... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...herdsmen last week should nudge the Federal Government to find the courage to ban open grazing urgently and adopt ranching.
Incidentally, Nigeria is searching for peace and food security, yet, it is playing politics with open grazing, the deadly instrument that has been brewing banditry and providing an arsenal for senseless killings country-wide for decades.
Bandits attacked four communities in the dead of the night in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State last Monday, killing 20 people. Nine surveyors were also kidnapped at a building site in the LGA that week.
In Benue, armed herders ambushed and killed three personnel of the state security force, Civil Protection Guards in Naka, the headquarters of Gwer West LGA. This ignited protests that resulted in the burning down of parts of the LG secretariat and the palace of a traditional ruler by angry youths.
On Sunday, two residents were kidnapped while four others sustained gun and machete wounds from a herders' attack at the Dantata Life Camp in Aviele, Etsako West LGA, Edo State.
Fulani herdsmen and bandit attacks festered because of government mismanagement of herders and farmers' relationships.
In the First Republic, grazing routes were created to ensure a peaceful coexistence between herders and crop farmers. That did not work for long because it was not sustainable herding cattle on others' farmland.
It amounts to trespassing. Eventually, it degenerated into open conflict between the herders and settled farmers.
The Obafemi Awolowo administration established ranches to stem the conflict and promote modern livestock operations in the Western Region. Therefore, the federal, state, and local governments must return to the ranching regime that birthed mutual coexistence between the herders and the farmers.
The International Crisis Group says, ''Rising conflict between herders and farmers in Nigeria is already six times deadlier in 2018 than Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...'s Insurgency'' and ''has become Nigeria's gravest security challenge.''