By Dele Sobowale

HOWEVER, before the shooting (verbal or guns) starts in earnest, it is necessary for all of us to get familiar with some facts which will not suddenly change and which might guide us when making collective and individual decisions on this matter. These might be called the Iron Laws of our economic (read FOOD) life in Nigeria today. Any rash step and we topple into the abyss – the end of which nobody knows.

The first was made known to me by a retired Professor of Animal Science, from the University of Ibadan, Professor B.K. Ogunmodede. If you want to be intelligent, first ensure that one of your senior brothers is a professor. I was lucky in that respect.

I had gone to pay a visit to Kabiyesi, as I call him and, like most city dwellers, started with a barrage of complaints about the Fulani herdsmen and their destructive tendencies and why strong measures should be introduced to check them. Kabiyesi, not one to suffer fools gladly, especially, one he had known to be one from day one of his life, brought me up short with one statement (I hope it is quoted correctly.

Animal protein
Even if it is not, this is one person who will not take me to court). Said Prof: “Whatever we do in this country, we must recognise the fact that the Fulani herdsmen hold one half of our food supply, the animal protein, in their hands. And they have done that from time immemorial. Any hasty action against them will result in dire consequences for all of us.” I was totally disarmed.

Like most people, I was aware that we obtain almost all of our meat from the efforts of the herdsmen. Again, like most people, I had not given thought to how totally dependent we had become on them until that providential visit to the guru on human nutrition. From those words of wisdom, one can begin to discern the complexity of the problems needing to be solved, virtually, at jet speed, to avert a national calamity.

The Second Law, which is just as vital to understand as the first states as follows: “The ongoing war between Fulani herdsmen/women and children is not just another conflict. It is also a major economic war which will eventually devastate all of us.”

Anybody labouring under the illusion that this is our own version of a “Rumble in the Jungle” will soon find hunger and kwashiorkor close at hand. The reason is not difficult to discover.
Boko Haram war has already driven thousands of farmers from the land in several villages in the Northeast; skirmishes on the Plateau have sent more packing.

A nationwide struggle between herdsmen and farmers will certainly ensure there will be scarcities of meat protein as well as grains, tubers and even fruits and vegetables.
Those fighting for their lives seldom have the time to fight for the survival of plants or livestock. That was the biggest lesson of the Nigerian Civil War – which many of us have forgotten so soon.
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