- 300,000 flee homes in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, 2 states
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has said that the rising conflict between herders and farmers in some parts of Nigeria is already six times deadlier in 2018 than Boko Haram’s insurgency in the country.
In a report released yesterday and titled “Stopping Nigeria’s Farmer-Herder Violence,” ICG said the crisis has escalated with over 1,300 people killed between January and June 2018 in Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states.
Founded in 1995, ICG, which carries out field research on violent conflict and advances policies to prevent, mitigate or resolve conflict, recommended steps that the government must take to stem further attacks in the affected areas. ICG said: “In the first half of 2018, more than 1,300 Nigerians have died in violence involving herders and farmers. What was once spontaneous attacks have become premeditated scorched-earth campaigns in which marauders often take villages by surprise at night.
“Now claiming about six times more civilian lives than the Boko Haram insurgency, the conflict poses a grave threat to the country’s stability and unity, and it could affect the 2019 general elections. “Since the violence escalated in January 2018, an estimated 300,000 people have fled their homes. Largescale displacement and insecurity in parts of Adamawa, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states hinder farming as well as herding and drive up food prices.”
The ICG report noted that since September 2017, at least 1,500 people have been killed, over 1,300 of them from January to June 2018, roughly six times the number of civilians killed by Boko Haram over the same period. “The first half of 2018 has seen more than 100 incidents of violence and more fatalities than any previous six-month period since the conflict started worsening in 2014. The surge of violence is concentrated in Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa states in the North Central geopolitical zone and in the adjoining Adamawa and Taraba states in the North East zone.”
The report stated that since January 2018, over 300 people have been killed in attacks on Plateau villages in Bassa, Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Mangu and Jos South local government areas. The deadliest sequence of events was the 23-24 June attack on 11 villages in Barkin Ladi and subsequent reprisals on a highway, which altogether killed more than 200 people. Also in Adamawa State, hundreds of people have been killed in herders-farmers’ clashes. It said that about 400 people have been killed in Benue between January and June. “In Benue, from 1 to 7 January, armed men widely believed to be herders angered by the law raided six farming villages across Logo and Guma local government areas, killing over 80 people.
The attacks have continued with over 300 more killed in the state since then,” the report stated. ICG said Nasarawa State has also suffered an increase in violence involving both herders and farmer militias. “From January to June 2018, over 260 people were killed in several incidents, mostly in the southern zone covering Doma, Awe, Obi and Keana local government areas,” it said.
The think-tank said the three factors that aggravated the decades-long conflict arising from environmental degradation in the far North and encroachment upon grazing grounds in the Middle Belt, include militia attacks, poor government response to distress calls and failure to punish past perpetrators as well as new laws banning open grazing in Benue and Taraba states. While stating that the Federal Government has taken commendable, but insufficient steps to halt the killings, ICG said that the immediate priorities of the government should be to “deploy more security units to vulnerable areas; prosecute perpetrators of violence; disarm ethnic militias and local vigilantes; and begin executing long-term plans for comprehensive livestock sector reform.”
The group further noted that the conflict is fundamentally a land-use contest between farmers and herders across the country’s Middle Belt, adding, however, that it has taken on dangerous religious and ethnic dimensions. The transnational nonprofit organisation also urged the Benue State government to freeze enforcement of its law banning open grazing, review provisions of the law and encourage a phased transition to ranching. The report also said the herdsmen-farmers’ violence has exacted a heavy burden on the military, police and other security services, distracting them from other important missions, such as countering the Boko Haram insurgency. The report read in part: “The farmers-herders conflict has become Nigeria’s gravest security challenge, now claiming far more lives than the Boko Haram insurgency.
“It has displaced hundreds of thousands and sharpened ethnic, regional and religious polarisation. It threatens to become even deadlier and could affect forthcoming elections and undermine national stability. “Three immediate factors explain the 2018 escalation. First is the rapid growth of ethnic militias, such as those of the Bachama and Fulani in Adamawa State, bearing illegally acquired weapons. Second is the failure of the federal government to prosecute past perpetrators or heed early warnings of impending attacks.
“Third is the introduction in November 2017 of anti-grazing laws vehemently opposed by herders in Benue and Taraba states, and the resultant exodus of herders and cattle, largely into neighbouring Nasarawa and, to a lesser degree, Adamawa, sparking clashes with farmers in those states.” As a way out, ICG urged the Federal Government to “better protect both herders and farmers, prosecute attackers, and carry out its National Livestock Transformation Plan. State governments should roll out open grazing bans in phases. Communal leaders should curb inflammatory rhetoric and encourage compromise. International partners should advocate for accountability and support livestock sector reform.”