Cows obstruct Nigeria’s capital as climate change and development leave herders with nowhere to go

Cows obstruct Nigeria’s capital as climate change and development leave herders with nowhere to go
A boy guides cattle on a road in Abuja, Nigeria, Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 26 August 2024
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Cows obstruct Nigeria’s capital as climate change and development leave herders with nowhere to go

Cows obstruct Nigeria’s capital as climate change and development leave herders with nowhere to go
  • The herders take the cattle wherever they can find green grasses and water at least for the cows to survive, not minding whether it is the city or somebody’s land”

ABUJA, Nigeria: At an intersection seven miles from the presidential villa, frustrated drivers honk as a herd of cattle feeds on the grass beautifying the median strip and slowly marches across the road, their hooves clattering against the asphalt. For the teenage herder guiding them, Ismail Abubakar, it is just another day, and for most drivers stuck in the traffic, it’s a familiar scene unfolding in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.
Abubakar and his cattle’s presence in the city center is not out of choice but of necessity. His family are originally from Katsina State in northern Nigeria, where a changing climate turned grazing lands into barren desert. He moved to Idu — a rural, bushy and less developed part of Abuja — many years ago. But it now hosts housing estates, a vast railway complex and various industries.
“Our settlement at Idu was destroyed and the bush we used for grazing our cattle cut down to pave the way for new houses,” Abubakar said in a smattering of Pidgin English. It forced his family to settle on a hill in the city’s periphery and roam the main streets for pasture.
Fulani herders like Abubakar are traditionally nomadic and dominate West Africa’s cattle industry. They normally rely on wild countryside to graze their cattle with free pasture, but the pressures of modernization, the need for land for housing and crop farming and human-caused climate change are challenging their way of life. To keep cattle off of Abuja’s major roads and gardens, some suggest that herders need to start acquiring private land and operating like other businesses. But to do that, they’d need money and government incentives.
“It’s disheartening,” said Baba Ngelzarma, the president of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, a Fulani pastoralists’ advocacy group. “Nigeria is presented as an unorganized people. The herders take the cattle wherever they can find green grasses and water at least for the cows to survive, not minding whether it is the city or somebody’s land.”
He added that part of the problem is the government’s failure to harness the potential of the livestock industry by offering incentives such as infrastructure like water sources and vet services at designated grazing reserves and providing subsidies.
For its part, the government has said it will address the issue, previously promising fenced-off reserves for cattle herders. President Bola Tinubu announced in July a new livestock development ministry, which Ngelzarma said would help revive the abandoned grazing reserves. No minister has been appointed.
Fewer places to go
Nigeria is home to over 20 million cows, mostly owned by Fulani herders. It has the fourth largest cattle population in Africa, and its dairy market is valued at $1.5 billion. But despite its size, almost 90 percent of local demand is met through imports, according to the US International Trade Administration. It’s a sign of the industry’s inefficiency, Ngelzarma said, as cows stressed from constant moving and poor diets can’t produce milk.
For Abuja, the city’s environment bears the consequence, and so do businesses when traffic grinds to a halt because cows are crossing busy roads. And in other parts of Nigeria, herders are often involved in violence with farmers over access to land, especially in central and southern Nigeria where the two industries overlap with religious and ethnic divisions.
There are four designated grazing reserves in rural areas surrounding Abuja, but they lack the needed infrastructure and have been encroached on by other farmers and illegal settlers, according to both Ngelzarma and Festus Adebayo, who’s executive secretary of the Housing Development Advocacy Network.
With those reserves not functioning, herders set up settlements anywhere and stay for as long as they can before legitimate owners claim it or the government builds on it.
Mohammed Abbas, 67, has repeatedly had to move locations over the years. Most of his current settlement in the city’s Life Camp neighborhood has been taken over by a newly constructed petrol station, and he is aware that the remaining land will soon be claimed by another owner.
As a smallholder pastoralist, he said he could not afford to buy land in Abuja for a permanent settlement and ranching. To afford one, “I have to sell all my cows and that means nothing will be left to put on the land,” he said in Hausa, sitting outside his hut.
Other pastoralists would rather resist.
“We are not going anywhere again,” said Hassan Mohammed, whose family now occupies a strip on the edge of a new estate near the Idu train station. Once a vast bush, the area has been swallowed by infrastructure and housing projects. Mohammed now also drives a lorry on the side because of the shrinking resources needed to keep cattle.
Despite repeated orders from the owners to vacate, Mohammed said that his family would stay put, using the dwindling strip as their home base while taking their cattle elsewhere each day for pasture. The landowners have repeatedly urged the government to resettle Mohammed’s family, but the government has yet to take action.
“Many don’t have anywhere to call home, so they just find somewhere to sleep at night with the cattle,” said Mohammed, in Hausa. “But for us, we are not leaving except there is a new place within Abuja.”
Making room for development and cows
Folawiyo Daniel, an Abuja-based real estate developer who has endured difficulties with pastoralists that affect his project development, said the issue is a failure of urban planning.
“Real estate development is not the problem,” he said, and the government should revive grazing reserves in the city for pastoralists.
Adebayo, from the Housing Development Advocacy Network, agreed, saying “it is time” for Abuja’s minister Nyesom Wike to take action and prove that “the problem of open grazing in the city of Abuja is solvable.”
Herders have to be moved to the place designated for their work or restricted to defined private property, he said.
The official responsible for animal husbandry in the agriculture ministry said they could not comment on a major policy issue without authorization, while the spokesperson for the ministry in charge of Abuja declined a request for an interview.
But in March, after the Belgian ambassador to Nigeria raised concerns to Wike about cattle roaming Abuja’s streets, he replied that efforts were in progress to stop the indiscriminate grazing without disclosing specific details.
Herders say they are not opposed to a restricted form of herding or practicing like a normal business that buys their own feedstock instead of using free pasture and water wherever they find them.
The problem, according to cattle association chief Ngelzarma, is that the government has neglected the sector and does not provide incentives as it does other businesses, giving the examples of irrigation systems for crop farmers and airports for private airline operators paid for by the government.
“The government should revive the gazetted grazing reserves fitted with the infrastructure for water and fodder production, training and veterinary services and generate jobs and revenues,” Ngelzarma said.
“Then, you can say stop roaming about for free pasture,” he said.


