Had the wicked
attempted to do their worst? Were the sheep or goats sent by the PDP?
And how did the flock suddenly appear on the runway just as the ACN
charter aircraft was landing at Bauchi? Nobody takes much notice when
reading about bird strikes on aircraft engines, but livestock colliding
with landing planes is different. The fact is that it has happened
before in recent times. It’s not as though many of us would ascribe
much intelligence to livestock, especially goats, cattle and sheep, but
an ACN chieftain was clearly screaming that the unbelievable incident
was an act of sabotage. What was actually there to be sabotaged?
It is bizarre that
in a modern airport, livestock could walk freely and unrestricted into
the runway area, but at Port Harcourt International Airport some years
ago, an Air France machine collided with cattle while landing from
Europe. Luckily, no human lives were lost in these incidents. There was
only damage to the aircraft fuselage and some fresh minced meat left on
the tarmac.
The official
explanation that no money was approved for fencing at the airport at
Bauchi is not tenable. A problem of Nigeria is the non-enforcement of
environmental and other laws, mainly because bribery and corruption
turn uniformed men into the laughing stock of the public. In a country
where people shun overhead bridges and prefer to race across highways
at the risk of being crushed by motorised vehicles, the use of airport
environments by pastoralists for grazing livestock should not come as a
surprise. Devoid of housing and humans, it is the perfect grazing
ground, but someone has to educate herdsmen that aircrafts cannot
easily veer off to avoid livestock, and passengers could be killed as a
result of a collision.
No one suggests
that particular herdsmen were responsible for the event at Bauchi, but
a country cannot claim to be civilized if it has no regulations
regarding the holding of livestock, if only to prevent the spread of
disease and the limitation of conflicts between sedentary farmers and
herders. One of the major sources of conflict in Nigeria remains the
non-definition of grazing areas and routes; and the primitive driving
of livestock through the length and breadth of the country, sometimes
destroying crops and farmland and leaving dung on city roads.
Nomadic herdsmen,
mainly Fulani, are a special tribe that seem to exist above the laws of
the land. They must imagine that the entire vegetation in the universe
is common property, and few people in government have had the energy to
query their comprehension and interpretation of land use governance.
But is that what a nation exists for – to ignore the lawlessness of
particular groups because they’ve always lived like that and roamed
across the savannah of West Africa since before the white man came?
While it is also
difficult to understand why sedentary livestock farming has not been
attractive to the Fulani, it must be cheap to raise cattle, goats and
sheep grazed on fields owned by others. Don’t be surprised if the
Fulani you see driving cattle is not a Nigerian, anyway. Our neighbours
: Niger, Cameoon, Chad and Benin, do not tolerate non-adherence to
grazing routes, something which anyone can practice in permissive
Nigeria without penalties.
Back to the ACN and
you wonder why anybody would wish to assassinate a political opponent
using the intricate device of pushing goats on to the runway to
intercept an aircraft. But this is Nigeria and many things impossible
elsewhere can happen here.
