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Nigeria’s herder-farmer conflict affects future of thousands of children

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On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in early September at the Gbajimba camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in central Nigeria’s Benue state, thousands of women and men stood in a queue to receive food aid from the International Committee of the Red Cross. As dozens of young men draped in green reflective vests unload bags of rice and highly nutritious flour from two trucks, the queue dragged on. Soon, the camp bustled with people hauling bags of food aid to their rooms.

In one corner of the camp, 13-year-old Hyacienth Ternege played hide-and-seek with a small group of children. Their carefree laughter and chatter mixed with the cacophony of voices in the open, dusty field of the camp where families received food aid.

“We stopped going to school after the problem started getting worse and people were running away from our villages,” Ternege says, referring to the vicious farmer-herder conflict that has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. That same violence has pushed tens of thousands of children out of school.

Hyacienth Ternege, 13, wants to become a doctor, but he is worried that staying out of school might derail his ambition.

At the root of the deadly conflict is the competition for natural resources like water, farmland and grazing areas. In addition, Nigeria’s population has snowballed over the past decades to more than 180 million, leading to the expansion of farmlands, human settlements and infrastructure all of which encroach on old migration routes.

Farmers often accuse herders, mostly from the Fulani ethnic group, of allowing their cows to destroy their crops. Herders, in turn, grumble over the loss of their livestock to militias as well as gangs from local communities who attack them, triggering blood-chilling reprisals.

Also known as Peul, Fulbe and Fula, Fulani cattle herders and the Tuareg people are the two largest pastoralist groups in Africa. The Fulanis roam with their livestock across the West African Sahel and Central Africa.

A young Fulani herder tends to herd of cattle in a village in northwestern Nigeria’s Kaduna state.

The nine-year Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast region, as well as long spells of drought in the extreme north, have made fewer areas available for grazing, pushing the pastoral Fulani people southward in search of greener pasture and freshwater. Eleven states in the arid north, which account for about 35 percent of Nigeria’s total land area, are grappling with dry seasons, deforestation and inappropriate agriculture.

However, this southward migration has pitted herders against settled farming communities, prompting deadly clashes and tit-for-tat killings.

Nigeria’s Middle Belt region appears to be the hotbed of this crisis, with Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Nasarawa states recording far more bloodshed and destruction than Adamawa in the northeast and Enugu in the southeast.

A recent report from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group says that more than 1,300 died in the first half of this year due to the herder-farmer conflict, claiming six times more lives than the brutal Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, which has displaced more than 2.1 million people. The report also says that the violence between herders and farmers has displaced at least 300,000 people and is now the West African nation’s biggest security threat.

Benue state implemented a law banning open grazing in November 2017. The ban required everybody tending to livestock to keep them on ranches and provides for a five-year jail sentence for defaulters.

Benue state has seen far more fighting since a controversial law banning open grazing was implemented in November 2017, forcing herders to move their livestock to neighbouring states. Taraba and Ekiti states have similar laws, and more states are considering the same options following the seeming inability of the central government to address the bloody tussle.

The Benue state government estimate that some 102,000 children are out of school due to the conflict. For a country with about 10.5 million children out of school, the highest in the world, allowing more children to be deprived of education could be disastrous. In Plateau state, where these clashes have reportedly begun since 2002, officials say at least 750, 000 children are unable to attend school citing looming threat to security as a major factor.

Across the city of Makurdi – the Benue state capital – and nearby towns, huge billboards explaining the merits of the law tower over roadside stalls and farmlands. Red marks cancel out grazing options prohibited by the law while touting the law as a mechanism for peace.

A billboard in Makurdi, the capital city of central Nigeria’s Benue state, touts the ban on open grazing as a solution to the crisis.

As of March this year, the Benue State Emergency Management Agency reported that 175,070 internally displaced persons are housed in nine camps across the state. Of this number, 80,450 children are like Ternege whose classrooms are being used as camps. Since the violence escalated late last year, schools in the affected areas were closed.

Ternege’s father, his two wives and 12 children fled their village to Guma local government area following attacks blamed on ethnic Fulani herders in early January. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Benue state government organised a mass burial for 72 dead people, prompting angry protests and anti-Fulani sentiments that rippled beyond the borders of Benue to other states in Nigeria.

Most people in the Gbajimba camp for internally displaced persons fled following deadly New Year attacks that led to the mass burial of 72 dead people.

