BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
In my bid to ascertain the extent of disconnect between farmers and their farms, I recently hired the services of a commercial bike-man, also known as “Okada-man” at Umunede in Delta State to take me to some of the farm roads I used to know that had a lot of traffic. Some driving in their vehicles, others riding on their motor-bikes and bicycles, with majority walking on foot to their farms.
The bike-man, who initially was a apprehensive of me, as I told him he was going to take me to two farm roads without a cutlass in my hand to indicate I was actually going to farm, and his fear made worse by my decent dressing, not reflecting in any form the usual rag, tag clothes local farmers put on, felt relaxed when I identified myself and told him what my mission to the two farm roads was about.
I had been at the two farm roads, located at Mbiri near Umunede, and Idumu-uzor-ugbo, Ileje quarters of Umunede, when I accompanied an uncle of mine to tap his palm-wine on two different occasions, making use of his motorcycle.
Back in the old good days, farmers could afford to stay in their farms up till 7 pm before returning home.
Also, back in those days, before advent of herdsmen menace, a student, back from school could, on the instruction of his parents, find his way to the farm all alone to assist in farm work. He took his launch in the farm before being given a portion to weed or assigned any other job that may be available.
But today, the story is no longer the same; the land is no longer green to farm on due to the activities of herdsmen.
Even as the “Okada- rider conveyed me on his bike on the fact-finding mission, I observed that there were not up to five persons that we met in our going and coming back. Among the five persons were three men and two women, walking in a group to their farms. The culture of walking to the farm alone was no longer there.
“That is the system now. No one, male or female, goes to the farm alone nowadays,’ said the Okada-rider. ‘‘I guess you observed that I was afraid when you approached me to take you to the farm roads. It was because, we don’t know who is who now, nobody can be trusted again here. Everybody is afraid of the herdsmen who invade our farmlands with their cows, and we when we attempt to complain or resist them, they strike, maim or kill our people with bows and arrows, daggers and AK-47 Riffles, rape our women, young and old”.
“ You can see that the farm roads are empty of people. You can only see a few of our farmers on the farm, and they must go in group. Before the menace of these herdsmen started, they used to be ‘go-slow’ on these farm roads as a result of many people making their way to their farms,” he added.
Activities of herdsmen have led to food scarcity in the country; with the negative effects on the regions where they are most visible, like the South-South, South-west and South-east geo-political zones, where they unleash mayhem on innocent farmers.
Many farmers, for fear, have abandoned their farms, this giving room to the herdsmen to allow their cattle to graze freely on their farms. Any of the farmers who complain is mauled down by the herdsmen who go out armed with dangerous weapons.
Nkadi Ibegbulem, a renowned farmer in Ika North-east Council area of Delta State, says the five graduates he trained in the university were all seen through the University with the proceeds from the farm.
“If it were now that herdsmen have taken over our farmlands, my brother, I would not have been able to do that because of their wicked activities. They have succeeded in chasing us out of our land in their effort to ensure that their cattle do the normal grazing. While the Federal Government has not done much to check the situation, we have remained hungry.
Asked if that was an indirect way of saying he had resigned from farming, he said, ‘‘Farming had always been my profession if I may say so, but with the activities of herdsmen, the passion for farming has long left many of us . I now feel very reluctant to go to my farms. My children sternly warned me not to be going to my farms any more since going there is now greeted with fear.
‘‘I long stopped going to my farms when I discovered the whole of my cash crops had been grazed upon, and nothing, by way of addressing the issue is being done. Most of the herdsman are left to go scot-free.
“My farm lands have been wasted by these herdsmen. Many of us are today placed on danger list of hunger. Many are no longer able to feed even once in a day. What most of us feed on as one meal a day is nothing close to nourishing diet.
‘Provided the stomach is filled, and the disturbing warms in them are taken care of, many of us feel less perturbed over what others refer to as normal diet. Rich diets are only meant for the privileged class in Nigeria, a country that is supposed to have the capacity to feed her people. Unfortunately, the down-trodden masses have continued to be the foot-match of hunger”, he lamented.
“And instead of the situation to get better, it is getting compounded at every tick of the time,” Nkadi Ibegbulem lamented.
