Nigeria’s growing Fulani conflict stokes Biafran cause

Nsukka (Nigeria) (AFP) – The Fulani herdsmen attacked at 6:00 am, just after morning prayers in Nimbo, an idyllic village in southeast Nigeria where farmers grow yams and pawpaws.

At first the villagers thought it was a joke. The nomadic cattle rearers, who have clashed with farmers over grazing rights in central Nigeria for decades, had never come this far south.

But then they saw 20 young men descend from the hills and emerge from the palm tree forest, shooting AK-47 assault rifles in the air and waving machetes.

“We started hearing the sound of gunshots everywhere. They shot so many people,” Kingsley Oneyebuchie, a 31-year-old civil servant, told AFP.

“They shot one of my brothers, they used a knife on my dad, they killed so many,” he said from his hospital bed in the nearby town of Nsukka, bare-chested and wearing only red athletic shorts.

Oneyebuchie ran his fingers tentatively over a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) track of blue surgical stitches at the base of his scalp.

“They used machete on me. After using machete on me, they thought that I died,” he said.

Oneyebuchie was lucky to survive the attack on April 25. At least 10 people are thought to have been killed and scores of others injured.

– Ethnic lines –

In the past year, raids by Fulani herdsmen have increased in the southeast.

The worst happened some 200 kilometres (125 miles) away in Agatu, Benue state, in late February, where hundreds of people — most of them Christian farmers — were reportedly killed.

The bloodshed mirrors that after Nigeria gained independence in 1960, when Igbos dominant in the mainly Christian southeast, were pitted against Hausa and Fulani in the largely Muslim north.

The ethnic violence led to two military coups, hundreds of deaths — and ultimately a civil war, when the southeast broke away and declared an independent Republic of Biafra in 1967.

Some one million Igbos died either fighting for the fledgling nation or from starvation and disease in a brutal conflict that by its end in 1970 left the southeast broken.

Now, stricken villagers maintain the only solution to the Fulani attacks — and perceived northern domination of political posts from the president downwards — is an independent state.

“We need to know that this is Igbo and this is Fulani,” said Oneyebuchie. “We want them to leave our place so that we will be free.”

– Growing conflict –

According to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 report, “Fulani militants” killed 1,229 people in 2014 — up from 63 in 2013 — making them the “fourth most deadly terrorist group” in the world.

Most deaths happened in Nigeria’s religiously mixed so-called Middle Belt states.

But the apparent migration south into Igbo territory is being used by an increasingly hardline pro-Biafra movement as an indication the Nigerian government doesn’t serve or protect the region and is stoking discontent in the southeast.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Hausa-Fulani who opposes the pro-Biafran movement, took until late April to speak out about the herdsmen, saying he had ordered military and police to “take all necessary action to stop the carnage”.

He has proposed setting up a grazing plan that includes the establishment of cattle ranches and importing grass feed from Brazil.

Critics argue his response is too little, too late and overly ambitious.

“I have yet to hear this government articulate a firm policy of non-tolerance for the serial massacres,” Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said recently, describing the ranch plan as “optimistic”.

– ‘A second genocide’ –

The arrest and detention of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu last year catapulted him and his more hardline pressure group into the mainstream.

“Buhari has authorised a second genocide on Biafra,” IPOB, which has been campaigning for Kanu’s release through public protests, said about the herdsmen.

“Biafrans are on the verge of being exterminated,” it added.

In Nimbo, the farmers use less emotive language but their underlying message is the same.

Today the village is deserted, with shiny new padlocks fastened on the wood doors of mud-brick houses and hectares of cassava and melon crops abandoned until safer times.

“We have been complaining to government, complaining to everyone, no help,” said Thaddeus Okenwa, a 65-year-old cassava farmer with a raspy voice and muscular hands.

“We are now just managing because nothing goes normal. If they can give us our own independence, let’s go.

“We don’t pray for war now, but this (the Fulani issue) can cause it because you can’t be a stranger in your home.”

Enugu attacks: Southerners in Nigeria ‘have been targeted for decades’

Fulani militants are believed to carry out attacks mainly in Nigeria and CAR. In Nigeria, they mainly operate in the Middle Belt and attack primarily private citizens to gain control of grazing lands.

By Ludovica Iaccino | IBT/

Militants have been targeting southerners throughout Nigeria for decades, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Biafran government in exile (BGIE) told IBTimes UK. Emmanuel Enekwechi, head of BGIE since its creation in the US in 2007, made the comments just days after dozens were killed in Enugu state, southeastern Nigeria, amid fears herdsmen from the Fulani ethnic group were behind the atrocity.

The killings occurred at a time when attacks attributed to Fulani militants are on the rise in Nigeria, where pro-Biafran secessionist groups have accused the Fulani herdsmen of targeting Christians and southerners in a bid to “Islamise the Christian-dominated region”.

“We don’t have the details yet, of what happened in Enugu, but for my experience, thousands and thousands of Biafans [who inhabit southeastern Nigeria] have been massacred in the north,” Enekwechi said. “A very large percentage of Biafrans living in the north relocated to their homeland, but even then, you can see they are still being pursued and killed.”

Ending attacks by herdsmen a national priority

President Buhari condemned the attack in Enugu and called on security forces to bring perpetrators to justice. “Ending the recent upsurge of attacks on communities by herdsmen reportedly armed with sophisticated weapons is now a priority on the Buhari Administration’s agenda for enhanced national security and the Armed Forces and Police have clear instructions to take all necessary action to stop the carnage,” Buhari’s spokeperson, Femi Adesina, said in a statement.

