Police indicts chiefs over Fulani herdsmen

Page 16: Daily Graphic, April 27, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Ghana Police Service has indicted some chiefs and landowners in the country for perpetuating the menace of Fulani herdsmen by taking monies and cows from them and allowing them to settle on their lands.
Withholding the names of the chiefs and landowners for the time being, the police said such nefarious activities were rampant in the Northern, Eastern, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West regions and the Accra plains, posing a serious threat to food security in the country.
A report compiled by the Ghana Police Service painted a scary picture of the situation and described the allocation of land to migrant herdsmen as a new gateway to prosperity for some chiefs and landowners.
With the escalating situation, the police report warned that soon, it would be difficult for those chiefs and landowners to share or surrender their control over land “to the political leaders at the national and local levels” for development purposes “without massive resistance”.
It said the Fulanis entered into settlement agreements with the traditional authorities and landowners, which allowed the nomads to use the resources of the area.
According to the report, which covered the year 2009, earnings from rent paid by migrant Fulani herdsmen constituted a major source of income to landowners in these impoverished areas.
“Chiefs prefer to give land to the migrant Fulani, especially the herdsmen, who are rich in cattle and can afford to make substantial payments as settlement fees,” it said.
Besides, the report said, chiefs who gave out land to herdsmen were able to acquire cattle and build up a sizeable cattle herd of their own within a relatively short time, stressing that “these chiefs and landowners contribute very little of their own time and effort in acquiring this livestock”.
It acknowledged that moves by governments in the past to identify and prosecute chiefs who collaborated with the migrant Fulanis set the local administration on a collision course with the chiefs.
It added that an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust characterised the relationship between the locals and Fulani herdsmen as a result of the destruction of crops and consumption of food items by cattle especially during the planting season and the immediate post-harvest period.
The report, therefore, suggested a half-yearly renewal of registration of Fulanis, based on comportment, by the Ghana Immigration Service and the police.
It also suggested that the entry and exit of the migrant Fulani herdsmen should be strictly controlled while the Fulanis were restrained from possessing weapons, but should be allowed only under appropriate certification and control.
It said municipal and district assemblies must also be told in clear terms not to use revenue mobilisation as an excuse to harbour the Fulani herdsmen in their areas of jurisdiction and close their eyes to the destruction that the Fulanisd been causing to the environment.
It said Fulanis who did not want to obey the laws of the land must be shown the exit.