Migration of Fulani herdsmen to Kwahu East District

A written document about the migration of Fulani herdsmen to the study villages was not available so this section relied on the account by some chiefs and elders interviewed. Cattle keeping in the study area has been in existence since before colonialism but was not as

widespread as in recent times. Only a few wealthy farmers could rear cattle, but the number was only between 5 to 20 cattle per head (Field interview, 2017). The cattle owners as explained by a respondent from Oboyan, were locals who had their kraals at their backyards and hired the

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services of local herdsmen, who were mainly migrants from the northern part of Ghana. This corroborates the literature on traditional herding in Ghana before the advent of Fulani pastoralists (Abubakari & Longi 2014). The cattle were mostly fed with grasses cut from the bush, plantain and cassava peels and taken to the bush twice or thrice in a week for more food and for the animals to get medicinal plants to feed on, as they do selective grazing. Since cattle owners were settled in the communities and most of them were also crop farmers, they grazed their cattle in areas where there were no farming activities, which helped to avoid crop destruction. Therefore, nomadism was alien to the people, since cattle were kept like other ruminants, that is goat and sheep. A 58-year-old man who is a resident of Dwerebease narrated that:

He is a native of Sandema and his parents relocated to Onyemso and later to Dwerebease the cattle of one local farmer. As a young boy, I used to accompany my father to the bush to cut grasses for the animals. Also, we [including his siblings] filled buckets with water for the animals. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, we took them for grazing and led them back to the kraals. There was no reported case of farm

destructions against us. We never slept in the bush with the animals or took them to graze in the night as it's being done now. (Field interview 2017)

On the other hand, an 80-year-old woman in Hweehwee recounted:

When I was a young lady, sheep and goat were the animals kept by people within the locality. Cattle rearing was uncommon and those who reared cattle were rich and revered in the community. Since their animals were few, they hardly slaughtered them unless there was an important occasion like festivals, marriage ceremonies or naming ceremonies. In fact, cattle were valued like a cocoa farm. The herdsman I knew here was called Bawa from the North.

In short, cattle rearing is not new to the people in the district. One respondent (autochthonous) revealed that by the early 1970s cattle rearing was in the area but was not common. Nevertheless, the findings show that in the early 1990s, Fulani herdsmen came to settle in the study area with their cattle. They were few and established their homesteads in the outskirts of the communities, where there were no farm activities. This was mainly because there were vast unused lands due to the sparse population, but they were family lands and stool lands. This corresponds with the findings by Tonah (2006) that herders usually establish their kraals and houses at the outskirts of

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their host communities, making social contact somewhat limited. An informant, a 53-year-old man who is a farmer and a hunter from Oboyan, noted that:

These Fulani herders have been here for more than 20 years now. I quite remember when I got married (26 years ago), I first met one Fulani called Haruna on my way to the farm with my wife. He became my friend, because I often meet him with his cattle in the bush when I go to hunt.

Another respondent said:

When I relocated from Nkwatia to Dwerebease in 1995, these Fulani herdsmen were already here with their cattle. They were only a few, and you could easily identify them, but now their number has increased in this village and they are present in almost all the surrounding villages.

Also, the study revealed that five Fulani cattle owners entered into a tenancy contract with the former paramount chief, Dasabere Akuamoah Boateng (Report by KEDA, 2015, Appendix 1).

This contract between the Chief and the Fulanis helped to legitimize their stay within the area and made it easy for their friends, colleagues, and relatives to join them, thereby increasing their number in the study area. This confirms the observation by Olaniyan et al. (2015) that traditional rulers played a crucial role in assisting Fulani herdsmen in settling in the South, including the Afram Plains. They also cited an example of the leasing of land to Alhaji Grusah and other Fulanis by the Agogo Paramount Chief, Nana Akuoku Sarpong, to support their claim. During a field interview in Dwerebease, one farmer said:

These Fulanis are strangers, so how do they get lands? The lands are given to them by higher authorities within the Kwahu traditional area and we [autochthonous] are all afraid to question them. As for the Odikro [village chief] here, I can even confront him if anyone alleges that he has leased out lands to Fulani herders/cattle owners (Field interview, 2017).

A former planning officer of KED recounted that:

On 28 April 2012, the youth from three neighbouring communities (Aboam, Nkwadua, and Demano) demonstrated against the paramountcy in Abene (traditional capital of

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Kwahu). Some of them destroyed properties of the Krontihene and the Okyeame

[linguist] of the paramount chief. They alleged that the traditional authorities are behind leasing of land to Fulani herdsmen and cattle owners and supporting their activities.

From the above narratives, it can be deduced that the settlement of Fulani herdsmen was made easy by chiefs through leasing of lands to them. This confirms the literature by Tonah (2005) that those who are important to Fulanis are traditional landowners and local government officials.

Moreover, their numbers have increased in recent times because of the easy route from Asante Akyem North District (AAND) through Onyemso to the study area. Many Fulanis have settled in Asante Akeym Agogo because of the contract between four Fulanis (Alhaji Karim Grusah, Alhaji Ali Mamudu, Alhaji Fuseni Hassan and Alhaji Dauda Kassim) and the paramount chief (Olaniyan et al. 2015). The veterinary officer for Dwerebease Area Council stated that whenever conflict ensues between crop farmers and Fulani herders in AAND, they move to Onyemso, Dwerebease and other surrounding villages within the KED. A case in point is that in 2012 when the conflict was high in AAND especially, authorities evacuated them to Onyemso, Abotriansa and Asumesu, which are all surrounding villages to the study communities (Field interview, 2017). One of the herdsmen who live outskirts of Hweehwee said that he first settled at Bebuso village within AAND but due to the nature of the conflict within the area he decided to relocate to Hweehwee in 2010. All these have contributed to the influx of Fulani herdsmen to

Dwerebesae, Oboyan, Hweehwee and surrounding villages.

Finally, the fieldwork revealed that the above-discussed movement or migration of Fulani to the study area is because of availability of fresh pastures, water bodies, vast land available for leasing and the absence of tsetse fly that can attack the animals (Interview with veterinary officer, 2017). This corroborates the findings of Tonah, (2005) and Olaniyan (2015) that Fulanis migrated to the southern part of Ghana because of the reasons above.