Author: Babagana Abubakar

E-mail: babaganabubakar2002@yahoo.com
PERMANENT ADDRESS: ALHAJI BUKAR KUYA HOUSE, FEZZAN WARD, MAIDUGURI, BORNO STATE, NIGERIA
Tel: +2348062220179 Skype: babagana.abubakar

THE PERCEPTION OF THE FULANI NOMADS ON LAND

OWNERSHIP IN THE SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN REGION:
CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA, CHAD, CAMEROON, NIGER
AND BENIN REPUBLICS

Introduction:
The Fulani or Fule (Fula: Fule; French: Peul; Hausa: Fulani; Portuguese: Fula; Wolof: Pl;
Bambara: Fulaw and Kanuri: Fulata ) are one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in Africa,
numbering approximately 40 million people in total. The Fula people are a mixture of both sub-
Saharan and North African living in the Sahel area. They are pastoral nomad in nature. They are
scattered and living across Mauritania, Ghana, Senegal, Guinea, the Gambia, Mali, Nigeria,
Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, Cte d'Ivoire, Niger, Chad, Togo,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan the Central African Republic, Liberia, and as far
as Sudan. With the exception of Guinea, where the Fula make up an ethnic plurality (largest
single ethnic group) or approximately 40%+ of the total population, Fulas are minorities in
every country they live in. So, most also speak other dominant languages of the countries they
inhabit, making many Fulani bilingual or even trilingual in nature. Such languages often spoken
by the Fulatas includes Hausa, Bambara, Wolof, Arabic,Kanurietc. However this research
focused on the Fulanis living in Nigeria, Benin Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

1 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

Fig. 1: A Map of Africa: Fig. 2: A map showing Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad:

This pastoral nomad Fulani community living within the republics of Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Niger
and Cameroun are known to have been practicing nomadic even before the coming of the
colonial societies namely British, French and German to colonize most part of the Fulani areas
in Africa, and as nomads they understood Land to be a gift from God to every human being
living on it just like other natural phenomena such as Air around us which could be breath by
everyone without ownership or payment to breath it. So this is the perception of a Fulani man
on Land rights issues so with such perception they understood Land to be a grazing field for the
pastoralist, hunting ground for the hunters, farming ground for the farmers, trading routes for
the traders, roads for the travelers and a garden to the hunter-gatherers or foragers with no
one having any natural authority of claiming ownership. So a nomad Fulani man believes that if
there is no ownership over Oceans, Air, Rainfall then why should there be ownership over
natural forest existing historically on wild Lands before authorities transfer ownerships to
people who were historically not there when the ancestors were practicing nomadism before
the colonial era.

2 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

 Fig. 3: A photo of a Fulani nomad grazing in the bush:

During the Colonial and Post-colonial eras Lands especially the wild Lands were this Fulani
people are practicing their nomadism started becoming the properties of the states who later
made their laws and claimed ownerships of this Lands without consulting or educating this
Fulani man living in the wild who is living on it and using it for thousands of years about this
new development in respect of what a state is, powers of a state over Lands and alternative
arrangements for owning the Lands he lives on, as a result of this development Land disputes
and or related social conflicts between the Fulani pastoralists and farmers, governments,
companies and individuals became very pronounce and incessant events in Benin, Nigeria,
Chad, Niger and Cameroun with an annual average of loss of properties and lives running in to
millions of US Dollars ($) and thousands respectively per year on the average.

3 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

 Fig. 4: A photo of a Fulani man moving in an urban area with his cattle on a Land which was formerly a
grazing field for his cattle:

The interest of the pastoralist could managed by including them in spatial planning through
communicating with their local chiefs (traditional/family heads) to understand their dynamic
diverse interests at each given period, because of the fact that the Fulani people are organize,
they have leaders and they always listen to their leaders. Authorities such as governments
should be taking no any decision prior to consulting the Fulani local leaders/Chief in their areas.
Reaching such decision can help kill many conflicts and in the future even allow the formation
of even the Ranches as cried by many where they expected the nomad Fulani man to agree and
station himself in one place for grazing purposes and allow farming activities to be taking place
in the opposite environments. Otherwise all farming activities within the Fulani historical
catchment areas would remain at risk and depending on the availability of fodder (grass) for his
animals outside the farming areas allocated by authorities without their consent.

4 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

Fig. 5: A photo showing a burnt town (A) and a Photo of destroyed Fulani Cattle (B) both after a conflicts
between the Fulani nomads and farmers:

A B.

