Transborder Pastoral Nomadism and Human Security in Africa

Focus on West Africa

Richard Olaniyan, Olukayode A. Faleye, Inocent Moyo, Richard Olaniyan, Olukayode A. Faleye, Inocent Moyo

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032138428
• eBook ISBN: 9781000481259
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the nexus between political borders, pastoral nomadism, and human security in Africa. It uses a host of applied interdisciplinary insights to analyse social, political, and cultural processes, circumstances, and consequences to showcase the human security crisis in the context of climate change, inter-group relations, leadership strategies, institutions, and governance within the region.

With a special focus on West Africa and Nigeria, the volume discusses crucial themes that highlight the role of borders in the security architecture of the region which include,

• Political economy of herdsmen-farmers' conflicts in West Africa;

• The scarcity-migration perspective of the Sahel region;

• Population pressure, urbanization, and nomadic pastoral violence in West Africa;

• Human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria;

• Drivers of 'labour' migration of Fulani herders to Ghana, and other topics.

A key contribution to a pressing issue, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of history, political science, anthropology, geography, international relations, literature, environmental science, and peace and conflict studies.

1 Introduction

Richard Olaniyan, Olukayode A. Faleye, and Inocent Moyo

DOI: 10.4324/9781003231042-1

This book examines the nexus between borders, nomadic pastoralism, and human security in Africa, with a particular focus on West Africa. Borders are both material and symbolic, which means that they “can have a very obvious presence and even where visually indistinct, they are typically the bearers of a wider symbolism” (Anderson and O’Dowd, 1999, p. 595). As a result, borders illustrate “a place of friction or meeting where alterity is negotiated [… they] are a kind of space where the relationship with otherness can be developed in such a way as to allow for identity-building and place-making” (Szary, 2015, p. 36). From this point of view, borders are not only physical lines at the margins of nation-states but also social, cultural, and other processes which play out at different scales and spaces (Asiwaju, 1984a, 1984b; Coleman, 2007; Paasi, 2012; Cons and Sanyal, 2013; Laine, 2015; Szary, 2015; Faleye, 2016; Moyo and Nshimbi, 2019). As observed by Gregor Dobler:

[I]n the international system of sovereign states – be they colonial or post-colonial – borders make the radical claim to mark the line where one state’s authority begins and another one’s ends. On one side of that line, the claim for the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence lies with one government in one capital; a few steps further, the claim lies with a different government in a different capital.

(Dobler, 2016, p. 147)

In Sub-Saharan Africa, this has translated to a phenomenon where people of a mobile culture such as herdsmen commit a crime in one country or culture area and use the border to evade the law enforcement agents. Indeed, once they cross the border, they easily disappear into another country or assimilate into a different cultural space. The effect of the border in terms of marking the interiority and exteriority of countries (Moyo, 2016) is that it can “shelter” illegal or unlawful cross-border activities like cattle rustling and transnational bandits by providing refuge to perpetrators of these cross-border crimes (Kynoch and Ulicki, 2001). This has created a cross-border security challenge for both the state and the border communities – a fact which has been demonstrated across Africa (see Awogbade, Olaniyan and Faleye, 2016; Alemu, 2019; Aluede, 2019; Alusala, 2019; Faleye, 2019; Moyo and Nshimbi, 2019; Okolie-Osemene and Aluko, 2019).

The artificial nature of the colonially determined African borders has created social capital and solidarity that often negate the official symbol of state boundaries in the continent (Asiwaju, 1984b). While borders provide conduits of opportunity embedded in differential valuation (Baud and Van Schendel, 1997; Nugent, 2012; Dobler, 2016), transborder nomadic pastoralism and cattle rustling have metamorphosed into a human security dilemma in Africa. In this vein, the onset of the twenty-first century witnessed a transition in the “eco-violence” debate to interwoven narratives bordering on climate change, culture, and governance in the understanding of the nexus between transborder nomadic pastoralism, cattle rustling, and human security (Okoli and Atelhe, 2014; Awogbade et al., 2016; Okoli and Lenshie, 2018). Using the complexity of African experiences with informal cross-border cattle flows and its implications for human security as a focus, this introductory chapter provides conceptual and theoretical explanations of transborder nomadic pastoralism and human security in Africa.