Biden likely to talk with Netanyahu; hostage deal ‘very close,’ security adviser says

Biden likely to talk with Netanyahu; hostage deal ‘very close,’ security adviser says
Updated 37 sec ago
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Biden likely to talk with Netanyahu; hostage deal ‘very close,’ security adviser says

Biden likely to talk with Netanyahu; hostage deal ‘very close,’ security adviser says
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden will likely talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon, his national security adviser said on Sunday, as US officials race to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that the parties were “very, very close” to reaching a deal to halt the fighting in the enclave and free the remaining 98 hostages held there, but still had to get it across the finish line.
Biden was getting daily updates on the talks in Doha, where Israeli and Palestinian officials have said since Thursday that some progress has been made in the indirect talks between Israel and militant group Hamas, Sullivan said.
“We are still determined to use every day we have in office to get this done,” he said, adding that Biden “is likely, in the near term, to engage with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we are not, by any stretch of imagination, setting this aside.”
He said there was still a chance to reach an agreement before Biden leaves office, but that it was also possible “Hamas, in particular, remains intransigent.”
Israel launched its assault in Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed across its borders in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials, with much of the enclave laid to waste and gripped by a humanitarian crisis, and most of its population displaced.
Vice President-elect JD Vance told the “Fox News Sunday” program in an interview taped on Saturday that he expects a deal for the release of US hostages in the Middle East to be announced in the final days of the Biden administration, maybe in the last day or two.
President-elect Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has strongly backed Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas. He has promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not said how he would accomplish that.

Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 12 January 2025
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Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
  • Activists stage protests in northeastern Mullaitivu district and capital Colombo
  • Rohingya risk deadly sea crossings as fighting intensifies in Myanmar

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan civil society groups and activists are mobilizing to save more than 100 Rohingya refugees rescued off the Indian Ocean island nation last month following a government announcement that they will be deported. 

A group of about 100 Rohingya refugees, which reportedly included over two dozen children, was rescued off the coast of the northeastern Mullaitivu district on Dec. 19. 

Several protests were recently organized in Mullaitivu and the capital Colombo after Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Ananda Wijepala announced on Jan. 3 that the government was in talks with Myanmar authorities over the deportation of the Rohingya refugees. 

“These are stateless people, they don’t have a home to go to,” social activist Thasneema Dahlan, who took part in a protest in Colombo on Friday, told Arab News.

“The Rohingya are massacred and chased and terrorized in their own home, and that is why they fled their own country looking for greener pastures elsewhere.”  

The mostly Muslim Rohingya — the “world’s most persecuted minority,” according to the UN — have faced decades of oppression in Myanmar. 

In 2017, more than 730,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a brutal military crackdown that UN experts have referred to as a “genocidal campaign,” amid evidence of ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and killings. 

As Rakhine became a focal point in Myanmar’s intensifying nationwide civil war, hundreds of Rohingya have been fleeing the country in recent weeks through dangerous sea crossings, often on rickety boats. Last year, more than 7,800 people made such attempts, according to the UN refugee agency — an 80 percent increase compared with 2023. 

“Their objective wasn’t to get to Sri Lanka. Their objective was to get somewhere, anywhere where they could survive,” Dahlan said. “We are urging the government to … please not send them back, not repatriate them, not deport them, because that is just sending them back to death.”

Sri Lanka, which is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, is a transit point for refugees until the UNHCR helps them resettle in another country. 

In 2022, its navy also rescued about 100 Rohingya refugees, who have been under the care of local NGOs as they await resettlement. 

