WELCOME ADDRESS

Welcome address by Saleh B. Momale, Ag. Executive Director, The Pastoral Resolve at the Public Presentation of Report of Research on Rural Banditry and Conflicts in Northern Nigeria, Asaa Pyramid Hotel, Kaduna, Thursday, 20th August 2015

Protocol

It is my distinguished pleasure to welcome you all to this event. Your Excellencies, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished guests, rural banditry and cattle rustling has in the past five years devastated thousands of livestock breeders and farming communities, particularly in Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Kogi, and Taraba States and FCT Abuja. For five years, the armed bandits were on rampage, devastating communities, ransacking commercial farms and destroying people's livelihoods. While this was going on, the institutions of the State largely remained passive. Limited action was taken by both the security and civil authorities as the victims continued to suffer trauma, deprivation and insecurity.

The situation then seemed uncontrollable and beyond the capacity of the State. The armed bandits took control and expanded their activities from isolated events to full scale onslaught, taking away cattle, sheep and goats in thousands. They became cartels, controlling a multi-million Naira criminal enterprise.

In the midst of this, a number of concerned civil society organisations came together and discussed the phenomena, in an inclusive manner that will help unravel the root causes and identify strategic intervention that will contribute in eradicating the menace. This study was then conceptualised, and the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP) took the lead in financing the research. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and The Pastoral Resolve (PARE) spearheaded the conduct of the research, carried out by renown academics and leaders of civil society organisations, indeed the best of scholars in the field.

It is satisfying that the result of this effort is being presented to you here today. The findings and recommendations from the research have been simplified in three policy briefs for the convenient use of policy makers. It is our hope that this briefs will positively contribute in addressing these challenges.

Again, it is doubly gratifying to note with appreciation and joy the success recorded in curtailing the calamity of armed banditry in the border areas of Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina and Niger States under the leadership of the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, His Excellency, Mallam Nasir El-Rufa'i. Your Excellency, your interest, initiative and wisdom in coordinating the efforts that led to the successful recovery of over 3,000 rustled cattle has made an indelible mark of history in the minds of not only the pastoralists, but the entire rural farming populations in Nigeria and beyond.

Your Excellency, we appeal that this initiative be sustained and followed up with more proactive interventions in all parts of the State and beyond until the whole menace is controlled and wiped. We had always believed that with the right leadership and commitment, the problems of rural insecurity will be successfully controlled.

We wish to place on records that there is still more that need to be done. It is sad that as a result of cattle rustling and rural insecurity, no less than 30% of Nigerian cattle from the States of Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger and Kogi States have today migrated out of the country into Benin Republic, Togo and Ghana. The Governments of those countries are rapidly capitalising on this, and are implementing robust livestock development programmes within the ECOWAS Agricultural and Livestock Development Policies. Contrary, on the Nigerian side, the previous Governments at all levels remained insensitive.

Again, the insecurity in parts of Northeastern Nigeria also led to migration of nearly 50% of Nigerian cattle that were within the Lake Chad Basin in the States of Borno and Yobe into Cameroon, Chad and other Central African countries like Gabon and Congo. All of these developments are negative to Nigeria's quest for social and economic development and attainment of food security.

Your Excellency, Your Royal Highnesses, the success achieved in dislodging bandits and recovering rustled cattle is not yet over. Most of the cattle rustlers and their sponsors are yet to be apprehended. Thousands more livestock are yet to be recovered. Hundreds more families are still traumatised and their means of livelihoods destroyed. Worst still, many of the atrocities committed against innocent citizens by vigilantes and corrupt security officials is still ongoing. Indeed, even this past week, there were reports of brutal killings by vigilantes in Birnin Gwari LGA of innocent pastoralists in their homesteads - indeed so brutal was it that even three months old babies were murdered.

Your Excellency, it is a privilege to use this medium to appeal to your administration to set up a panel of investigation to unravel this mystery of armed cattle rustling, the magnitude of which has never been recorded in the whole of West Africa. The panel, to be made up of security and civil institutions, need to have strong civil society representation, should investigate and identify the cattle rustling syndicate, map out their marketing systems and make recommendations for sanctions for all those involved directly and indirectly. The panel also need to document the victims, assess their support requirements and propose a framework for the restoration of the livelihoods of the victims.

Distinguished participants, we assure you of our commitment to social justice and in supporting this revolutionary and people centred administration at the Federal and States levels. Once again, thank you very much for honouring our invitation.