Seventy-one years after the physical departure of colonial powers, Nigeria still embody the trappings of colonialism. In what way does the sequence of events from ‘fulanisation’ alert by the Owu chief prepares the way for the ‘rugalisation’ agenda . Does the dynamic deployment of concepts (ranching, colony, ruga) show us a pattern of late arrivals (herdsmen) and their utilisation of superior political agency to actualise their goal of accumulation by dispossession? Modern-day realities and unfolding cleavages in Aso Rock policies and politics signpost a colonial contraption sliding into unholy matrimony known as Nigeria. Is it possible to unpack how a government that cries of paucity of fund to revitalise university education and health manage to set aside funds for the revitalisation of cattle economy?
Herdsmen along with their cows wait for buyers at Kara Cattle Market in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 10, 2019. – Kara cattle market in Agege, Lagos is one of the largest of West Africa receiving thousands of cows weekly due to the massive consumption of meat in Lagos area. (Photo / AFP)
Despite the unpredictability of human behaviours, sociologists make predictions based on documented patterns and regularity. To analyse the current battle between the people of Southern Nigeria and the aggressive herdsmen, I employed Late Arrival Superior Aggression theory, LASAT; a budding theory of Diaspora relations developed by the University of Ibadan School of Diaspora Studies. The proponent who heads the Diaspora and Transnational studies unit, Dr Senayon Olaoluwa, observes, through history, the persistent clash between late arrivals and early arrivals and how the late arrivals have always thrived through the deployment of superior agency and aggression. For clarity, a few examples will suffice. While God created humans last (late arrival), he dominates animals, plants and cultivates the land (early arrivals). As humans, we kill animals and use plants for whatever we want. We capture lion, a ranking king of the jungle and housed it in zoological garden making money from it to show our superiority. Our domination shows in names like ‘Super Eagles of Nigeria’, Indomitable Lions of Cameroon. The late Chinua Achebe was called ‘eagle on the Iroko’ to mention but a few.
Like the ‘aggressive’ herdsmen, we all leave home for work in search of that which we desire but lack. At the earth of the quest for power is what Senayon calls the ‘intermediate agency of desire and envy’. For the herdsmen, I see a desire ‘to be’ in the position of early arrivals (the Southerners) and desire to ‘have’ or possess the privilege resources (land, space, power) in the hands of early arrivals (farmers and Southern Nigeria). Crossing from the Northern region in search of green grass, the dispersal takes subtle strategies of kinsmen who take job as domestic staff, security and trade in neighbourhoods across Southern Nigerian. The danger of a late arrival superior aggression can be seen in reported cases of domestic staff who kidnapped or killed their bosses in a desire ‘to be’ or ‘to have’ as theirs the privileges of their bosses. In the political arena, the take-over of power by the late arrival, All Progressives Congress, APC, from the early arrival Peoples Democratic Party in 2015 unpacks the theoretical agency of LASAT in explaining varying human desires across sectors.