The Fulani Herdsmen's Gory Tales

Many Nigerians are hooked on beef to meet their protein and milk needs, but most of them do not know what the Fulani herdsman goes through in the bush as he moves from one spot to the other in search of fodder for his cows.
Alhaji Jauro Moyelli, who shepherds his cattle from Sokoto to Gombe through the bushes of Katsina, Kaduna, Jos, and Bauchi recounted his daily experience to some newsmen last week.  "Our experiences in the bush are better imagined,'' he said.
According to Moyelli, who moves his cattle from the Southern part of Sokoto State in a seasonal migratory pattern every year, the Sokoto area dries up during the dry season, forcing herdsmen to move their flock southwards into the heart of the Middle Belt region.
In that area, the animals can eat freely from the green grass, a sharp contrast to what they leave behind up North.  After such grazing, the cows are led to the numerous ponds and streams that dot the region for their water needs.  But as they traverse the land, many cows are lost to accidents, diseases or attacks by reptiles, Moyelli said.
Others fall into ditches abandoned by miners or devastated by erosion. In extreme cases, some farmers dig pits for the moving cows which unknowingly fall into them.
Moyelli recalled an incident in which he lost a huge bull, an experience that  makes him cry anytime he remembers it.  The bull, nicknamed Kalardi, had fallen into an abandoned tin mining pit on the Jos Plateau.
"The hazards that we face in this business are many; once a cow goes down into a pit and breaks its limbs, there is hardly any option left but to sell it out,'' he said.
According to Moyelli, cattle breeders face a lot of challenges while migrating southwards because besides the dangers posed by abandoned mining pits and other man-made hurdles, they also face natural dangers such as snake bites.
"There are also dangers of marauding carnivorous animals such as hyenas and lions, apart from the menace of crocodiles while crossing rivers.
"Lately, we started suffering more attacks from cattle rustlers and dare-devil thieves who confront us with dangerous weapons and drive away our herds.''
He also recalled an incident narrated to him by his late father indicating that some mischief makers in the forest could deliberately fire shots from locally made guns to confuse the cows.
"When that confusion ensues, cows run helter-skelter and end up in pits dug by such mischief makers.''
Recounting a similar experience, Buba Bayero, another cattle breeder, says the herdsmen are wiser now.
"We are a bit wiser today and besides our traditional sticks that we carry, some of us also carry weapons as we move along in the forest,'' Bayero says.  Even the cows are now getting wiser, he says.
"They no longer run at just any sound of a gun-shot; they are used to so many similar sounds.''  But investigations show that the cattle thieves have become equally more sophisticated.
Bayero says the attackers now sneak into the cow camps at night to steal the animals by either employing sheer guts or through diabolical means.
A recent incident in Rawa village in the Toro Local Government Area of Bauchi State aptly demonstrates how sophisticated the cattle rustlers have become. 
Mokawu Garba, a cattle breeder, had just woken up when he found that only seven of his 35 cows were in the camp.
A confused Garba quickly organised a search party to trace the cattle, while directing his eldest son, Ibrahim, to report the matter to the Ward Head, Jauro Musa.
In the interim, he undertook some rituals which he believed could help to recover the missing 28 cows.  But none of the cattle has been found to date.
 Investigations show that the incident is not completely new in Plateau and the neighbouring states as the Fulani herdsmen there have suffered losses in the hands of cattle rustlers who allegedly invade the country from neighbouring countries or local criminals who drive away the cattle and load them onto waiting trucks.
Garba, who sheds tears anytime he recounts the experience, believes that diabolical means were employed to send him into deep sleep to ease the theft.
The investigations also show that some cattle thieves have mysterious powers to change the colours of the cattle they steal.
"Unless the thieves are caught at night when they are moving away with the animals; by morning they can change the colour of your cows from white to black or brown and vice versa,''  Garba says.
He further says the search party is usually confused by the thieves who use diabolical means to mislead the searchers tracing them and their animals by reversing the footprints.  But for Alti Ragijo, another cattle breeder, the biggest worry in the bush is the frequent attack by insects which usually kill cows.
The breeder says he lost more than half of his herd a year ago after tsetse flies attacked them on the way to Gombe from Bauchi.
Other diseases, he says, include rinderpest which can kill a large number of cattle in a single attack.
Other challenges in the bush are incessant clashes between the herdsmen and farmers.  He says that most clashes are often bloody and can lead to deaths as farmers fight over their crops on the grazing routes, while the cattle breeders also try to protect their prized possession.
"In most cases, the farmers take us to court and we are usually quick to try to pay any fine to avoid delays as we cannot leave our cows unattended to.''
Ragijo says the only way out of these clashes is for farmers to steer clear of cattle routes, while the breeders also ensure proper shepherding of their cows as most destructions to farms are usually done when the cows "stroll out casually''.  But while the veracity of using diabolical means to steal cattle is still being debated, an official of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria in Toro, Alhaji Yerima Musa, says herdsmen are losing cattle in large numbers to rustlers, petty thieves and 419ners.
"We lose a lot of cows on the routes and government must act quickly to reverse the trend,'' he says.
To minimise such losses, cattle breeders have tried to remain in one place to avoid the dangers they face moving from one region to another.  "But these cattle rustlers now follow us right to our homes and drive away our cattle,'' Musa says.
On the constant clashes with the farmers, Musa says the farmers have not helped matters because they have extended their farms onto lands that were reserved as cattle routes more than three decades ago.
"We all know that not too long ago, there were designated cattle routes right from Borno through Toro LGA to Lagos and cattle breeders moved their animals freely on these routes, but houses and farms have taken over such routes now.
"Our nomads have no grazing reserves, no cattle routes, no earth dams and no veterinary centres. It is for these reasons that many of them have left Nigeria to neighbouring African countries where they are assured of a better treatment.''
Only recently, a cattle breeder, Malam Yalo Mewoda, was arraigned before a Gwagwalada Magistrate's Court for allegedly allowing his cows to graze in a vegetable farm. 
Mewoda was arrested by the police with the offending cows following a complaint lodged at the Kwali police station by Roseline Ngene, the owner of the farm.
The police prosecutor, Sgt. Sunday Okedi, had told the court that Mewoda deliberately allowed his cows to graze on the farmland and destroying crops worth about N100,000.
"By this act, Mewoda has caused deliberate mischief, which is punishable under the law,'' Okedi said.  But while Mewoda awaits the hearing of his case, analysts say that government and other stakeholders must put heads together to ease the movement of cattle throughout the nation.
This, they say, will guarantee an uninterrupted and sufficient supply of beef and cow milk for their rich proteinous content, in addition to hides and skin.