Benue can lead Nigeria’s livestock transformation by championing planned ranches, feedlots and permit -based open grazing, contends JUNAIDU MAINA
“When brothers fight to the death, a stranger inherits their father’s estate.” This African proverb warns of the peril facing farmers and pastoralists in Benue State.
There was a time when the relationship between the Tiv and Fulani was remembered as much through humour as through conflict. Among the older generation in the North, the Tiv–Fulani jokes were legendary, rivalled only by the famous Katsinawa–Nupawa and Kanuri-Fulani banters. The jokes reflected familiarity, shared history and centuries of peaceful coexistence.
The 1983 re-election campaign of late President Shehu Shagari, famously known as “Gboko ’83,” became a defining political moment in Benue, bringing national politics, local leadership, and the cattle question together on one memorable stage. At the rally the charismatic Joseph Tarka reportedly led a herd of cows into the stadium and presented it to President Shagari, declaring: “We are tired of this Munchi issue; here are your cows for the last time leave us alone.” President Shagari, a witty Fulani himself, smiled and, to the amusement of the crowd replied: “These cows cannot even pay the interest.” For those not familiar with the story, a Fulani herder returned from transhumance to reclaim the cows he had left with the Tiv, only to be told, “munchi”—“we ate them.”
