These Fulanis Are Testing My Patience

The good Christian book and the Akan culture of Ghana advice us to love our neighbors like ourselves. And to a large extent Ghana has done her fair share of accommodating and helping citizens of other nations in their times of struggle. Under President Nkrumah we spent more than a fair share of our resources to liberate them from colonialism. Even in our times of need we spared our moneys in their development projects so their independence will be meaningful. For the past few decades, we have sent our soldiers to help in peace keeping efforts in their tribal wars.

We in Ghana have to a large extent ignored the political boundaries set by colonialists and have allowed nationals of other countries particular fellow West Africans particularly the Fulanis to come to Ghana with little impediments. Ghana is one of the few countries if not the only one who for a long time has gone without national identity card that allows differentiation between Ghanaians and citizens of other nations. In spite of a brief period in our history when we were forced to deport nationals of other African countries, we have tolerated these nationals in the spirit of the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality.

Our leading role in Africa has made us to understand what our Fulani brothers and other nationals of Niger, Chad and Mali go through periodically. We know they live in places where water is scare year after year and that crop production is marginal at best. We know that nature and the ever worsening global warming have turned them to nomadic and semi-nomadic people who tend sheep, goats and other livestock which they move large distances to reach rain-fed pasturelands to survive. Out of love for the fellow African, we in Ghana have for a long period of time allowed the Fulanis to bring their cattle down south to graze, anytime the weather makes it difficult for grass in their county to sprout naturally, especially, during the long dry season. As good neighbors, we have abided by the regional right-of-passage laws and made things comfortable for them when they have come to the country because of difficulties they periodically face. Recently when our country was going through devastation as a result of the bush fires in the middle 1980s, we accommodated a large population of Chadians.

Yet evidence has shown that when they arrive in Ghana, the majority of these people treat us as if they have more right than us in our own country. When they came in the 80s, all they were interested in only begging for saraka. All attempts to let them to some productive work were resisted based on what they considered as religious grounds. About a third of Ghanaians are Muslims and there is not African religion that is not practiced in Ghana. The plan was to take our hospitality for granted and make us look like fools.

They are back in Ghana again this year where they have been reported to be involved in armed robbery. Many Ghanaian farmers have borne the brunt of Fulani herdsmen and their rampaging cattle. They have raped, killed, and destroyed large track of farms belonging to peasant farmers of this nation. It is reported in the Brong Ahafo, Volta, Greater Accra and other regions where they have taking the law into their own hands. In Nkawkaw, a whole section of the town is reported to have been seized by these barbarians making normal live for the citizenry difficult. Conflict resolution NGO the West African Network for Peace Building (WANEP) has been identifying Fulani herdsmen as a major security threat for the country in its quarterly Ghana Alert reports since 2010. Many of them cross into the country fully armed with no regard to our laws.

We have done our best to be good neighbors to these people who have taken our hospitality for granted. Our experiences with others when we migrated to their countries are not the type they can with impunity test our patience. If we have tolerated them this far, it is not because we are weak but because we are civilized. There is a limit to which the normal Ghanaian citizens can go with their barbaric behaviors. We can’t be muzzled out of our own house.

I hope the government of Ghana will take measures to calm our people and to protect them from these unruly visitors. In Ghana there are leaders in every town, locality and family. These leaders should be made collectively responsible for any agreements that will allow these Fulanis to have access to our resources and ensure community supervision. This will prevent unilateral agreements with some individual Ghanaians to allow universal understanding and prevent bitterness that can lead to resistance and conflict in the communities where they go. It should be noted that the country side of southern Ghana is for farming. Already, the inhabitants have little plots for subsistence farming because of land tenure system. No single individual has large tract of land that can accommodate herdsmen and their cattle. This is why the indigenous people don’t keep cattle. It will be the right thing for the government to let them know where the country can accommodate them and their cattle and where we cannot.

Also, we like any other African country have immigration laws that need to be respected. As it happens to Ghanaians wherever we go, individual coming to Ghana must have papers stamped, or cross at established border crossings to enter legally. We seem to be the only country where immigrants and foreign criminal gangs have more access to our passport than the citizenry because of corruption.

We can’t be too kind to be stupid.

Kwame Yeboah

Harding University College of Pharmacy

Searcy, Arkansas. USA.

gyeboah@harding.edu