Brand Variation: Between the Fulani Herdsmen and the American Cowboys

Cattle rearing, cattle breeding, cattle farming, cattle-living, cattle rustling, cattle rattle… call it what you will, but in recent times, cattling has led to battling of the tribes, of ethnic nationalities; fight against encroachment, fight to the finish for geo-political, and indeed economic relevance. Covertly to some, overtly to a whole lot more.

In Nigeria today, “Fulani Herdsmen” is one phrase that has gone from several lips to more ears. The Fulani, by the way, are of a distinct ethnic grouping from the Hausa, but they have come to be grouped together by those who control the media, in a country where you won’t even try classifying as a group, the Itshekiri-Urhobo, the Efik-Ibibio, and not even the Ijebu-Remo. But it’s convenient, so we carry on.

The Fulani are reputed semi-nomads, whose lifestyle can be compared to that of the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania. They own most of the cattle in this land, they cherish their cattle, and will nurture and protect them at great costs. They care for, live for, and will die for their cattle, goats and sheep, if it came to that. Cattle are still a medium of exchange, a status symbol and an economic mainstay of this group. However, the Fulani herdsman is not the Fulani hard man. Not all herdsmen are Fulani, and not all Fulani are herdsmen.

Let us extend this to, and perhaps compare it for a minute, even if only in our imagination, to the American Cowboys, a core brand in this regard. A cowboy is a professional pastoralist, he’s a herder of livestock usually mounted on horseback. Pretty much the same as our own herdsmen, save for the horseback part.  

Similarities

A cowboy is a synonym for a herdsman. American cowboys are risk takers and daring, so are Nigerian herdsmen. Ask Chief Olu Falae first, before any other. Cowboys carry guns, with holsters, and so do their Nigerian counterparts, including daggers, as recently made known in pictorial reports. Both groups cherish their cattle and will protect them till the end.

Differences

Although these two groups have basically the same obligations, a cowboy will do most of his work on horseback, but the Nigerian herdsmen will trek hundreds of kilometres after their stock, pitching tent wherever the grazing cows may reach by nightfall.

A Fulani herdsman is native to Nigeria and a few neighbouring West African States, but the cowboy is more popularly associated with the United States, but also known to have featured in the other parts of the Americas and even the Australian society.

The cowboy runs his business in the ranch dedicated for that purpose, but the Nigerian herdsmen are nomadic, they’d gladly accompany a herd from Katsina to Lagos, and are reputed to run down everything on their part in the course of doing business.

Cattle herding is not a sight on the streets of Bogota, Adelaide, New York, Chicago, not even in the Western city of Los Angeles. Ranches and ranching are in the countryside. Cattle is herded however, in every major Nigerian city, including Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, sometimes even holding up traffic, or trampling hard-tended vegetation across the land.

Today’s cowboys rely on technology to tend, trace, and trade their cattle, in controlled environment. The Nigerian herdsman still relies on age-old tradition of leading their cattle, or even being led by their cattle, to wherever they may graze, and hoping they will reproduce, in controlling environment.

So, why is it taking the Nigerian government so long in helping these cattle herdsmen regulate, and modernise their business by establishing dedicated grazing reserves, so they can improve on their breeding techniques, produce more milk and beef of greater quality, produce Nigerian sausages and bacon, export their beef across Africa, and be less disruptive of the established lifestyles and livelihoods of others.

Why can’t we extend some of the extensive positive qualities of the American herdsmen to the benefit of the Nigerian herdsmen? It's about time we exploited the strength of the more popular and more successful American Cowboy brand. Let’s have the same experience and output. If we look at the American Cowboy as a core brand, we can then borrow quite a lot of useful attributes for the benefit of its Nigerian variation.

-DDO