Opinions of Sunday, 23 February 2003

Columnist: Folson, Ako

The Fulani Problem: Let us Resolve this Issue Before it Explodes

This issue of Fulani’s, roaming the country with arms, and herding destructive flocks of cattle must be handled immediately, as soon it will lead to mass hatred and action meted against them. For quite sometime now, there have been various reports on the savage like behavior of these Fulani, who are nothing but nomads and very difficult to track down.

In the Central Region area, where this confrontation seems to be reaching a high point, it seems as though the government is reacting or being as responsive as Gbabo (Ivory Coast) was to his people, thus resulting in the clash that has destroyed what was once a beautiful country –simply non-responsive attitudes.

In this day and age, nomad like life is dangerous and there must be laws governing how these herdsmen operate in the country. Now, they are not only a menace with animals but have resorted to carrying arms, which almost sounds like the cattle wrestling gangs of East Africa.

Where is the government as this goes on? If there is a priority today in Ghana, with respect to our future, it is not a matter of globetrotting and seeking investment for a bad local environment, but rather, affecting our internal issues to make our country appealing for attracting investment. This should be our focus.

One must understand that we already have an explosive situation in the North, which is not under control, but is being superficially managed through the intervention of security forces. We do not need a blood bath, as this situation could easily degenerate into that.

One needs to curb this nomadic behavior immediately, as it also poses a danger to users of our roads, which are death traps anyway, and the environment. Also how do we monitor what goes into the food chain when we cannot track these folks and their animals as they move so much?

The DCE of the area (Senya- Central Region) cannot handle this situation by himself, as the movement of the Fulani nomads requires a national scale law, and also the mere fact that there has been issues in other regions of this nature, suggest that this problem could be interpreted as a national issue.

Can we get “our house” (Ghana) on order, as we try to help others? Should the government insists on being non-responsive to this problem, and perceives it to be of lesser importance in the scale of things, refer to the article cited by BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2777059.stm, and what could be the future, in terms of this problem will become clearer.