era but the principles of democracy the country is currently practicing make it impossible for one segment of the country holding the reign of power to lord it over others.
It is commendable that we are emulating a working model as the cattle colony from the master of the game, Pakistan. While copying and pasting good practices from other countries, we must learn to copy and paste with discretion and in consideration of our local peculiarities.
Let’s be smart!
Tawfiq Abdullah
About Me
At the peak of the clashes between Fulani cattle herdsmen and farmers across the country over the destruction of farmlands during the grazing of cattle by the Fulani pastoralists, President Mohammed Buhari’s administration introduced the cattle colony policy. The Nigerian public backlashed the policy. Attempts by the federal government to find an enduring and peaceful solution to the cattle rearing problems have been stymied since then.
About Me
I am a marketer, communicator, and blogger. I worked extensively in the private sector as a business executive and organizational communicator, precisely in sales training. I bagged a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), an MBA from the Lagos State University. I am an associate of NIMN and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana where I am about to defend my Master’s thesis to bag the MS Communication degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. 
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