Open grazing prohibitions and the politics of exclusivist identity in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the politics of socio-political exclusions, with particular reference to the recurrent surges of herdsmen/farmers’ skirmishes that are currently ravaging many states in Nigeria. Owing to their occupation and prejudiced history, the Fulani herdsmen have not enjoyed full assimilation into mainstream cohesion, and the enactment of laws proscribing ‘open grazing’ by some states, in a bid to protect farmers and farmlands, appears to have further entrenched this supposed exclusion. Consequently, the group, through its Miyetti Allah Cattle Associations, has urged state governments to refrain from enforcing these laws. The implementation of the laws by Benue and Taraba States has caused herdsmen to react angrily by killing hundreds of people in the states. To what extent are these states justified in prohibiting open grazing? Can a group justifiably warn a sovereign, federating, state against implementing a law duly passed by its State Assembly? Using critical analysis, the paper proffers answers to these questions by drawing insights from philosophical arguments of social justice, particularly Nozickian justice as entitlement. Given that what is at stake is the economic livelihoods of both farmers and cattle herders, the paper also provides an objective analysis of the conflict by pointing out the central claims of both parties in the dispute. It concludes that solution to these skirmishes inheres in an approach that emphasizes social justice and inclusion.