Nigeria: Time to tame monster of open grazing

By Abdul Oroh

|Published 8:45 PM ET, Sunday March 30, 2025|

The boy could not have been more than 10 or 12 years old. But he was already a master of his environment. He had, apparently, identified his life purpose and the means to achieve it.

He was raised right from his cradle to be tough, to survive in the wild, defying the elements, living off the land, even to give command to animals, his herd, to do as he wishes. To him, modern governance means nothing. Anything or anybody who stood on his path or tried to obstruct him is an enemy. And enemies are to be crushed. By any means necessary.

It was in the early days in his administration of Abuja, when the no nonsense Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Ezenwo Nyesom Wike rolled out the dos and don’ts to residents of the glittery nascent city. One of them was a ban on open grazing in the Abuja Municipal Area, known locally as AMAC.

For those who dare to defy him, the cost would be high, and they must bear it. However, the Port Harcourt big boy, the new Sheriff in town didn’t know that, like a fowl entering a new terrain, he should observe the terrain very well by standing on one foot. Then watch if everybody walked on two feet before joining them. His ban on open grazing in Abuja was swiftly challenged by the ten or twelve year-old boy in a video circulating in the social media.

The boy, like millions of youngsters of his generation who are out of school and sentenced to a life of servitude, the only life he has been groomed from cradle to know and embrace was the nomadic life. Raising the cow is his life, his sustenance and his world. His masters both visible and invisible, local and out there in the Sahel or the Sahara to the North, have entrusted him with their investment and no power in West Africa can threaten that.

“If the minister tries to stop us” the boy declared in pidgin, “we go kill am”‘. How would you do this? The interviewer asked him. “Magani”. Magani in Hausa means medicine.

For today’s herdsmen or perhaps, from over ten years ago, the magani could be the AK 47, the weapon of choice of insurgents, bandits, and terrorists. But this boy meant juju or witchcraft.

The interviewer simply laughed it off, but the boy repeated it. As I sat there watching the video, I knew the boy was deadly serious. He is a Nigerian of course, where boys of his age are reared to grow up too fast, more matured for their age; and are known to do what they have to do to have their way.

That is the normal survival mantra. Not necessarily to do the right things but, anything to satisfy the selfish ego, or ethno-religious interests of their masters. Perhaps simply to satisfy their blood lust.

They know that grazing in the farms and destroying crops is against Islamic tenets or any other religious code. They know that they are inflicting hunger and penury in the land. And they have no problem killing anyone, raping any woman, or kidnapping anyone they encounter in the wild, their wild world where their kidnapped victims are incarcerated until ransome is paid or they are killed.

Nigeria has been on the knife- edge since the herders and their enablers launched their murderous onslaught across the country. And past governments have simply failed to tame them.

Needless to say that Wike saw the handwriting on the wall and understood the message from the boy. He backed away, something he rarely does.

The herdsmen are still grazing every where in Abuja, obstructing traffic, chewing away in peoples’well tended gardens, grazing through school fields, religious grounds and in the well-guarded and hallowed grouds of the area called the Three Arms Zone – right from the gates of Aso Rock Presidential villa to the vast National Assembly grounds, to the temple of justice where the Appeal court and the Supreme Court are located. In other words, no sacred ground or place in Abuja is sacrosanct.

The herdsman treads on the ground where the power of the Federal Republic of Nigeria resides and is excercised. This is done, with impunity and total disregard for the nation and her people.

Two trending but troubling videos I watched recently got me thinking. Somewhere in the South East, some young men with machetes were seen escorting Fulani herdsmen out of the city threatening to kill them if they don’t stay away from farmlands.

In another, a group of AK 47 gunmen who claimed to be members of the Eastern Security Network, ESN, went beyond mere threats. They shot the cows and pursued the herdsmen. I can’t confirm if they the fleeing herdsmen returned fire.

I saw another video from my constituency. The body of Victor Ogedengbe, a young man, well known to me and a member of the local vigilante group in Erah, a community in Owan East Local Government of Edo State was found, 48 hours after he failed to return from his farm.

Victor had posted a video a few days earlier pleading with the police to halt the incessant grazing on their farms by Fulani herdsmen. The video showed what was left of his yam seeds and cassava plants that were not yet ready for harvest.

He appeared again in another video recorded in a church in Benin-City seeking divine intervention as he “decreed and bound” the monster in Jesus Holy name. Apparently the herdsmen may have watched the videos. The next day, Victor was dead. No one would have survived the machete cuts inflicted on his neck, hands and all over his body.

A week later, the herdsmen besieged a neighboring village called Ukhun in Esan West Local Government Area Edo State early in the morning, shooting at anything that moved.

The people fled, as their ancestors did in the days of slave raiders, into the forests. Unlike in the past, the forests are no longer safe havens or places of refuge. Having been thoroughly degraded and plundered by loggers and timber dealers in Edo State, many of these forests have become open savannah, fertile for grazing and now controlled by herdsmen.

These herdsmen like their ancestors, are also raiding communities not to feed the trans-Sahara slave markets, but the thriving kidnapping market. As in the past, these modern slave raiders or kidnappers operate in cahoots with the traditional rulers.

The next video I watched, was that of a young Fulani herdsmen, who claimed they always paid local traditional rulers before entering their farmland to graze. “You guys must understand”, he said. To the traditional rulers, their subjects, on whose stool he seats, mean nothing to him.

With his consent and his greed, their farms have been relentlessly grazed, farmers killed, women raped and crops eaten before harvest. His people can starve as long as his Royal Highnesses, his harem and children are well fed. The people can starve.

The Fulani dude did not include, also, that apart from grazing, they also kidnap. Sometimes they stay for two or three months and then proceed to another community. I am aware this collaboration between killer- herdsmen, kidnappers and traditional rulers had been happening in Edo State for over ten years.

As commissioner for Agriculture in Edo State some years ago, these incidents were regularly mentioned in various communities, but in whispers, for fear of incurring the wrath of the so-called Royal fathers.

The time has come for a permanent solution. The Federal Government has taken bold steps to tame the monster that has defied every administration. This monster was created and enabled by vested interests, especially cattle breeders, their faceless masters, the cattle owners among whom are retired generals, admirals, traditional rulers and key public figures.

Hiding behind the mask that is Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, this monster has recently become bolder, challenging the authority of the Federal Government and threatening national security.

To tame it, smart and bold steps are necessary and the President has done the right thing with the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development. This Ministry, properly managed could be bigger than oil or the marine economy. It could transform the economy generally for the nation and more for cattle ranchers and dairy farmers.They will be richer than Bank owners, retired generals and politicians.

This is where my friend, Professor Attahiru Jega comes in. His appointment by President Bola Tinubu to help find a sustainable, win-win solution to this problem is as significant as his previous service as INEC chairman. His mission is simple, but daunting: help tame the monster and transform this adversity to wealth.

As for my brother, the Governor of Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo (Akpakomiza) not one more killing should happen. Tame our greedy traditional rulers involved in this dastardly act. Apprehend them, depose them, shame them, and prosecute them. Protect the farmers, their farms, and the communities. Tame this monster by any means necessary.

Let heaven fall if it must.

Oroh is a former Commissioner for Agriculture in Edo State and two-term House of Reps member

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