Sri Lankan activists have also filed petitions with the government, urging authorities to relocate the new group of refugees from the Keppapulavu Air Force base in Mullaitivu, where they have stayed since Dec. 23. According to protesters, aid agencies, including the UN, have been stopped from meeting the Rohingya. 

“Sheltering the refugees under a militarized environment is incompatible with international humanitarian norms and basic human values,” the North-East Coordinating Committee, which organized the Mullaitivu protest on Thursday, said in a letter. 

Ruki Fernando, a human rights activist based in Colombo, said the Rohingya refugees should be “kept in a place under civil administration,” not military. 

“Many Sri Lankans have been refugees. We need to help others. It’s our legal obligation … under customary international law, non-refoulement is prohibited. It means no one fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution should be sent back,” Fernando told Arab News, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who fled the country’s civil war between 1983 and 2009. 

“We also have moral, ethical obligations to welcome, care and support those in distress. Our religious and spiritual values teach us this.”  


Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Updated 12 January 2025
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Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
  • Muslim World League, global leaders focus on gender equality at Islamabad meeting

ISLAMABAD: Islam places no restrictions on girls’ education, Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, told an international conference in Pakistan on Saturday focusing on the issue.

The MWL leader added that anyone opposing education for women deviates from the global Muslim community.

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference, “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” under the patronage of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad.

Sharif commended the MWL for its dedication to education, saying that ensuring equal access to education for girls remains one of the most pressing challenges of the present time.

“Entrenched societal norms intensify the problem of a lack of education for girls, leading to a cycle of deprivation that affects more than one generation,” he said.

The initiative aims to raise awareness in Muslim communities about the importance of girls’ education through various themes, joint programs, and collaborative agreements.

“Our Islamic faith has always celebrated the education of every Muslim, both male and female, because the message of Islam was to enlighten all, regardless of gender,” Al-Issa told participants.

“Therefore, Muslim women in Islam have had a significant and active presence in all spheres of life — in religious matters, the sciences, politics, economics, and societal affairs throughout history.”

The MWL chief said any reservations about girls’ education must be understood as stemming from non-Islamic customs that have no basis in the Muslim faith.

He lauded the initiative as a transformative step for advancing girls’ education, emphasizing its practical and results-oriented approach.

The forum addressed the issue by signing a consensus document, “the Islamabad Declaration for Girls’ Education,” reaffirming that Islam does not prohibit women’s education in any way.

It will be presented to international governmental and nongovernment organizations. The declaration calls for the establishment of an international day dedicated to advancing its primary goal.

Al-Issa said that the declaration will serve to solidify and strengthen the initiative.

The initiative also includes the launch of a platform for international partnerships, along with the signing of several agreements with regional and international organizations focused on women’s empowerment and girls’ education.

The summit brought together over 150 dignitaries from 44 Muslim and other friendly states, according to Pakistan’s Foreign Office. It was also attended by Hissein Brahim Taha, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Taha affirmed the organization’s readiness to support the initiative and contribute to its success for the benefit of girls across the Islamic world.

“Education forms the cornerstone of a strong society and represents a shared responsibility that facilitates progress and prosperity. At the OIC, we categorically oppose any policies or practices that violate Islam’s respectful and honorable teachings regarding women,” he said.


Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response
Updated 12 January 2025
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Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response
  • ‘The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out’
  • The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures

LOS ANGELES, United States: US President-elect Donald Trump accused California officials on Sunday of incompetence over their handling of deadly wildfires raging around Los Angeles.
“The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” he wrote.
The speed and intensity of the blazes ravaging Los Angeles have tested its firefighting infrastructure and given rise to questions and criticism about the state’s preparedness.
Hydrants ran dry in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood as it was ravaged by one of the region’s five separate fires, while water shortages additionally hampered efforts elsewhere.
With just over a week before he returns to the White House, Trump has launched a series of evidence-free broadsides accusing California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of failings in response to the blazes.
Newsom has meanwhile invited Trump to visit Los Angeles and survey the devastation with him.
The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures according to state officials.
“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place,” Trump said in his post.
Despite firefighters’ heroic efforts, including precision sorties from aerial crews, the Palisades Fire has continued to push east toward the priceless collections of the Getty Center art museum and north to the densely populated San Fernando Valley.


Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols
Updated 12 January 2025
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Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols
  • Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it
  • There have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels

MANILA: The Philippines said Sunday it had deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea.
Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it, and there have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to the waters.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman, said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
“Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement.
He later told reporters Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area to challenge the “unlawful” Chinese patrols.
He said the deployment aimed to ensure Chinese patrols “are not normalized, and that this bullying behavior does not succeed.”
Tarriela said the Chinese coast guard deployed three vessels from its Guangdong and Hainan bases to Philippine waters between December 30 and January 11.
The South China Sea confrontations have sparked concern they could draw the United States, Manila’s long-time security ally, into armed conflict with China.