Fulani saga: Kill us, too – Gruzah

Businessman and bankroller of King Faisal Football Club, Alhaji Abdul-Karim Gruzah, has said if the people of Agogo have declared war on Fulanis and their cattle in the area, then they, the cattle owners, are making their way to the town, to be killed, too.

At a demonstration at Agogo in the Asante Akyem North District of the Ashanti region on Tuesday, which culminated in the declaration of ‘Operation Kill Any Cattle Seen on Our Farmlands’, citizens of the town resolved, among others, to cut ties with the Fulani and butcher any cattle that tramples their farm.

The demonstrators further demanded the departure of the Fulani from the area, failure of which would result in the people preventing their chief, Nana Akuoko Sarpong, from celebrating his 40th anniversary on the throne in March.

Clashes between locals and the nomadic herdsmen have often come to the fore over land use differences. The herdsmen, in search of fodder for their cattle, have been accused of setting their animals unto people’s farms to graze, in addition to allegations of deliberately setting fire to farms during dry seasons to aid the regeneration of grass for their cattle.

In December 2015, alone, two persons were killed at Agogo – one of them a traditional priest – allegedly by a Fulani, for questioning why the nomads had allowed their cattle to raid their farms. Reports of herdsmen raping women for voicing opposition to their activities in the area were also rife, prompting the demonstration on Tuesday.

But Alhaji Gruzah, a prominent herd owner of Gonja extraction has said the threats from the Agogo youth were not the ideal way to handle the situation. He said it was unGhanaian for anyone to take a cutlass and kill anyone. He said in addition to Fulani settlers, there were Ghanaians of diverse ethnicity, who owned cattle, including Agogo indigenes.

He told Chief Jerry Forson Wednesday January 27, 2016 on Accra100.5fm’s Ghana Yensom that calm heads were required for a probe into the matter, as some persons were taking advantage of a few skirmishes to commit atrocious acts and passing them off as the handiwork of the Fulani. Alhaji Gruzah stated that some persons, for example, had lost their farms to bushfires, but still screamed arson by the Fulani, adding that: “The people of Agogo can go ahead and kill all my cattle if they so wish…We will all go there for them to kill us.”

Countering, the Member of Parliament for Asante Akyem North, Kwadwo Baah Agyemang, indicated that many of the Fulani herdsmen were indeed involved in torching farms. He cited a recent instance when he went with police to his burnt farm and chanced upon Alhaji Gruzah’s brother in possession of a gallon of petrol.

Reacting to assertions that some natives of Agogo had leased land to some Fulani to settle on, with their animals, the MP explained: “If someone gives you a piece of land to raise cattle, what you do is to fence it, so, your animals remain enclosed. In developed countries, you don’t see cattle straying …but here, you see them being herded right through traffic.

“You have your business, in this case cattle rearing, and another grows crops. Why do you want to destroy somebody’s farm with your work? Elsewhere, cattle are fenced and fed, but free-grazing happens here. If you are in Ghana, run your business in a way that it is not at the expense of another’s. Everybody has the right to work, but one’s rights end where another’s begin.”