“Many Nigerians bear hunger like patients bear pain; they have nothing to eat, no more lands to cultivate due to the disturbing activities of the herdsmen. A
few of them that have access to their farmlands with little interference from herdsmen, cultivate their farm at very high cost’, he added.
Unfortunayely, he disclosed that, the farmers pay through their nose to transport their farm produce from the farm to the cities, where they are sold at almost a loss.
“Also, the prices of the produce are pitched beyond the reach of the ordinary people who form bulk of the population in the country, while
commercial drivers cash in on the bad state of the roads to bleed the already exploited farmers of their small profit. This is how bad it is.
“This is partly why prices of farm produce continue to sky-rocket, leading to a situation where those with low and high income go to the same market to buy the farm produce at the same price, without consideration to anyone’s financial status”.
In his reaction, Stephen Idehen, a business center owner, based in Agbor, suggested the total ban on cattle grazing on farms across the country, lamenting that it was the major source of food crisis rocking Nigeria presently, as farmers can no longer cope with the challenges they face in their farms.
Also, Mr. Itoroh Ofunim, farming at Alikpekwu but hails from Otolokpo in Ika North East Local Government Area of Delta State, lamented how an over 70-year old man was humiliated when he was subjected to carry a four liter jerry-can of water on his head for daring to ask herdsmen he met in his farm why they allowed their cattle to graze on his crops.
The herdsmen, according to our source, one Mrs. Monica Eledu, who narrowly escaped from the herdsmen, and a peasant farmer too, said the elderly man was asked to untie the jerry-can of water on the carriage of his bicycle, which he did before asking him to carry it on his head for hours, while he watched the cattle as they recklessly grazed on his crops.
Giving his own account, Egwuatu Ejikebi will never forget the day him and his wife first met some herderdsmen in their farm at Ifete-Dunu in Anambra State, where he cultivated large acres of cassava, pumpkin leaf, cocoa yam and yams.
“When they woke up in the morning of April, 2018, and set out for their farm to accomplish what the day required of them to do, little did they know that the death knell will be sounding for them.
They had, on arrival at their farm stunned with the presence of herdsmen, armed with arrow, daggers in their sheaths hanging down from their waist, AK-47 rifles and other dangerous weapons they carried and flaunted with impunity, ostensibly to intimidate, harass, molest and instill fear into people, especially owners of farm lands they were invading.
And in his attempt to stop the herdsmen, his wife was rape. As they lined up with you their clothes down to the waist, he was shot on one of his legs, while his wife was right under his nose, raped by the stinking and haggard-looking herdsmen, who looked desperate, poised for a dangerous mission, and ready to kill whoever they perceived as an enemy to them.
Egwuatu Ejikebi didn’t lived to tell his experience in the hands of the herdsmen, as he was shot dead shortly after all of them, numbering seven, had had their way, according to his wife who was picked unconscious from the farm after family members waited for their return in vain for close to seven hours before they decided to go in search of them.
It was his wife who later fed them with information on how everything happened. Egwuatu Ejikebi, who happened to be the family’s bread winner, left behind five children who depended on him.
The villagers could not, for several months, go to their farms for fear of encountering the herdsmen who took over their farm lands. There was no need to say that hunger took over the entire village. Foodstuff dealers had to catch in on the development to raise prices of their food items to the roof tops. The locals, starved, pay through their nose for the few available foodstuffs, sold to them by traders, who claimed they were not finding it easy conveying their farm produce to the villages with commercial vehicles drivers who charge them outrageous amount.
One Leonard Obianke told this reporter how his father’s entire farmland with over two thousand yam seedlings were destroyed.
According to him, his father who is an Agbor-based auto-mechanic, spent over N1. 4 million to buying the yam and tomatoes seedlings he used in cultivating the more than two acres of land, part of which he also hired.
‘‘For us the children, our father would have ended up committing suicide over all that happened to him on his farmlands. We had to contribute money worth over N3million after he recovered from the shock to douse the tension and high blood pressure that almost overwhelmed him, and took him and our mother thereafter, to convalesce in our eldest brother’s house in Lagos for close to two months before they returned to the village to start all over again,’
Leonard told this reporter.