Explaining transborder pastoral nomadism and human security

The conceptualisation of nomadism, pastoralism, transhumance, and human security is central to the discourse of the agro-pastoral crisis in Africa. According to the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC, 2018), “transhumance is a mobile livestock farming method that is based on regular, seasonal movements”. While this cross-border movement is “predictable”, “nomadism” is a “continual and unpredictable movements of all members of a family or a group”. It has been noted that the term “nomadism would be properly used where there is no permanent ‘home’, and the whole group is constantly on the move” (Evans, 1940). Pastoralism refers to the “exclusive reliance on herding domesticated animals for subsistence and marketable products” (Mulder et al., 2010, p. 36). As observed by Shettima and Usman (2008, p. 164), nomadism is an “integral social, political, and environmental dimension of pastoralism”. Okoli and Lenshie (2018, p. 70) conceived the combination of nomadism with pastoralism as “nomadic migrancy”, that is, the “movement and/or sojourn of nomadic herdsmen” across ethnocultural or state boundaries for “ecological survival, economic substance and sustainable livelihood”. Pastoral nomadism is essentially a “food-producing” economy and mobile culture rather than a food extracting culture in which the largest proportion of the population engaged in seasonal pastoral movements (Khazanov, 1994). Shettima and Usman posit that in West Africa, the survival of “pastoralist and crop farmers are intertwined” as the two groups share “land, water, fodder and other resources” (Shettima and Usman, 2008, p. 164). This “intertwining” of the two groups in resource use appears to fundamentally make herdsmen–farmers conflict a resource conflict. Beyond the resource scarcity theory of pastoral conflicts are integral aspects of “bigger conflicts with religious, ethnic, political and other dimensions” (Shettima and Usman, 2008, p. 179). In the absence of adequate enforcement of regulations, this condition compels groups of nomadic pastoralists to negotiate space with sedentary settlers of distinct ethnoreligious identity as an economic incentive derived from the political goodwill enjoyed in such territories rather than any other necessity preconditioned by climate change. This phenomenon differing from the climatic-conditioned seasonal movements had a disruptive impact on both the host communities and pastoral nomads.

Human security has been conceptualised as the protection of the “vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment”. This implies safeguarding “freedoms that are the essence of life”, that is, shielding people from extreme and prevailing “threats” to life as well as aiding people’s “strength” and “aspirations” for “survival, livelihood and dignity” (Commission on Human Security, CHS, 2003, p. 4). In advancing this discourse, this book examines the dynamics of transborder nomadic pastoralism in Africa, not only from the perception of national security but also essentially from the human security dimension. In pursuit of this logic, we conceptualise human security as the “security of people, not just territory. Security of individuals not just nations. Security through development, not through arms. Security of all the people everywhere – in their homes, in their jobs, in their streets, in their communities, in their environment” (Ul Haq, 1995, p. 115). This is imperative considering the peculiar nature of the state system and multicultural relations in West Africa. Overall, the concept of human security put into cognizance the interests of both nomads and sedentary settlers, thereby providing a rich basis for bridging the conflicting narratives of transborder nomadic pastoralism and human security in Africa.

The discourse of transborder pastoral nomadism stems from two major conceptual perspectives: the “pro-nomadism” and the “sedentarisation” paradigms. Whereas the “pro-nomadic” school of thought justifies the unending movement of nomads and their herds based on cultural rights and economic security, the sedentarisation perspective called for the institutionalisation of cattle ranches as a way of settling the herdsmen in a modern global society. The pro-nomadic school argues that sedentarisation causes more veterinary health problems and that resettlement schemes are capital intensive as well as culturally invasive. Contrarily, the sedentarisation school argues that movement is unhealthy for the nomadic pastoralist and their herds. According to this view, movement leads to conflict between the nomads and their host communities and makes the nomads elusive of government policies (Awogbade et al., 2016). Thus, it appears the nomadic cultural narrative is inconsistent with the modern state system since it technically violates the territorial integrity of the African States and their internal security. It is on this note that Okoli and Lenshie (2018) re-affirms the notion of under-governed spaces as “demonstrated by the [Nigeria’s] frailty in upholding its territoriality and sovereignty in the face of internal or external existential threats”. This is a dilemma encouraging what Okoli and Abubakar (2021) captured as “crimelordism” – in which criminal “kingpins” and bandits thrive in grossly under-governed spaces such as forests in Nigeria, thus, reiterating the need for a “pragmatic securitization of Nigeria’s border and immigration governance systems as the way forward” (Okoli and Lenshie, 2018, p. 69). Whereas this appears as a logical panacea to the challenge of irregular movements across the Nigerian international boundaries, the African borderland studies have shown the failure of securitisation regimes across the Nigerian borders (Asiwaju, 2010; Faleye, 2016, 2019). For instance, the militarisation of the Nigerian northeastern boundaries has not abated the Boko Haram onslaught across the borderlands. Elsewhere in the world, the fencing of the US–Mexico border has not solved the porosity of the international boundary.

