This policy was however difficult to enforce and the extent of compliance by individual herdsman could not easily be verified.
The herdsmen collectively use the group tenure pasture and their houses are usually set up near each other for security and mutual aid.
Thereafter, livestock seized from the herdsmen was quarantined and their owners compelled to pay for the cost incurred.
However, most of these herdsmen are reported to have come to the country originally as traders, middlemen and porters.
Accessing grazing and farmlands by herdsmen has become more difficult and is often accompanied by bureaucratic hurdles.
However, we argue that these findings give reason to seriously question the ' mainstream ' interpretation of conflicts between herdsmen and farmers.
One could argue that due to increasing pressure on the natural resource base, mutual interests between herdsmen and farmers have increased.
Consequently, rules concerning time and spatial distribution of millet cultivation were less exact and depended predominantly on the co-ordination achieved by groups of herdsmen.