When the menace of these herdsmen became too unbearable to the villagers in Ute area of Ika North East, some farmers began to set traps round the four corners of their farms; solid wood traps with strong wires and hard iron booby traps were deployed as means of checking the herdsmen who strolled into people’s farms with their cattle without mercy to destroy or their crops.
“The late hour cup of palm-wine we now sell in urban areas for N500 is caused by these herdsmen. Since they started invading our farm lands with their cattle, we no longer go to farm as before for fear of being killed. Our women cannot go to our farms without being accompanied by able-bodied men. Those of us tapping palm-wine find it difficult going to farm very early as before in order not to run into them. You know palm-wine business is usually carried out in the mornings, to enable us meet our customers who come from different towns to buy from.
Since one Nkukia, a renowned palmwine tapper almost got killed when he went to tap his early morning palm-wine, other tappers have learnt to be skeptical of the time we leave our homes. We all now go late to our farms to tap palm-wine. In fact, many of us no longer tap. It used to be another source of our income.’ Ebie Nwaokobia disclosed at one of the palm-wine joints in Asaba.
Corroborating what Ebie Nwaokobia said, Obienweiwe Okoh, another renowned palm wine tapper, stopped by his children to continue the business for fear of being killed by herdsmen, now trade on electrical parts.
He said his encounter with Fulani herdsmen in the bush made him to hang his climbing rope permanently on the advice of his children, who opened electrical parts store for him at Umunede, being the trade he learnt in his prime.
A woman at the popular Ogbeogonogo Market, Asaba, selling assorted vegetables, who simply identified herself as Mama Ejima, from Orlu, Imo State, admitted that the influx of Fulani herdsmen into people’s farm destroying their crops, which has led to scarcity of foodstuffs, one of them being vegetables that now costs a fortune at Ugbolu Market, near Asaba.
“Both un-common and common vegetables have had their prices increased because we hardly get them. I wonder why these hoodlums, masquerading as cattle rearers cannot be put under control,” she lamented.
She said, though she heard that they were being sponsored by some rich people who supply them sophiscated guns like AK-47 rifles to protect their cattle against thievery, but with the way they operate and the many atrocities they perpetrate, they are more of mischief makers than cattle tenders they claim to be.”
In defence of the farmers, some members of the public said security personnel are not doing enough to protect them from the attack unleashed on them by these herders, saying that farmers contribute in no small way in feeding the nation. Their importance, she says, to the nation, cannot be quantified in Naira and Kobo.
A retired Police Officer, ASP Chukwuemeka Uzunakpundu, now a businessman, told this reporter that, due to the unwholesome activities of herdsmen which appeared to be backed by some well-to-do in the society, the local peasants are afraid to go to their farms, which contribute 80 per cent of their economic well-being and daily sustenance of many Nigerians. He says security personnel, judging by reports they get across the nation, are really doing their best to checkmate activities of these headers, but said that a lot of support still needed to be given in the area of sophisticated weapons to tackle and bring the herdsmen to their knees.
“We have heard rumours that herdsmen are allegedly being backed by some heavy weights in the country, especially those they operate the business on their behalf. I have always said if that is the case, it is too bad and something needs to be done urgently about it. Now, many villagers no longer have access to their farmlands due to the presence of herdsmen.”
He further said, if it was true that some big men in the society do aid the herdsmen, it is too bad, wondering how those engaged in such un-commendable acts could be arrested and made to face the full weight of the law.
Where do you think they get the guns from if not from the so-called elites in the country and with the connivance of some unpatriotic uniformed men,? asked Ibe Ujedibie, CEO of SOlax UPstream Décors, Asaba. ‘You and I really don’t know what those farmers living in the villages are passing through in their farms because we are in the town. Many resourceful women willing to increase their husbands by assisting them in their farms are sometimes beaten up by these reckless and mal-nourished-looking cattlerearers if they are not raped. Lives have been reported to have been lost through these heartless men.”
Ibe Ujedibie, therefore, suggested the deployment of local vigilante to some strategic farm roads in the villages, since nearly all villages now have their own vigilant group. With their presence, he said it will be difficult for these hoodlums to penetrate people’s farmlands, adding, these vigilante men should not just be drafted to the major entrances of farm roads, they should be well-equipped with guns, machete and daggers, and made to operate shifts to cover morning, afternoon and night. They should also be involved in intensive patrol of the areas they cover.
