NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER CONFLICT FOR SURVIVAL BETWEEN FULANI PASTORALISTS AND FARMERS IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Our herd is our life because to every nomad life is worthless without his cattle. What do you expect from us when our source of existence is threatened? The encroachment of grazing fields and routes by farmers is a call to war (HameSaidu, a Pastoralist, Wuse, 2009-IRIN, 2009). The continuing Fulani Pastoralists’ militancy for the survival of their cattle makes fierce struggle and violent conflicts with farmers inevitable. As Farmers continuously encroach into the grazing routes, they leave the Fulani with no alternative to neither retreat nor surrender. The traditional practices that focus on the close integration between raising of livestock and enhanced farming have posed serious dialectics in the dynamic relationships between pastoralists and farmers in Northern Nigeria. Northern Nigeria is a plural society with the potential for conflict. However, the conflicts between Fulani pastoralists and farmers in Northern Nigeria are essentially economic in nature, irrespective of the religious, cultural and political colourations that might be diluted to advance certain objectives. Migrant pastoralists in Nigeria are made up of many ethnic groups and the largest being the Fulbe or Fulani; constituting over 90%. The Fulani are well integrated amongst the sedentary Hausa farmers, who emigrated into Northern Nigeria from the Senegambia Valley several centuries ago (Adebayo, 1995). The availability of ecological, economic, environmental as well as social factors explain the need for posture, market proximity and the reciprocal social relationship with the host community. A combination of these factors increases the potential for conflicts in northern Nigeria (Blench, 1994, Tolnab, 2001, Fabusoro, 2006).