Old miseries and a new ministry

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has created a Ministry of Livestock Development to address age-long farmer-herder conflicts in the country. It is suspected that true to style, the president consulted widely before creating the ministry which is dedicated to addressing a central driver of insecurity in the country. However, beyond signing names on government stationary, the fate of the ministry is a debt that only time will be able to pay.

Nigeria’s fifteenth president Muhammadu Buhari may have been shunted into irreversible irrelevance by the tyrannical transience of political power, which condones no more than eight years in Nigeria, but Nigerians will remember his tenure (terror?) for a long time. Among those for whom this remembrance will remain a recurrent rupture for a long time are rural dwellers, especially in northern Nigeria, who were forced to live terrorism disguised as a titanic clash of interests for eight years.

At the heart of what proved a bitter, brutal and ultimately bloody struggle against terrorism were herders and farmers. For the farmers whose trade has always been stationary, involving tilling the earth year after year for food and a living, the mobile livestock which constituted trade for herders was a mortal threat.

Clash after clash soon convulsed states like Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Kogi and Nasarawa State. The conflict even touched parts of the Southeast and Southwest to live Nigerians facing a mortal danger that was proving highly mobile and malignant.

The seeming reluctance of the Buhari administration to commit to curbing the conflict fueled rumours that his sympathy lay with Fulani herdsmen, whom he shares the same ethnic group with.

The creation of a ministry to oversee affairs, which used to be supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture seems a departure from the past and an attempt to address one of the root causes of insecurity in Nigeria. It appears an attempt to ensure lasting peace and harmony between farmers and herdsmen who should ordinarily work side by side as different players in Nigeria’s food economy. Yet, as with every solution that has successfully and historically addressed a key destabilising factor anywhere, without  justice, this latest attempt will end up as one more thread in the tapestry of bloated and bureaucratised government ministries constituting little more than a drainpipe on Nigeria’s resources.

To be clear, while there may be some quiet in rural areas since Tinubu assumed office, wisdom demands that it be interpreted and treated as a peace of the graveyard if it is to give way to sustainable peace. This is important so that a country which is not exactly known to follow successful blueprints does not return to its bloody past after only a handful of years.

Addressing long-running farmer-herder crisis is undoubtedly a question of justice. There can be no justice unless conscious efforts embrace those who have suffered most from this crisis: rural dwellers, most of whom are farmers. The losses have been simply incalculable. Countless have lost lives, limbs, and livelihoods since the crisis became a major investment for those who aim to destabilise the country. In squalid refugee camps around the country and even from graves, chilling tales are reprised about the displaced, dismembered and defeated in a conflict that has defined most of the last two decades in Nigeria.

The ministry’s focus on livestock development suggests prominence and priority will be given to livestock. By cleanly snapping livestock development off the remit of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, the government is showing that it aims to prioritize livestock farming over other forms of agriculture. Who wins?

Is it a sop to Nigeria’s powerful cattle herders who boast top-level connections within the government, or is it a genuine attempt to address a festering problem? Is the government bowing to pressure from powerful but obviously dangerous pressure groups or does it feel that it is the right thing to do upon a comprehensive review of the situation?

In a country that continues to experiment with democracy in a frantic bid to meld its diverse and disparate parts into a solid unit that is greater than the sum of its parts, there would always be questions about politics and justice with every major decision. But for farmers and herders in Nigeria to stop fumbling around in old wounds, there must be hard truths as a pathway to justice.

Truth as far as the crisis is concerned must entail exposing and punishing all those who hide behind cattle to wreak havoc on lives and property in Nigeria. Dragging them and their sponsors into public glare will be a major step in addressing old wounds. This will be a test of fire for the relatively new government, especially as those responsible are said to have sympathisers deep in the corridors of power.

Furthermore, there must be compensation for all those who have suffered immeasurably from this crisis. While nothing may be enough to bring back the dead, recreate fractured memories, or restore time, a lot can be done to bind the wounds of all those who have lost their livelihoods to Fulani herdsmen, and restore hope to orphaned children, and dignity to women who have been raped.

A lot has not happened under its watch but Tinubu’s government which is showing it can invent and innovate social solutions should be able to handle this. Beyond creating ministries, the government should be able to do this and prove conclusively that it means to tackle a difficult problem, and not just appease political voting blocs or pander to ethnic and economic interests.

More than legacy, face is at stake for the government.

Willie-Nwobu can be reached via: [email protected]