Babatope’s Blog

(Jan 17, 2018)

Over the last 20 years, the Nigerian state has largely been unstable. In the early 2000s, it was militant agitation by well-armed groups of rebels from Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger-Delta region. These militants wanted were seeking redress of unequal distribution of oil-wealth mostly through destabilisation of Nigeria’s oil production network and systems. After this group, Boko Haram, the group now infamous for the kidnapping of female high-school students in Chibok, Northern Nigeria. Of recent, a group, vaguely referred to as “Fulani herdsmen” have started headlining Nigeria’s violence issues by staging well crafted kidnappings and village wipeouts. This herdsmen issue led to recent killings in Benue state, Nigeria an act many are considering to be of genocidal intent.

To give clarity on this issue, it is important to attempt defining what this “Fulani herdsmen” issue is. As a disclaimer, I think the phrase “Fulani herdsmen” is an unfortunate generalisation that either shows weaknesses in the ability of Nigeria’s security forces to gather intel on major threats or shows a lack of transparency in providing the public true information when they do have it. Afterall, not every herdsman is Fulani, neither is every Fulani herdsman involved in illegal acts and so on. There must be specific groups carrying these acts out so, they need to be identified and named appropriately rather than disparage an entire group of people.

Now, Nigeria is a weird state, no doubt. As stereotypes about the jobs different tribal groups should engage continue to hold strong, a group known as the Fulani, who have historically been nomads and are mostly found in Northern territory of Nigeria are Nigeria’s prime cattle rearers. I think there are two links to the continued nomadic lifestyle. As it is a majority of the cattle-rearers would be considered poor and unable to own large swathes of land thus, there are very few ranches in Nigeria where cattle are raised with forage available within a specific area. The next issue is based on infrastructure, due to the Savanna type climate in most of Northern Nigeria, the dry wind of Nigeria’s harmattan season denies the cattle of forage they need in the North. Therefore, the nomads begin to move downwards into the rainforest South that consistently has some form grassland regardless of seasons. Now the challenge here is that the Nomads tend to trespass private or government owned lands in search of forage for their cows. Of course, this causes trouble as landowners and farmers mostly in the Southern states often lose their crops and hard work to these acts.

As we all know, the Nigerian state is weak. Unprepared and poorly trained leaders presumably prefer to spend their time enriching themselves and engaging short-term politicking instead of seeking long-term solutions to the nation’s problems. Thus, when the group widely referred to as “Fulani herdsmen” reached nationwide prominence after high-profile kidnapping and attacks on specific regions, state governments reactively began introducing “Anti-Open Grazing Laws.” The introduction of these bills arguably led to the recent Benue killings where it is assumed that herdsmen orchestrated attacks on a village in Benue State, Nigeria, after an Anti-Open Grazing Bill in that state effectively rendered them unwelcome. As you would have it, the discourse around the recent killings go on to exacerbate Nigeria’s fragile union as politicians and the citizenry alike resort to debates based on tribal and religious differences instead of focusing on root causes.

For me, one of the main underlying problems that is unnecessarily being ignored is Nigeria’s tribal animosity, the seemingly impossible reconciliation of tribal differences within the nation. Nigerians are acutely aware of the stereotyped tribal differences that have become ingrained in every aspect of the life within the sprawling nation. From simple stereotypes about Yoruba men being “demons” due to perceived promiscuity, to Edo women being perceived as dangerous due to widespread fear of Edo traditional powers, the daily discourse in Nigeria can often seem like a patchwork of stereotypes fighting to be heard. For the last 50 or so years of independence, Nigerians have come to accept this stereotyped way of thinking as the norm, regardless of the colonial influence that might be attached to this, the society continues to accept and reiterate stereotypes that wove the amalgamation of this nation. I think an immediate stoppage of the violent herdsmen is necessary, but military action, tightened policing and political mediation, the current options being explored, are at best short-term measures for a perennial problem.

