Fulani menace requires urgent attention

Since the early 2000, the Fulani herdsmen menace has become a national concern, if not a security challenge.

There are nomadic herdsmen scattered in all parts of the country but they are mostly concentrated in Agogo, Begoro, and parts of the Volta and Greater Accra regions.

At the beginning of this millennium when the problem came to a head, the government introduced ‘Operation Cow Leg,’ made up of a combined team of police and military personnel, to flush out the herdsmen.

That we have reached this stage of apparent impunity by a section of herdsmen means that the government’s action to deal with the menace has been slow.

Last year, some indigenes of Agogo took the matter to court to seek an order to flush the herdsmen out but, here again, the order was not carried out until this year when Mr Kwadwo Baah Agyemang, the MP for Asante Akyem North, and Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah, the Communications Director of the National Democratic Party (NDP), mobilised the people to rise up against the perceived might of the herdsmen.

The action of the two was considered to be a threat to national security and they were even invited by the Ashanti Regional Police Command for questioning but they called the bluff of the police.

We believe that the challenges posed by nomadic herdsmen require urgent and decisive measures by the government in order to avoid a major clash between the herdsmen and the indigenes.

Ghanaians in areas where the herdsmen have become a nuisance have been fighting to protect their heritage but it appears the forces behind the herdsmen always drown the cries of local farmers and landowners.

Perhaps there is something about the herdsmen that the ordinary person on the street does not know. If there is no powerful but unseen hands protecting the interest of the herdsmen, then it will be worthwhile asking: From where do the Fulani herdsmen derive their invisibility to be destroying people’s farms with impunity?

Some commentators, especially security experts, have said that the ECOWAS protocols on the free movement of goods and people will make it difficult for our government to deal with the menace.

According to them, the protocols allow citizens of the region to move about freely, even with their livestock, and as a result the herdsmen are within the requirements of the protocols to move their cattle in the sub-region.

Nobody has any major issue with ECOWAS protocols, except that there are issues if our visitors carry out their trade by breaking the laws of our land with impunity.

The protocols do not endorse the practice where the Fulani herdsmen, in moving their cattle around, destroy farms and water bodies, rape our mothers and sisters and, in extreme cases, take the lives of Ghanaians.

By their actions, the herdsmen have outlived their welcome and there is no way they can expect to enjoy the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality.

The latest killings in the Agogo area only confirm the fears of some Ghanaians that the herdsmen have no respect for the Ghanaian hospitality.

The Daily Graphic, therefore, calls on the security capos of our land to make sure that our love for peaceful co-existence is respected by the herdsmen to avoid the breach of the peace.

We are sitting on a time bomb and it is about time the Fulani herdsmen were compelled to respect the laws of our land.