Herdsmen/Farmers clash in Nigeria: Who will compensate the dead?

Penultimate week, a meeting was held at the Imo state Police Command Owerri, ostensibly convened by the Imo state Police Commissioner with a view to settling the protracted animosity existing between the Fulani cattle breeders roaming the nooks and crannies of the farmlands in Imo state and the local farmers.

         

At the end of the meeting which had in attendance, Chairman of Miyetti Allah, Audi Diko, selected Traditional Rulers from Imo state and the Imo state Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, the representatives of the farmers were made to enter into an ‘ambiguous’ agreement with the herdsmen. An agreement which not only undermines the value and sanctity of human life, but also provides a ‘license’ for the herdsmen to operate with reckless abandon in the area.

Part of the contents of that agreement states that owners of farms destroyed by herdsmen would be duly compensated while herdsmen whose cattle are killed by farmers will equally be compensated. But nothing was mentioned about the case of a herdsman killing a farmer as has been the order of the day in many communities in the south-east.

The question that readily comes to mind at this juncture is who will pay the said compensation and whose responsibility will it be to evaluate extent of compensation to be given to either of the two parties?  And what is the compensation for a farmer who gets killed by a herdsman?

Going by the federal government’s interest and support for cattle breeders all over the country, it may be right to assume that FG will undertake payment for damages done to farmlands by herdsmen but it is not certain whether FG will undertake to pay compensation in a case where a farmer kills a cattle because the situation on ground at the moment is that any farmer who dares to kill a cattle in Imo state will either be murdered, possibly with his entire family, by the herdsmen or if he is lucky, he will be arrested, tortured and detained by men of the Nigerian armed forces.

If the lawmakers in Nigeria are unable to stop the proposed cattle colonies initiative of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, then the State Governors should monitor the activities of the cattle breeders and pay them instant compensation anytime they loose their cows to avoid provoking them into killing the local farmers in retaliation.

Recall that last year, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state disclosed during an interview with journalists that his government paid N10million naira as compensation to herdsmen when 57 cattle were killed and 50 rustled by unknown persons, thereby preventing the outbreak of violence which might have resulted if the herdsmen had attempted to launch a reprisal attack on their host community.

Similarly, the Kaduna state Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has said that his government has traced some violent,  aggrieved Fulani to their countries and paid them to stop the killings of Southern Kaduna natives and the destruction of their communities.

The presence of the cattle breeders in the South-eastern states of Nigeria no doubt can be likened to the proverbial ‘fly that perched on the scrotum’. Killing the fly often leads to one inflicting more pain on himself while allowing the fly to perch on means enduring the continuous sharp pains from its stings.

If the Governors do the right thing by ‘settling’ the herdsmen who by all standards, are above the law in Nigeria, there would hardly be case of herdsmen killing farmers in the south-east. And if the federal government fail to pay compensation to farmers whose crops are destroyed by the herdsmen, the State government should take over that responsibility in the interest of peace and security in the state.