Suggestions/Recommendations
1. Governments should include the Fulani pastoralist especially the Fulani leaders from the
Fulani practicing nomadism inall decision making related to Land ownership issues in
their areas especially ownership on wild virgin Lands outside settlements.
2. International organizations such as the United Nations, UNCCD & UNEP among others
should mainstream all pastoralist nomads including the Fulanis in all related decision
makings at the international level.
3. Mobile schools should be introduced in order to follow these nomads and educate them
about future intended new boundaries and on issues of boundary adjustments.
4. Conferences related to related to Land disputes should be inviting the pastoralist
nomads to enable them bring forward their ideas and perceptions over Lands so that
the stakeholders making laws related to Land ownerships will be making their new laws
on Lands within the understanding and perception of the Pastoralist nomads to be
affected.
5. In order to arrive at any lasting solutions in solving the issue of the incessant Fulani-
Farmers Land disputes, authorities especially governments that succeeded the colonial
authorities be it federal government, state government, central government or local
governments must first take their time to understand the perception of a Fulani man on
the natural wild pre-colonial or colonial era lands as well as the relationship that existed
between the Fulani man and the past colonial societies that created the problem in the

5 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

 first place, otherwise all negotiations reached without taking this historical perspectives
it would only last for a limited period.
6.
Conclusion:
Fulani men are scattered across Africa from the West African region to as far as the
Central Africa and close to North African and East African Borders. They were naturally
nomad living on pre-colonial lands, but after colonization of Africa they found it very
difficult to understand the newly formed territories and restrictions created by the
colonial societies which has become a problem inherited by governments that
succeeded the colonial governments, but as often said there is no problem without a
solution so is as this issue of wild Land ownerships in Africa which keeps rekindling the
Fulani farmers disputes across Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin as a result the
author offers some suggestions which if probably followed and implemented it would
bring a great success towards ending the Fulani farmers disputes otherwise these
disputes would ever be on the increase with the growing population of the African
societies.

Thank you for listening.

6 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

 References:
1. Pat Ikechukwu Ndukwe (1996). Fulani. The Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 917. ISBN 978-0-
8239-1982-6.

1. D Group (2013). Encyclopedia of African Peoples. Routledge. pp. 8588. ISBN 978-1-135-
96334-7.
2. David Levinson (1996). "Fulani". Encyclopedia of World Cultures: Africa and the Middle East,
Volume 9. Gale Group. ISBN 978-0-8161-1808-3., Quote: The Fulani form the largest pastoral
nomadic group in the world. The Bororo'en are noted for the size of their cattle herds. In
addition to fully nomadic groups, however, there are also semisedentary Fulani Fulbe
Laddi who also farm, although they argue that they do so out of necessity, not choice.
3. Christopher R. DeCorse (2001). West Africa During the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological
Perspectives. Bloomsburg Academic. pp. 172174. ISBN 978-0-7185-0247-8.
4. Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (2010). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press.
pp. 495496. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9.
5. The homonym "Fulani" is also used by the Manding peoples, being the diminutive form of
the word Fula in their language (with suffix -ni), essentially meaning "little Fula".
6. The letter "" is an implosive b sound, which does not exist in English, so is replaced by "b."
In the orthography for languages of Guinea (pre-1985), this sound was represented by bh,
so one would have written Fulbhe instead of Fule.
7. Mali: People & Society, Burkina Faso: People & Society, Guinea: People & Society, Senegal:
People & Society, Niger: People & Society, CIA Factbook (2015)
8. "Guinea". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency
9. Al-Amin Abu-Manga, Fulfulde in the Sudan: process of adaptation to Arabic (1986), p. 7,
books.google.com/books?id=8IYOAAAAYAAJ: "The Fulani in the Sudan are known by the
loose generic term 'Fellata'"
10. "The World Factbook". Cia.gov. Retrieved 2013-12-28.
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-herdswoman-milks-cow..jpg
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13. https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/F856/production/_89447536_gettyimages-
101611547.jpg
14. http://www.hopefornigeriaonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Suspected-
Agatu-Youths-Kill-20-Fulani-Herdsmen-83-cows.jpg
15. http://punchng.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/10/29220828/A-Fulani-herdsman-with-his-cattle-in-the-
community.jpg
16. http://www.informationng.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Fulani-Cattle-
Reares.jpg

7 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179

 Author-BABAGANA ABUBAKAR

UNCCPP, Masters, BSc, Fellow African Scientific Institute, Alumni United Nations Institute for Training & Research-Switzerland.

8 Babagana Abubakar (babaganabuabakar2002@yahoo.com) Tel.: +2348062220179