Nigeria is evenly divided between Christians mainly in the south and Muslims in the north. The Fulanis are predominantly Muslim and most farming communities are Christians, so it is easy for the conflict to stoke ethnic and religious tensions. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also from the Fulani ethnic group, has been accused of not doing much to address the crisis.

The central government, which proposes cattle ranching as a solution to the crisis, has deployed security forces to tackle the problem. It has set aside 179 billion naira ($493.33 million) as part of a 10-year National Livestock Plan under which nearly 100 ranches would be built in 10 states. In May, the government also approved 10 billion naira ($27.56 million) for the reconstruction of communities caught up in the violence.

Back in Gbajimba, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, Catholic Diocese of Makurdi, the Benue state emergency agency and other local NGOs are providing support for around 24,019 people in the camp.

“It is very painful,” Udah Enoch, the headteacher of a primary school near Guma local council, says of schools slowly turning to camps. “When schools have no children, what would teachers be doing there?”

Iember Tavershu,12, says she spends much of her time fetching firewood and water instead of going to school.

Enoch believes children affected by the conflict would have setbacks whenever they resume learning and might not make much progress even when teachers teach them in camps. Even when normalcy returns, he argues, enrolment rates would be “low” because some people have “completely” left their villages and might not return.

Though Ternege’s smiles belie his inward feelings, he says, “(I) really miss going to school to learn and meet with my friends.”

“Without our school there is nobody to teach me very well like my teachers in our village,” the teenager adds.

By LINUS UNAH (TRT World)

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Nigerians Should Support Tinubu’s Reforms For A Better Future

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By Niyi Akinsinju

To understand the nation’s current economic milieu, we have to go back to June 15, 2016. Nigeria’s central bank, on that day, announced it would abandon its currency’s dollar peg in preference for a free float of the Naira in an effort to alleviate the chronic foreign currency shortages choking growth in Africa’s biggest economy.



Under one week after the announcement, the Naira slumped from the pegged rate of N197/$ to N287/$. Three months down the road, in August 2016, the rate had fallen by an aggregate 61 percent to the dollar.



Expectedly, there was bedlam in the economic space with the din of the attendant noise becoming aggravated when Nestle Nigeria Plc, a multinational company renowned for its consistent profit outturn published its year end result with a depressing 94 percent drop in profits, a phenomenon blamed on the currency depreciation. The depreciation also led to Nigeria losing its title as Africa’s largest economy — a symbolic downgrade that succinctly summarized the many challenges facing the country at that time.



For many followers of the national economy in that year and beyond, current happenings in the Nigerian economy are akin to walking through the same historical corridors. Indeed, Nigerians had walked this path before and had experienced the same seeming awry economic assaults on their very existence as a people. The immediate reflex associated with such scenario was to capitulate. And capitulate, the country did.



Less than six months after the CBN’s free float policy adoption, inflation rates were skyrocketing in reflection of the vastly depreciated Naira. The CBN could not take the heat any longer. It dramatically announced a reversal to a currency pegged regime and a managed float of the Naira at the same time. The country went back to its tradition of multi-tiers foreign exchange market. By May 2017, the country had five different forex rates. The interbank rate closed at N305.72/$ in second quarter 2017, the rate for government official transactions was N306/$, at the Investors and Exporters window, it was N360/$, and N366/$ at the parallel market.



This reversal to multiple exchange rate regime was accompanied with a capital control policy, the CBN restricted 43 items from accessing the official foreign exchange market.



Interestingly, the then CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, became an advocate of managed float and insisted that adopting a free float exchange rate for the Naira is both elitist and wrong. We consider this a volte-face away from his earlier avowal on the adoption of a free float market-determined forex rate policy.



Mr Emefiele added that if the Naira was allowed to float, the poor and low income earners will suffer more in form of high inflation. That was an understandable sentiment given the large percentage of the population of extremely poor. However, it was not the solution nor the trigger for prosperity the country direly needed.



With that Emefiele declaration, the attempt to float the Naira was officially jettisoned by the CBN. For us, that was adopting populism, over economic reality.



Seven years after embracing that option, the cost to the economy became obvious. The exchange rate to the dollar depreciated by more than a 100 percent from N197/$ in June 2016 to N463/$ in June 2023 when the CBN reverted to a free float again. In the intervening years, more than $30 billion had been injected in the Forex market to defend the Naira. Despite splurging that sum in the Forex market, inflation rate continued to increase, peaking at 22.41 percent in May 2023 from 15.6 percent in May, 2016. The foreign reserve was depleted to about $30 billion leaving the CBN with less fire power to defend the Naira. The country had merely survived not developed, it was a clear scenario of stagnation.



