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Herdsmen and the Borno example

The herdsman is, without doubt, Nigeria’s most stereotyped and profiled tribesman. As it is today, he is the most vulnerable and the most targeted. He…

The herdsman is, without doubt, Nigeria’s most stereotyped and profiled tribesman. As it is today, he is the most vulnerable and the most targeted. He has always been oblivious of the trappings of civilization around him; as he traverses the pasture-ways, the boundaries are as meaningless as he is unconscious of the reality of the misconception and misunderstanding about him. For the herdsman today, Taraba, Benue and parts of Plateau are very hot for him. If he kills, the roofs are brought down on the whole country by a partisan media, but if he is killed, regardless of the number and volume of his loses, it makes no news at all. When 800 of them mostly women, children and the elderly were butchered in Taraba, a southern media gang-up made scanty mention of it. When the herdsman was reported to have killed 75 in Benue soon after, the country is still feeling the weight of the roof that was brought down by the religious and tribal bigots in the respective newsrooms across the country. The situation of the herdsman is made worse by his repugnance to modernity; the farther away he stayed from civilization, the nearer and more vulnerable he appears to be getting to troubles.

The often bloody clashes between the herdsman and the farmer almost everywhere in the country are clear testimonies that regardless of their aversion to modernity, the nature of their contact with the rest of the people have, more often than not, precipitated skirmishes leading to loss of lives and property. The good news for the herdsman, lately, came from Kano state when Governor Abdullahi Ganduje invited the cattlemen to move en mass to Kano and take advantage of the many grazing potentials of the state. Kogi state has also signified its intention to welcome herdsmen through a strategic grazing arrangement that will reduce collateral conflict between them and farmers. I am aware also that many states, mostly from the North have agreed to either operate the ‘’cattle colonies’’ suggested by the federal government as a way out of the quagmire of bloody-letting or some other unique arrangements to accommodate the herdsman.

Out of all of these, however, the decision of the Borno state government to embrace the Bororo community living in the state through an exceptionally long term human-development strategy appears to be more visionary and everlasting. The most noticeable problem, as you come into contact with the cattlemen is their high level of illiteracy. Take the Bororo community for example. They are, just like their other Fulbe cousins, traditional nomadic cattle herders and traders in the Sahel, with migrations stretching from southern Niger, through northern Nigeria, northeastern Cameroun, southwestern Chad and the western region of the Central African Republic. Wherever you go in the North of Nigeria, the Bororo people, though very difficult to assimilate, have either become part of their host communities or have been mesmerized into shedding off their nomadic archaic lifestyles. Most of them that have taken to menial trades like providing security to private homes and project sites or water vending and have been domiciled in their host communities for ages. These are people cocooned in the anger of their misfortunes and despondency, due to famine and other natural calamities that are forced by pasture-constraints to traverse northern Nigeria struggling to eke out a living. In the last six years, their population has dramatically increased in Borno state and this can be attested to by their presence as security guardsmen at the various construction points embarked upon by the state government. Maiduguri, the state capital is replete with sites of construction activities of infrastructure of township roads, rehabilitation and construction into 5-star statues of primary, post primary and tertiary schools as well as beautification and facelift projects currently on-going in the state. It is at these construction sites that the Bororo people are very noticeable. They live in makeshift single-rooms with a litany of their family members mostly of children and women. I found myself, perchance at one of these construction sites at Bolori area of the Maiduguri Metropolis and what I saw pushed me to visit many more Bororo communities at various construction sites across the city.

I asked, at each site, what and who was responsible for the enrolment of a large number of Bororo boys and girls into elite schools in the state? I have noticed a preponderance of these boys and girls, in their unique hairstyles, decked smartly in neat school uniforms rushing out of their makeshift rooms, school bags and food baskets hanging on their shoulders and dashing into school buses provided by the state government. It was indeed a memorable and pleasant site to behold for me to see the same kids that were seen as the dregs of the society, the people that have been looked down on and the drawers of water and hewers of woods, rubbing shoulders in choice schools with the children of the elites.

I enquired and a number of the Bororo parents confirmed that the Borno state Governor Alhaji Kashim Shettima had, while on his frequent unscheduled visits to project sites, opened a channel of communication with them and had gradually convinced them to allow the state government to take charge of the enrolment, school fees, feeding and transportation of their children to schools. Today, according to them, a total of 517 Bororo boys and girls from across different locations and sites have been enrolled into the El-Kanemi College, arguably one of Northeast’s best schools. 1000 more, they pointed out, have already been penciled down for enrolment soon until all of their children are eventually herded into schools. It may take time, but in the long run, education will extricate the monster out of the Bororo, provide them with alternatives, make those who still prefer to herd cows to do it better and make the society safer.

Ahmed-BK wrote in from Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi state.

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