{"id":369027,"date":"2017-11-07T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T06:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=369027"},"modified":"2017-11-07T06:00:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T06:00:34","slug":"umaru-sanda-writes-the-untold-story-of-enslaved-fulani-herdsmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/11\/umaru-sanda-writes-the-untold-story-of-enslaved-fulani-herdsmen\/","title":{"rendered":"Umaru Sanda writes: The untold story of \u2018enslaved\u2019 Fulani herdsmen"},"content":{"rendered":"
I am Ghanaian and a Fulani. I needn\u2019t mention my ethnic group because the 1992 Constitution which we subscribe to in this land does not attribute citizenship to ethnicity. However, in recent times, the word Fulani has been used as a synonym for various types of crimes. News headlines are awash with stories about crimes attributed to Fulanis. I see this as ethnic profiling, hatred and scorn.<\/p>\n
This is so widespread that even in Accra where I work among very well educated members of the society; people find delight in shouting FULANI whenever I am around with the intent to ridicule me. Call it victimization and you wouldn\u2019t be far from right.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”xup1IJVLYBcz3MbKZlpQV8Vds4kjlUI2″]From high school through tertiary to the work environment, I have been mocked for simply being from the Fulani ethnic group. If I hadn\u2019t ignored most of the teasing and grown a tough skin, I wouldn\u2019t have made it past the first stage of my education.<\/p>\n
Many people- including members of the media who perpetuate this stereotype against Fulanis are simply ignorant and as a trained journalist, I am scandalized when I see news headlines associating crime with an ethnic group. In recent times, there have been cases of violent conflicts between what the media erroneously refers to as \u201cFulani herdsmen and indigenes\u201d. This approach creates a two party system and draws the battle lines between them.<\/p>\n
Many of these so called Fulani herdsmen are uneducated and as one of the privileged few, I wish to help give us all some education. I describe myself as one of the privileged few because I am the only one in my nuclear family to have gone to school.<\/p>\n
I am the 7th and last born of my illiterate parents. My elder siblings- 2 men and 4 women have not had formal education because they have been helping my father herd cattle. My parents arrived at Asutsuare Junction on Thursday, 24th December, 1976, from Mobole near Afienya, both towns in the Greater Accra Region.<\/p>\n
They relocated to take up a new job as caretakers of cattle belonging to the richest man at Asutsuare Junction at the time. He was called Owulaku, and was the defacto leader of the community. The new employees were housed in the one bedroom structure put up for them. Because of my father\u2019s commitment to ensuring the job was decently executed, he prevented all his children from attending school so they could help him cater for the cattle.<\/p>\n
All seven children, except the last born, was lucky to have been enrolled in school, whereas the others were busy with taking care of cattle.<\/p>\n
I was the lucky one, and my schooling would not have happened if my mother with the support of her father had not insisted that I should be enrolled in school. My father was an opinion leader of the village, and was part of the people who attended the weekly Communal Labour which culminated in the construction of the Asutsuare Junction D\/C Basic School in 1982\/83.<\/p>\n
They mixed concrete, dug the foundation, and laid blocks\u00a0for the setting up of the school. He attended the Parents Teacher Association (PTA) meetings of the school although none of his children was attending the school, and he definitely didn\u2019t intend for any of them to do so – until some ten years later, when I was fortunate to enroll in the nursery school. Indeed, while my father attended PTA meetings and paid dues as a communal duty for the education of children of the village, his own children (both boys and girls) were battling scorpions, snakes and other reptiles as they take the cattle out to the bush.<\/p>\n
Owulaku, my father\u2019s master, was a few years older than him. The contract was simple: My father was to do whatever it took to ensure the over one hundred cattle were fed and given water. This means moving them several kilometers into the bush every morning to find pasture and return them in the late afternoon or evening. He would usually do this on an empty stomach, and that was the daily routine until his children were of age to help him do it.<\/p>\n
The job is toughest in the dry season when the grass is dry or non-existent, which made the cattle grow lean. During these periods, my father or his children would take the cattle out at midnight, and return at midday the following day. They walked barefoot or when fortunate, in sandals into the dark \u201cjungle of reptiles\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the peak of the drought that hit Ghana in the early 80s, my father had to move the cattle completely out of the village to an area along the Volta River at Kpong, where there was still some pasture. He left behind his family and stayed there for months. At the time, people mostly travelled on foot and communication was not advanced. So my parents were somewhat separated for months as my father slaved for Owulaku.<\/p>\n
My father\u2019s reward for this \u201cslavery\u201d was simply, the milk from the cows. The business of herding cattle is a skilful and tedious routine. Every night, the herdsman separates the calves (babies) from the cows (mothers). In the morning, he takes the adults far into the bush while his children take the young calves to another part so they could feed on the grass.<\/p>\n
In the late afternoon or evening (depending on the season), the parties return home and the animals are kept in separate kraals (fences). The tired and hungry herdsman, who has just returned home from grazing, would now have to milk each of the cows whose calves were kept away from the previous night.<\/p>\n
The process involves releasing one calf at a time so they could start suckling on their mother\u2019s breasts. The herdsman, who stands aside and watches would wait till the cow eases the milk from the udder. He then separates the calf from the mother before bowing under the cow to milk her. This is done for all the cows involved.<\/p>\n
As far as I recall, my father has never returned from the kraal with more than a 34cm bucket full of milk. This translates into 4 gallons of milk. As of 2007 when I totally abandoned cattle herding for Journalism school in Accra, a gallon of milk sold for 5 Ghana Cedis. Multiply that by the maximum 4 gallons a day, and the herdsman was earning an estimated 20 Cedis a day. That was his salary. From that amount, my father would feed and clothe the whole family and if anyone fell ill, that was the money to support the medical bills. Owulaku had no compensation package for my father or insurance for his 7 children or paid school fees for the only one attending school. That has been the situation with my family for nearly 40 years since my parents left one cattle herding job at Mobole to take up one at Asutsuare Junction.<\/p>\n
When my sisters got into their teenage age, my father gave them out for marriage so they left to live with their husbands. One of my brothers had had Quranic education so he was made to replace my ageing father as Imam of the central mosque in the village. My second brother became fed up with herding cattle and left to go learn a trade in kente tailoring at Agbozume in the Volta Region.<\/p>\n
My mother was busy with buying wagashie (a dairy product) from most cattle settlement areas in the neighbourhood which she hawked daily at the Nima and Tudu markets in Accra.
\nMeanwhile, the last member of the family was still in the local school and excelling in academics. I had to travel at a point with my teachers to Dodowa, the District Capital for the Inter-Circuit Quiz Competition organized by World Vision.<\/p>\n
I was not completely spared though, because when I return from school in the afternoon, it was my responsibility to take the cattle grazing, and on weekends and holidays, the responsibility of grazing the cattle was my sole responsibility to enable my siblings who have been doing it all week to have some rest.<\/p>\n
I may not have totally enjoyed staying in the bush with cattle while my classmates get extra tuition, but I made the grazing worth the while. I would usually write the words \u201cstory book\u201d on a piece of paper which my mother ties to her cloth before leaving for the market.<\/p>\n