The state plays a central role in the agro-pastoral conflict as well as its resolution in West Africa. It has been argued that the perception in the political science literature that nomadic pastoralism is incompatible with the modern state system is a mistake if we put into cognizance the functionality of the neo-patrimonial crisis of the state in Africa and the patronage enjoyed by nomadic pastoralists due to their fusion with the state (Moritz, 2015). As rightly noted by Faleye (2020), the complexity of the emerging global world system projects the “death of national and racial boundaries as control instruments in international economics and politics”. This suggests a need for an alternative theoretical and practical approach to transnationally based political violence in line with functional socio-spatial realities within the state and the region. Cross-border transhumance flow in West Africa has benefited from the ECOWAS protocol of free movement of people. The cross-border transhumance network in the region is regulated by the 1998 ECOWAS protocol on transhumance as amended in Regulation C/REG.3/01/03 of 2003. These regulations emphasise the importance of cross-border transhumance networks to food security in the region. Thus, it demanded synergies between stakeholders such as governments, cattle breeder associations, farmers’ unions, and regional interstate organisations. The regional official approach to violent conflicts emanating from a pastoral–nomadic cultural encounter with sedentary populations was stipulated in Article 2 of the protocol as amended in 2003, which emphasised the funding of training and sensitisation programmes for the herdsmen and the local communities affected by cross-border transhumance. The legality of the transhumance network is vested in the acquisition of the ECOWAS International Transhumance Certificate (ECOWAS – ITC). Article 3 of the protocol asserts that the enforcement of this protocol will be dependent on strict monitoring of transhumance routes and activities by a coalition of professional associations, state and interstate authorities in the region (ECOWAS, 2003). Thus, the protocol places the enforcement of the compliance of migrating herdsmen to the rule of law as well as their legal status of residence in their host communities. In this way, the transhumance cross-border movement in West Africa is a test of the viability and status of states in the region. Central to the discourse is the vital place of borders and borderlands as regulators and facilitators of nomadic pastoralism at the international and local levels. Essentially, nomadic pastoralism and the Nigerian borders are conceived not only as challenges but also as conduits of opportunities for regional development. Hence, insights were drawn from interdisciplinary surveys in anthropology, geography and environmental science, history, political science, international relations, literature, and peace and conflict studies with a focus on West Africa but with insights drawn beyond the region.

Mapping the crisis of transborder pastoral nomadism in Africa

The crisis of transborder nomadic pastoralism is a crisis that spreads across state boundaries in Sub-Saharan Africa – from West Africa and East Africa to the Southern Africa region. While these crises are peculiar to the different terrains, they all impact negatively on human security. The hotspot of transborder nomadic pastoral violence has been West Africa in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Whereas the West African saga has been an unresolved issue over rights to grazing land that found expression in herdsmen–farmers altercations, which often leads to thousands of deaths mostly in rural communities, the transborder nomadic pastoral crisis in Eastern Africa and the Southern Africa regions are predominantly issues of cattle rustling in borderlands. Transborder flows have been associated with security overtime. Borders are socially constructed demarcation lines aimed at preserving socio-economic and political identities in a globalising world. However, the process of bordering creates inequalities and distinct socio-economic and political regimes around the world. The distinctiveness of ethnic groups in national units affords sociocultural peculiarities and differential valuation (Dobler, 2016). Historically, institutions had mobilised social capital across international boundaries with implications for human security in Africa and West Africa in particular (Asiwaju, 2010; Walther, Howard and Retaille, 2015; Faleye, 2016, 2019). The Fulani social network is an important case where non-state institutions mobilised transnational networks with significant outcomes in the social, economic, and political spheres of West Africa over time. Even though treated as a homogenous group, the Fulani (Fulbe or Fulata) are structured into two groups of differentiated socio-economic leaning. These are the Fulani Gidah and Fulani Toronkawa. While the former are characterised by sedentary living in towns, where they operate as Muslim clerics, merchants, and administrators, the latter are transborder nomadic pastoralists. However, the two groups technically complement each other as a larger family. A major historical significance of the Fulani group is the political revolution and manoeuvring they facilitated in their original host Hausa Kingdoms leading to the establishment of emirates and Fulani dominance in the poli...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Introduction
• PART I Regional perspectives
• Part II Focus on Nigeria
• Part III Insights from Ghana
• Conclusion
• Index