Explained: Nigeria’s decades-long violent farmer-herder crisis

On Christmas Eve, gunmen opened fire and killed almost 200 people in a string of attacks on remote villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state, where clashes over farmland and pasture have become commonplace.

Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang branded the weekend attacks — which targeted 17 communities, leaving most houses in the area burned down — as “senseless and unprovoked” in a broadcast on the local Channels Television, according to The Associated Press.

Tensions have been rising for decades in Plateau — a state that, though ethnically and religiously diverse, is one of many that struggle with violent conflict between farmers and semi-nomadic herders, claiming countless lives in the process, with the bloodshed often boiling over to other hinterland states in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, such as Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa and Taraba, where attacks are also rife.

A deadlier conflict

In recent years, the attacks and killings have intensified. According to an AP report based on the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, at least 2,600 deaths were recorded in 2021 in the country’s north-central and northwest regions — a figure that exceeds the number of civilian fatalities resulting from Boko Haram insurgencies.

Three years prior, in 2018, the International Crisis Group (ICG) released a report indicating that more than 1,300 Nigerians had been killed between January and June due to increasing conflict between herders and farmers — a conflict that proved itself six times deadlier than Boko Haram’s rebellion that year.

For context, most of the herders are from the traditionally nomadic and Muslim Fulani, and the majority of the farmers are Christians of various ethnicities. But beyond the religious and cultural divide, the deadly conflict is essentially a struggle for land use across the country’s Middle Belt.

Northern Nigeria is becoming more prone to drought and floods, pushing local nomadic cattle herders native to from the region to seek grazing lands further south, an area where farmers are scaling up production to keep up with a growing population.

Thus, the climate crisis — which contributes to the diminishment of fertile land — and weak government regulations and responses have been said to fuel the herder-farmer conflict plaguing the country.

No real justice

In what is seen as a reluctance to properly investigate and pursue meaningful solutions that could put an end to the violence, the government has faced criticism from not only both sides of warring herders and farmers, but also from international human rights organisations.

A 35-year-old official from Bolki Village — which was attacked by suspected Fulani gunmen on May 2, 2018, resulting in the killing of nine people — told Amnesty International that the majority of the attackers had locally-made guns and rocket launchers, as well as other military-grade weapons.

“Our research shows that these attacks were well planned and coordinated, with the use of weapons like machine guns and AK-47 rifles,” said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria at the time the report was published. “Yet, little has been done by the authorities in terms of prevention, arrests and prosecutions, even when information about the suspected perpetrators was available.”

The true number of casualties is often difficult to determine as access to information and first-hand testimonies by Nigerian and foreign media, as well as relevant organisations, is limited.

However, between August 2017 and September 2018, Amnesty researchers conducted 10 field trips to 56 villages in five states. From January 2016 to December 2018, the human rights group registered at least 3,641 deaths and found that thousands had been displaced due to escalating violence.

Lack of ‘tangible action’

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu came into power in March and has promised to tackle security challenges his predecessor failed to address.

Tinubu condemned the most recent weekend attacks in Plateau and instructed “security agencies to scour every stretch of the zone and apprehend the culprits responsible for these atrocities.”

“Furthermore, I have ordered the immediate mobilisation of relief resources for the surviving victims of these primitive and cruel attacks, as well as ensuring medical treatment is provided for the wounded,” he posted on X. “While condoling with the government and the people of Plateau State, I assure all Nigerians that the envoys of death, pain and sorrow responsible for these acts will not escape justice.”

However, Tinubu’s government and others have yet to take “tangible action” to ensure justice or to safeguard afflicted communities in the region, said Amnesty’s current Nigeria director, Isa Sanusi.

“Sometimes they claim to make arrests, but there is no proof they have done so,” Sanusi said, adding, “The brazen failure of the authorities to protect the people of Nigeria is gradually becoming the norm.”