INTERVIEW: Our Plans For Herdsmen In Niger State–Commissioner

Alhaji Umar Rebe is the Commissioner for Nomadic and Pastoral Affairs in Niger State.

He spoke to THE WHISTLER on the plight of a 12-year-old Fulani herder, Muhammadu Muhammadu, whose hands were recently cut off by assailants suspected to be farmers in the forest of Kpashimi village.

Recall THE WHISTLER reported in November 2023, that the Niger State Police Command, arrested one Jafaru Yunusa of Kpashimi village, a farmer, suspected to have attacked Muhammadu with a machete and left him to die, but was later rescued.

The suspect was arrested while two others were at large.

Excerpts

What’s The Latest Update Concerning The Case Of Muhammadu? 

We picked him (Muhammadu) from the General Hospital, Minna and brought him to Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) hospital in Minna to receive conventional treatment, but he has been discharged. 

He only goes there for consultation visits now, but he is still around us. We don’t want him to go far away from us so that we’ll continue counselling the family and him. 

Let him bear in his mind that there’s a reason for what happened to him, God has a reason for that. So, tomorrow will be better than today. We want to give him hope. 

We’re on top of the situation and insha Allah the government will provide another alternative hand for him. And we’ll take him to school. So instead of allowing him to go back to the bush and continuing herding, we decided it’s better to keep him here and enrol him in a school.

Have You Followed Up With The Police To Ensure The Other Two Suspects At Large Are Apprehended? And Has The Suspect In Custody Been Prosecuted?

Me in particular, I’m not aware about any arrest. And I’m not following up on the arrest. My responsibility is to give the boy all the necessary support. So people in charge of that are in better position to respond to that. 

What’s The Plan Of The Government For Other Herders? 

Our plan is to integrate the community ranches. When you provide those ranches with water, schools, hospitals and equip the schools with the necessary facilities such as solar so that if they are unable to attend school in the afternoon because of their activities, they can attend in the night to continue their learning. 

But considering the funding and some other challenges, we cannot be able to do it from all angles, but we’ll start.

We have piloted other areas for test running to start and see if it’s working. If it’s working, we are sure other non-governmental organisations and government agencies will come in and assist in one way or the other. 

We have a lot of plans pertaining the Nomadic schools because education is the answer. 

Are The Schools Ready Or You’re Planning To Establish Them?

We are planning to establish them. We just submitted our budget last week and awaiting approval, then we’ll go into implementation gradually. 

What Efforts Are You Putting In Ensuring The Security Of Other Herder Kids So That They Don’t End Up As Victims?

We have a report we submitted to his Excellency last week, with the eight Emirate Councils in Niger state, all agreed to register our cattle and get licensed for the cattle owners. Before we allow you rear cattle in Niger state you must be licensed. 

We’ll give you the license number, count your cattle, then know your location and how you operate before you can operate. With the data available, it’ll be very easy to give them security because we want to move from the hereditary way of life to commercial way. 

We want them to see cattle rearing as business not hereditary, and we’ll provide another way of alternative business to let them know they can do this one they can do that.

In our ranches, we want them to provide a biogas plant where they can use cow manure to produce cooking gas and also organic fertiliser. 

We have a lot of plans ranging from capacity building for women for this ruminant animals like goat and sheep. And chicken, you can not continue to keep managing poultry because it’s very difficult, the risk is very high. We’ll integrate our own local chicken to a standard that everybody will like to buy.

And our own cattle ranch where Fulani are settling, we’ll turn them into tourism areas because the wild world is looking for a greener pasture, so we’ll make it a very beautiful place where you can take your time and relax because it is very highly secured.