If armed Fulanis can build kidnapping camps in our forests it means we can build farming plantations there too 

By Ayo Akinfe 

(1) Hon Femi Gbajabiamila has presided over his first session as speaker as the Federal House of Representatives and during the plenary two motions were presented. One was from Hon Muraina Ajibola of Oyo State who moved a motion on the need to address the spate of killing and kidnapping across country. It was unanimously accepted 

(2) Now, over the last three months or so, this kidnapping has taken on a new dimension. In a small area between Ile-Ife, Ilesha and Akure, Fulani cattle herdsmen have moved into the forest, created camps, equipped these camps with modern communication gadgets and basically built new villages from scratch 

(3) Some Fulani miners have also begun mining gold in the forests around Ilesha. These guys are actually slick and professional. Do you know they capture the biometric data of every one of their employees? This is something no state government in Nigeria can boast of. I challenge one governor to come forward and tell us he has the biometric data of all his civil servants or teachers 

(4) I also find it fascinating that the kidnappers have erected phone masts in these new villages so they can communicate effectively with the outside world. All their victims are able to communicate with their family members and banks while in captivity. Not one kidnapped person has complained about not having connectivity while in captivity 

(5) These camps must also be run by generators, meaning they are getting fuel supplied without any hassle. Also, the kidnappers are getting food, ammunition, clothing, etc all delivered without any hassle. They are clearly very efficient at what they do and run their operations in a slick manner 

(6) You know, as a people, we have to learn something from these Fulani kidnappers. If they can go into the forest and build kidnapping villages out of nothing, it means we can also go in there and build agricultural plantations out of nothing 

(7) One of my pet hates is when you ask Nigerians to do anything and they start shouting government, government, government. Those creative Fulani kidnappers did not need any government help to build thriving “businesses” in the forests, so if they can do it, so too can the rest of us 

(8) This southwest axis where the camps are based could grow cocoa, papaya, kolanuts, rubber, plantain, bananas, pineapple, etc in abundance. I would suggest that the local people clear the forest of these hoodlums and establish a massive plantation there to make the point that if crime can thrive in Nigeria, so too can commerce. After Kalakuta Republic was burnt down, the Lagos State government built a school there. Let us do likewise and build the world’s largest papaya plantation in the forests once used as kidnappers’ headquarters 

(9) Let us see the arrival of these armed herdsmen as the equivalent of the genesis of our own Californian Gold Rush. California’s Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. News of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the US and abroad. This sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood

(10) Having said this, the Californian Gold Rush was not without a huge human cost. Sadly, the brutal reality of economic life is that development comes at a heavy price. The Gold Rush had severe effects on native Californians and resulted in a precipitous population decline from disease, genocide and starvation. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers. In China, we saw similar tragedies during Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward and in Russia, we witnessed likewise during Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivisation programme. Developing Nigeria will involve us incurring casualties. Are we ready for it?