Abdulqadri Abikan is an associate professor as well as Head of Department, Faculty of Law at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State. In this interview with KAYODE ADEOTI, he speaks on the need for the Nigeria governors to make fortune from the herdsmen through taxation among other sundry issues. Excerpts:
There have been debates concerning what yardstick should be adopted in order to halt herdsmen killings in the country, what is your take on this?
I have an opinion that will help this country, the way it has worked for other parts of the world, including some African countries. I had interaction with a professor who is a Nigerian that has become nationalised in Botswana sometimes ago, imagine, he believes in Botswana more than Nigeria though Botswana is an African country.ย The country is still developing and they’ve moved far. They’ve addressed their citizenship and land administration issues, that’s what has been causing herdsmen havoc in Nigeria. For God sake, somebody who is an Igbo man was brought up in Ilorin, he has never stayed a month in his town, all his education is in Ilorin and you want to say, such a person is not from Kwara state. That’s a madness that has to be removed from our mentality. Those people we call herdsmen, they are citizens of different states, there is no part of Nigeria they won’t be seen. Yet they referred to them as non indigenes because they don’t speak indigenous language. They don’t have entitlement to rear their animals, this is madness. Ourย citizen law has to be reviewed. If anyone has stayed for the period of ten years in a certain community he should have right to claim the citizenship of the place. The next issue now is, how do we handle our land administration?… The professor was telling me in our recent chat that he has a cattle ranch in Botswana. If a Nigerian could be given such in a foreign land, how much more a Nigeria citizen in his own land. Now, we can see governors from different states in the country saying they’re not embracing cattle colony, they’re not thinking. Litre of milk we are producing in Nigeria per day is far above the number of petroleum litres. Compare how much a litre of milk is sold with that of petroleum, milk is more costly, realising this, what do we need to do. We must harness the industry so that we can have another crude oil in the milk industry. If we have over two million litres milk in Nigeria that are scattered in the hands of the herdsmen, a thinking governor should invite them without been prompted.
How do you think this idea will be embraced at this time…?
A thinking governor will create cattle colony for them, place them on tax and start making cool money in the process. The government will ascertain the number of the cows, apportion space for them. None of them is paying tax, they are just going about. Our governor should advertise this on the media that whoever have cows above maybe 1,000 should come, they must be awaken to what they tend to gain. What the cows are producing are more than what is coming from the Niger Delta region as gain for the country. The processing of milking is natural, in fact, it is dangerous for them not to extract the cow milk, because it will be a great burden on the animals. Compulsorily, they must tap the milk. The product can equally be exported to another state or outside the country, this is a good fortune, our governors should think. Federal Government should find a way to accommodated them in any state they find themselves. In America, you don’t see cow on the street, they have separate places for them.
