Sultan insists farmers-herders crisis not religious, ethnic

…demands probe of cooking stoves for rural women

Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar on Friday insisted that the farmers-herders crisis in the country has no religious, ethnic or political connection but simply an economic issue.

He said the political class has the proclivity to give every issue of insecurity ethnic and religious colouration for their own political agenda.

“Any insecurity issue has been given ethnic and religious colouration and that is very bad,” he said.

He was delivering the 18th S.L Edu Memorial Lecture on “The Role of Traditional Leaders in Protecting and Restoring the Nigerian Environment” organized by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) in Lagos.

The lecture which attracted prominent traditional rulers in the country including the Alake (paramount ruler) of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, Elegushi of Ikate land, Oba Saheed Elegushi, among others was in honour of late Chief Shafi Edu, the father of conservation in Nigeria.

Sultan who said it is high time governments at all levels stopped paying lip service to the issue of environmental degradation and pollution said the shrinking land resources had triggered to the seemingly unending confrontation between farmers and herders as both struggle for economic survival.

Abubakar who is also the President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) also called for the probe of the cooking stoves programme for rural women, saying if the programme had been well implemented, it would have reduced the current deforestation.

He cautioned the political class to “wake up from their slumber” in combating the serious challenge of environmental degradation which has far reaching effect on the nation’s economy.

He said: “When you hear people talking about farmers-herders clashes as a religious thing, I most times laugh because it is just an economic issue and we are all trying to protect the meager resources available to us.

“Some hundreds of years ago, there used to be cattle routes across Africa where animals move. Herders from Kanuri for example know where they are going to. They don’t need anybody to guide them because it is very established.

“But these are no longer there because of the population explosion, because of the demand for land. You have to have houses, you have to have hospitals, you have to have schools.

The farmer needs his product. The cattle herder needs to feed and feed his animals. So these two are economic issues, not political, not religious, not ethnic or what have you. But presently our politicians have turned it upside down and everything is given ethnic and religious colouration and that’s the danger we are facing in this country.

“Any insecurity issue has been given ethnic and religious colouration and that is very bad because as I have said criminals are criminals, call him by his name, criminal, don’t bring his religion where he comes from.”

While calling on Nigerians and the government to put an end to “practices that are injurious ” to the environment, he demanded accountability on the management of the millions of cooking stoves that were meant to be distributed to rural women, saying as far as he knows, rural women still enter to bush to fell trees used as firewood.

He said: “The last regime tried to do something about bringing millions of stoves to check against felling down of trees being used for cooking and I believe billions and millions of naira was set aside for that and I believe the money was released, was taken out. But I believe the old men and women in the villages still go to the bush to cut trees for firewood and for cooking, I have never seen any of such stoves. So where is the stove? Where’s the money? And that is the point I am making about government.

“So we need to really look into some of these issues. We must have commitment. It is my hope that we have sufficiently been informed to take this matter very seriously and immediately give all the attention it deserves,” he said.

He however promised that traditional rulers as custodians and managers of their communities would play their role in sensitizing their people on the need to protect the environment.

Lagos Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat also stressed that the farmers-herders challenge has nothing to do with religion but due to the shrinking land resources while population keeps increasing.