In truth, the Nigerian economy had been buffeted from different sides by many domestic and global assailing factors between 2016 and 2020 which may provide an understanding of the Federal Government and CBN’s

insistence on state controlled and managed economy for the benefits of the poor and vulnerable. Yet, after many years of the control and managed options, we are left with an economy in stagnation; one that depends on the periodic boom in the oil and gas sector to deliver momentary economic prosperity.



By 2023, an economic template change had become inevitable. In our consideration, we believe that the Tinubu administration read the situation well by making overtures to the CBN to revert to the free float exchange policy. Of course, the economy, like in 2016 has since responded to the policy with a volatility that is not only immediate but intense with macroeconomic rates flaring up disconcertingly. This had led to high cost of living uproar across different segments of the nation.



But rather than beat a retreat and embrace the populist option, the President has determinedly decided to walk the hard, lonely route of application of unpopular yet result oriented policy, by insisting on sustaining and driving the national economy on the wings of the already introduced policies, chief of which are the fuel subsidy removal and unification of Forex rates.



President Tinubu reinforced his commitment to going the whole hog with the implementation of these policies when he publicly declared during his visit to Qatar that: “This economy, we will grow it, and we will feed ourselves out of penury…if it’s corruption, we must exterminate it no matter how hard it is fighting back.”



We find this declaration instructive. It affirms the President’s unwavering commitment to seeing through the reforms he has undertaken to implement.



We also agree with the President’s call on Nigerians to persevere at this time because, according to him, nation-building requires perseverance and patriotism to succeed. It is to these two value orientations that we call the attention of Nigerians.



This country, by all possible evaluation metrics, is an economic giant waiting to take its position in the sun but it has remained stunted over the years because of policy misapplications, especially of such that emphasise today’s existence in opposition to creating wealth premised on delayed gratification.



In this regards, we reference the robust optimism expressed by South African billionaire and Chairman of South Africa global grocer brand, Shoprite, Christo Wiese, who recently said that Nigeria’s large and growing population is impossible for businesses to ignore and that the recent exodus of companies from the country won’t last. It is exhilarating to note that this sanguine description of the Nigerian economic state is coming from a foreigner who sat over a huge business concern that operates out of states across Nigeria. He definitely speaks from the point of knowledge and experience.



For him, Nigeria with over 200 million people, is the economic giant of Africa. This sizable consumer base presents an attractive investment hub for businesses and investors seeking opportunities in the region.



While no rational investor can ignore Nigeria, yet, economic makeovers such as the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the naira aimed at revitalizing the economy, have yet to yield positive results.



Nonetheless, we have observed the peculiar Nigerian spirit of adaptation in the face of challenges and vicissitudes at work as exchange rates become prohibitive and inflation rates continue to increase. Nigerian startups, for example, are beginning to explore local options for some of the foreign-denominated services their operations require.



This is in response to the rising cost of these services in naira terms. The depreciating currency has increased the cost burden on startups that rely on foreign cloud services such as Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, and more. $1000 for cloud services that would have cost N471,000 in early 2023 is now about N1.57 million, a 233.61 percent cost increase.



Services like Slack, Google Workspace, and others that are crucial for internal communications and operations of startups have also recorded a significant rise in naira costs. Now, Nigerian digital space entrepreneurs have de-dollarised to adjust to the current reality and have started switching hosting services, using internal IPs, and optimising its overall resource use. By our latest calculations, some have achieved a reduction of annual technology infrastructure operating costs by up to 69 percent.



At the end of the day, the committed, the creative and the passionate will make a way through the labyrinth of challenges to exploit the opportunity so availed by the policies.



It is in acknowledgement of this that we also review the latest quantity of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) importation figure which the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, says has reduced by 50 percent. That is to place the quantity imported in the region 31 million and 33 million litres. This, essentially, talks to freeing up funds that would have been tied up in importing about 66 million litres of PMS and channeling it into more productive use.



As one of the nation’s global entrepreneurs put it, while pessimism abounds, it is crucial to keep our eyes on the bright spots in Nigeria’s economy. We write off and ignore the country at our own peril; it could very well become a 22nd century superpower.



This should be the big picture for every forward looking Nigerian. Our fate should not be about existing from one day to the other; it should be about accepting the generational responsibility of standing in the gap for future generations. To sacrifice our today to change the economic trend of our country where rather than have millions numbered in poverty, we will have millions counted in wealth.



