Thread by @Hejeoma

As usual we have drawn daggers regarding the ranching initiative by the state & federal government. Let me try to use this #Thread lay out of a few things.
1. Research has shown that the lake chad's surface area has shrunk by about 90% in the past 50 years. An initial surface

2. area of 25,000 km2 has reduced to less than 2,500 km2 due to desertification caused by climate change.
bbc.com/news/world-afr… This freshwater lake is located in the Sahelian zone of west-central Africa at the conjunction of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, & Niger with an estimated

3. 38 million people living around there. Once upon a time especially during the dry (harmattan) season when the water dries up a bit and there are no pastures for cattle to feed, the herders would drift inwards to Bornu, Adamawa, Yobe, Taraba etc. As yearly drought &

4. desertification keeps getting worse, pastures & natural water sources across North-East are drying up at an alarming rate. To compound matters, we have the insurgency ongoing in the sahelian region. With thousands of people killed, millions displaced, properties/business

5. worth enormous amount of money destroyed; herders are drifting further inland from not only the drought but also from war. nrc.no/news/2018/sept… A few years back states like Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna, Nassarawa etc would play host to these herders and their livestock but today

6. expansion of private/public infrastructures, human settlements, acquisition of land by large-scale farmers and businesses have diminished lands where livestock would graze. Even grazing reserves that were once designated by the post-independence government of the former

7. Northern region have all been overtaken by development. These herders & their livestock in recent years have little or no option but to drift further towards the rivers Niger & Benue where they are assured of water & pasture. Herders moving towards these area

8. especially the southern parts is a very tricky situation; first there's the language barrier,then we have the issue of religion. These areas have experienced high population growth over the years which has further reduced farming land. Unfortunately in their search for

9. 'greener pastures', livestock now destroy crops on these farms which are peoples livelihood. Without proper mediation, some farmers steal/kill livestock in revenge & its only a matter of time before there are full blown conflicts between the herders & the farm owners.

10. Eventually entire villages are ransacked & lives lost. We have a lot of ignorant people who aren't interested in knowing root causes of issues & those who are willing to heat up an already fragile situation going about spreading the gospel of 'Islamization &

11. fulanization', by the way the herders(intruders) are mainly Fulanis & Muslims. People ask, if they are just normal herders of cattle why then are they able to muster assault weapons for attacks? It's simple, there's a full blown war going on in the Sahelian/North east

12. region, with bokoharam/ISIS/Peuhl Militia readily available in those areas it only takes a phone call to get a few of them to arrive in a few days armed with weapons to either start an attack or carry out a reprisal attack. We all know how porous our borders are

13. & how law enforcement have done very little to curb the proliferation of arms in the country. If we do not address the issues of free flow of illegal weapons and immigrants, prosecute perpetrators of violence, come up with modern & improved livestock management

14. practices etc...These clashes will not be stopping anytime soon because climate change is real & will not be getting better. The conflict in the northeast is also real & will not be ending any time soon, it is easy to tell if we observe the influx of ISIS fighters

15. in that region& also monitor events in neighboring countries like Chad, Mali, Niger & not too far away Libya. We can hate the herders all we want but there is no denying the fact that in 2016, Lagos state was estimated to consume approximately N1.6bn worth

16. of cattle daily! punchng.com/lagos-consumes… If this is just one state, lets try to paint a mental picture of the quantity of cattle consumed in the entire country.We should be talking solutions since we can't do away with meat & not having meaningless quarrels that will not do

17. anyone any good. Suggestions: I am in support of the governments plan to setup grazing reserves in states that GIVE CONSENT! The herders are allowed to bring in their livestock to these designated reserves with the condition that they pay a certain amount as tax to the

18. states that own the reserves. This will not only reduce drastically conflicts between herders & farmers but also improve livestock production as we have better meat from cows that aren't moved around the country. It will also be a source of IGR from the states where the

19. reserves are located since the herders are paying tax. The government can go further by mandating abbattoirs to sell beef only gotten from such reserves thereby stopping them from patronizing sellers of herdered cattle. I actually got this idea from @IsuphJt This

19. automatically will reduce herding of cattle as many will be forced into ranching. The best time to do this is now that the rains are here, If we allow dissenting voices to stop this initiative, the rains will eventually stop & another dry season will come.

20. The circle of violence will surely continue. The military also has to increase its offensive against insurgents in the northeast so that displaced persons can return home. Government should also look into methods of restoring the degraded areas around the

21. sahelian region. I am advising people to do a little online research on the lakechad environs & how it contributes to farmer/herder conflicts. Goodnight