Nigeria, May 18 -- I had reason to be at the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) not too long ago. As I was driving through the campus from the University's main gate, I beheld an ugly sight. A herd of cattle shepherded by grubby herdsmen were grazing in a somewhat removed portion of the vast land mass that the university occupies. I could not believe my eyes. I felt scandalized. I wondered: how can a university campus of all places be a grazing ground? Why did the university community allow it? What manner of permissiveness will make an academic community, a citadel of learning, share part of its serene environment with marauding pastoralists and their cows?

Then I began to query no one in particular. How did the cattle gain...