It is to this end we declare that we are unpretentious about our support and advocacy for the policies being advanced by the Tinubu’s administration targeted at enabling a market-driven economy. This is where we believe the fortunes of this great country can and would be unlocked.





Akinsinju is the Chairman,

Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI)

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2023: Stop Impersonating Us, CAN Warns Politicians

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The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has dissociated itself from the unveiling of the vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Kashim Shettima, saying those who were presented as church leaders are ‘unknown clerics’.

CAN’s General Secretary, Barrister Joseph Bade Daramola, gave the warning on Thursday in Abuja.

He expressed shock and disappointed about the desperation of some politicians who once “claimed Christians do not matter in governance and politics who went to hire some unknown bishops, pastors and priests to impersonate the leadership of CAN in their political meeting”.

“This is totally unacceptable, reprehensible, unprecedented and ungodly. If they are saying Christians have no electoral values why impersonating them in their meetings?”

“We are throwing their principals and sponsors into the court of conscience. These actions of theirs have shown who they are to the public and what they are capable of doing to us all.

“We are asking political parties not to ignore religious sensibilities and sensibilities of the people especially in today’s Nigeria when Christians are becoming endangered species daily. Our quest is within the constitutional requirements and ignoring it is akin to trampling on the Constitution especially the Federal Character Act,” Daramola said.

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Opinion

NCC To Auction 5G Spectrum 13th December, Sets Conditions

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said all is set for the official auctioning of the 3.5 Gigahertz (3.5 GHz) spectrum for the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) technology in Nigeria on December 13, 2021.

A statement signed by the commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, said it is adopting Ascending Clock Auction format, which is software-based, while a mock auction has been slated for December 10, 2021, as a precursor to the actual auction on December 13, 2021.

According to the statement, the Information Memorandum (IM) recently presented to the Commission at a stakeholder engagement forum provides information, conditions, obligations, financial implication, timelines and other necessary details on the planned 3.5Ghz spectrum auction.

‘‘The IM also explains the rollout obligations of the would-be eventual winners of the spectrum licence auction, whose reserved price has been pegged at $197.4 million (N75 billion),” the statement said.

‘‘The IM also states that only licensees, who make down payment of 10 per cent of the reserved bid price and with 100 per cent regulatory compliance would be allowed to participate in the auction while licensees with outstanding debts that have secured NCC’s approval for a payment plan will be allowed to participate in the auction.’’

The auction comes with a 10-year spectrum licence and a minimum requirement of an operational Universal Access Service Licence (UASL), but new entrants or licensees without a UASL will be required to obtain a UASL operational license to be qualified for the 5G licence.

The eventual licensees will have a rollout obligation plan spanning a period of 10 years, beginning from the date of award of the licence. Between the first and second year of the licence, the operators are expected to rollout service in, at least, one state in each geo-political zone.

From the third to fifth year, they are obligated to cover all the zones. Between six to 10 years, they should cover all the states in the country, according to guidelines set out in the IM.

Speaking on the planned roll out, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, said the Ministry has been working closely with the Commission to ensure that necessary spectrum resources needed for the deployment of 5G network in Nigeria to accelerate the nation’s digital economy space is made available.

The Minister said the 3.5GHz is the most popular spectrum band used globally by regulators and operators for the deployment of 5G technology, and it seems the only band available in Nigeria for immediate use by operators.

On his part, he Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, listed the various steps diligently taken by the Commission that culminated in present status of the 5G deployment plan.

He also highlighted the potential benefits from investment in 5G deployment to potential operators and investors in the country.

According to him, “Nigeria has an estimated population of 214 million, with an average growth rate of 2.6% annually. Approximately 76.46 per cent of the population is under the age of 35. In line with these demographic changes, internet penetration grew from 3 per cent in 2004 to 73.82 per cent as at September, 2021, and broadband penetration increased from less than 10 per cent in 2015 to 40.01 per cent in September, 2021.”

With the increase in mobile usage brought about by Fourth Generation (4G) technology and network performance, he said that 5G technology will leverage on this momentum, bringing substantial network improvements, including higher connection speed, mobility and capacity, as well as low-latency capabilities.

Meanwhile, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), among others, called on the government to continue to make the operating environment more conducive for the existing and prospective licensees in the telecom ecosystem, in order to enable Nigeria to fully harness and harvest the derivable benefits of mobile technology in the country.

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