At an intersection seven miles from the presidential villa, frustrated drivers honk as a herd of cattle feeds on the grass beautifying the median strip and slowly marches across the road, their hooves clattering against the asphalt. For the teenage herder guiding them, Ismail Abubakar, it is just another day, and for most drivers stuck in the traffic, it’s a familiar scene unfolding in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

Abubakar and his cattle’s presence in the city center is not out of choice but of necessity. His family are originally from Katsina State in northern Nigeria, where a changing climate turned grazing lands into barren desert. He moved to Idu — a rural, bushy and less developed part of Abuja — many years ago. But it now hosts housing estates, a vast railway complex and various industries.

Fulani herders like Abubakar are traditionally nomadic and dominate West Africa’s cattle industry. They normally rely on wild countryside to graze their cattle with free pasture, but the pressures of modernization, the need for land for housing and crop farming and human-caused climate change are challenging their way of life. To keep cattle off of Abuja’s major roads and gardens, some suggest that herders need to start acquiring private land and operating like other businesses. But to do that, they’d need money and government incentives.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
3 points

It’s a myth because it’s not inevitable.

Under capitalism’s ideology of perpetual growth it is.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

No. Not necessarily.

Possibly. Maybe even probably. But those are not “inevitably”. It’s just a cynical take on it to say this oft-repeated myth from the 50’s is absolutely going to happen. Well-deserved cynicism, but there we are.

permalink
report
parent
reply

World News

!world@lemmy.world

Create post

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

  • Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:

    • Post news articles only
    • Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
    • Title must match the article headline
    • Not United States Internal News
    • Recent (Past 30 Days)
    • Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
  • Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think “Is this fair use?”, it probably isn’t. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.

  • Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.

  • Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.

  • Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19

  • Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to “Mom! He’s bugging me!” and “I’m not touching you!” Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

  • Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.

  • Rule 7: We didn’t USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you’re posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Community stats

  • 11K

    Monthly active users

  • 8.7K

    Posts

  • 98K

    Comments