While I know this post does not fully outline the complexities regarding this issue, I want to outline possible solutions to this issue. This is, definitely something that very few Nigerian leaders- political, religious or traditional- and the citizenry who echo their thoughts rarely do. Thus, though this is not a broad policy paper, below are some of the measures I would be inclined to make if I was the President of Nigeria today:

1. Visit the location of the attacks: Unfortunately, Presidents tend to become to overprotected by their handlers and thus, lose the human touch that often propels them into office. A President appearing at the location of an attack to see what happened offers an opportunity to turn a divisive attack into one for common mourning, strengthening national solidarity and making a symbolic rejection of fear, retreat and surrender.
2. Traditional Dispute mechanisms: In a country where local leaders wield more influence- though informal- over citizens. The government can achieve more success by trying to solve disputes through these traditional leaders than repressive action might. Note that on the African continent, traditional leaders are more versed on land issues as there is still a close link between land ownership and family or communal legacy. Thus, I would create a traditional mediation council where leaders like the Sultan of Sokoto, Emir of Kano, Ooni of Ife, Obi of Onitsha, and their peers can lead, publicly, a set of short-term and long-term reforms. On the short-run, I will task these rulers to lead a forum where aggrieved parties present their cases, and case-by-case solutions are agreed upon. Next, I will ask these rulers to help form a policy for rewriting Nigeria’s land laws. With better land laws, we can solve even more problems related to Niger Delta insurgency in the South-South and “Herdsmen” violence.
3. Reorganisation of security systems: Before his election, President Buhari’s campaign effectively promised the populace state police, in reality, no clear action has been taken to that effect. Looking ahead, the current crisis reflects à poor security intelligence and enforcement network, as has been the case with previous incidents. As such, I would suggest that rather than trying to solve security issues case-by-case, as President, I would set-up a special insurgency taskforce with one goal: to create a comprehensive plan for dealing with non-conventional violence within Nigeria. I would want à plan that clearly highlights how threats can be identified and proactively controlled, and how social mechanisms like propaganda can be used to consistently sabotage the creation of such militias.

What do you think? Do you know about similar issues and how they have been solved?

[Disclaimer: This is a Minimum Viable Product. I will improve it with sources, edits etc.]

(First posted on Medium, Jun 25, 2018)

When I was in high school, my best friend’s brother was about to embark on a trip to England. On a Saturday morning, I went to my friend’s house as I usually did and found Muslim clerics preparing to perform a Quran reading before the journey. Excuse my ignorance but, at that time, I found it really weird. I asked myself, why would you try to get people to read out the Quran for an entire day? Looking back, it feels like my confusion was born out of the strong assumption that oral tales are a thing of the past, a thing that our ancestors did and now that we have writing systems and books, we no longer have to rely on oral storytelling. But is that true?

In his book How Societies Remember, Paul Connerton the British Social Anthropologist explained the challenge oral storytelling once had: memory. Centuries ago, there were no memory cards or disks, no phones with 30 gigabyte memories, and no cloud storage systems. Oral stories as such were stored in the brains of a few people.

In the West African Yoruba culture, there are people called “alaro-oba.”Everyday, they wake Yoruba kings up by telling them stories, tracing the king’s ancestral lineage and the history of the kingdom. The kings themselves, are expected to be custodians of history, as it is assumed their initiation rites involve acquisition of oral history. But often, the multiple kings within the larger Yoruba kingdom disagree on what really happened in the past. They tend to remember history differently. Thus, as Connerton explains, inscribed methods such as hieroglyphics and printing have helped us overcome the dual obstacles of memory and uniformity. When written, a story recollecting the past becomes inscribed and preserved in time. This is why years after Karl Marx’s death, we still know the ideas he tried to share. Overtime, reading and writing have become our prominent tools for discovering and sharing knowledge.

But there are thousands of people who do not read. According to the Pew Research Center, about 24% of American adults have not read a book in the last year. That runs into millions of people. Failing to read is not always a matter of choice. Some people never learnt how to, some don’t have enough time to and others were never forced to develop the reading habit.

After falling in love podcasts, I realised, we have sort of come full circle. Today, you can both read and listen to books and stories. You can learn without reading, and more so choose what, when and how. Stored on device memories, there is an almost perfect duplication for every listener. Thus, overcoming the age old challenge with regards to memory.

Like the radio, podcasts could help information spread faster as people gain access to the internet. Over the last year, I have listened to at least 100 podcast episodes. Probably, 4,000 minutes. Unlike reading a book, it’s easy to listen. Our ears, once trained to listen to people don’t have to be trained again. With very little effort and you can learn a ton of stuff. I am practically addicted to podcasts so I wonder, what do you listen to?