“The President urges all Nigerians to remain calm and assured of his administration’s readiness to deploy all required personnel and resources to remove this new threat to the collective security of the nation,” he continued.

The killings occurred at a time when attacks attributed to Fulani militants are on the rise in Nigeria, where pro-Biafran secessionist groups have accused the Fulani herdsmen of targeting Christians and southerners in a bid to "Islamise the Christian-dominated region". — The killings occurred at a time when attacks attributed to Fulani militants are on the rise in Nigeria, where pro-Biafran secessionist groups have accused the Fulani herdsmen of targeting Christians and southerners in a bid to “Islamise the Christian-dominated region”.

Not a sectarian conflict

Framing the Enugu and similar attacks as a sectarian conflict could further deepen violence, David Otto, CEO of UK-based global security provider TGS Intelligence Consultants, told IBTimes UK.

“It is not impossible for Fulani herdsmen to infiltrate Enugu to retaliate or defend their nomadic lifestyle and their cattle, but the danger lies in framing these attacks by so-called ‘Hausa Fulani herdsmen’ under sectarian terms or targeted killings against Christians or Biafrans, amounting to genocide attempts or ethnic cleansing,” he said.

“It will only add fuel to the situation. These types of violent land disputes have existed for decades – caused primarily by the mere lifestyle of Fulani Nomads and their grazing land in the Sahel region. The disputes have increasingly become worse because of the current land degradation in the Lake Chad region, forcing migration of Nomads with their cattle from the North to the Middle Belt regions. It is not uncommon for individuals, politicians, criminal groups or Islamic movements like Boko Haram to take advantage of the situation to achieve their own goals.”

Nigeria’s herdsmen-farmer conflict takes a turn for the worse in Enugu

A pastor surveys the rubble of a church torched by rampaging Hausa-Fulani herdsmen in Sabon Gida, Nigeria on May 21, 2004. The ongoing conflict in Nigeria between herdsmen and settled communities has killed hundreds in 2016.

Roaming herdsmen in Nigeria have reportedly killed scores of people after invading several towns in the southern Enugu state.

Ongoing clashes between herdsmen mostly belonging to the Fulani ethnic group and settled farming communities have already killed hundreds of people in 2016. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called an investigation after clashes in February in Benue state that reportedly resulted in hundreds of deaths.

Nigeria’s information minister Lai Mohammed said that the government is working behind the scenes to resolve the conflict, which reportedly costs the West African country billions in lost revenues.

Armed herdsmen entered a community in the Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu on Monday, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported, on the pretence that some of their cattle had gone missing in the area. Scores of people were killed as the herdsmen attacked civilians, burning out a local Catholic church and slaughtering livestock.

The Nigeria Police Force’s state branch in Enugu announced on Monday that “full-scale investigations” had been launched into the killing of six people in the Uzo-Uwani area “by men suspected to be herdsmen.” The police claimed that security had been beefed up in the area and urged local people not to take the law into their own hands.

The conflict between Fulani herdsmen and settled communities has mainly affected Nigeria’s Middle Belt — primarily the states of Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and Nassarawa. A series of reports in July 2015 by global humanitarian agency Mercy Corps found that the four states stood to gain up to $13.7 billion annually in total macroeconomic benefits if the conflict was reduced to near zero. Nigerian households affected by the clashes could expect to see their incomes increase by between 64 and 210 percent if a lasting peace were to be established.

Attacks by Fulani herdsmen have rocketed in recent years. Total casualties attributed to Fulani herdsmen hit 1,229 in 2014, a massive increase from just 63 in 2013, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace’s Global Terrorism Index 2015, though analysts have warned that Fulani herdsmen do not constitute a single militant group but rather roving communities loosely connected by ethnicity.

Nigeria’s Bukola Saraki wants a swift end to the Fulani herdsmen conflict

Bukola Saraki said the violence between herdsmen and farmers puts Nigeria's security and unity at risk. — Bukola Saraki said the violence between herdsmen and farmers puts Nigeria’s security and unity at risk.

The president of Nigeria’s Senate, Bukola Saraki, has demanded a swift end to the wave of violence allegedly perpetrated by predominantly Fulani herdsmen across the country.

The third most powerful politician in Nigeria behind the president and vice president, Saraki—who is currently standing trial on allegations of fraud, which he denies—ordered a senate committee on agriculture to fast-track a public hearing on the violence, which has claimed hundreds of lives in 2016 alone. Saraki tweeted that addressing the conflict was necessary to safeguard Nigeria’s unity.

Herdsmen mostly from the Fulani ethnic group have clashed with settled farming communities on numerous occasions in 2016, in a conflict reportedly motivated by competition for scarce resources but which also contains an ethnic element. At least five people were killed on Monday after armed herdsmen ransacked a community in Nigeria’s southern Enugu state, according to the state police. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an inquiry in February after similar clashes in Benue state, central Nigeria, which reportedly resulted in hundreds of deaths.

Low-level violence between herdsmen and farmers also has a massive economic cost for Nigeria. Four of the worst-affected states—Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and Nassarawa—stand to gain up to $13.7 billion annually in macroeconomic benefits if the conflict were reduced to near zero, a series of 2015 reports by global humanitarian agency Mercy Corps found.

Taken as a whole, attacks by Fulani herdsmen resulted in 1,229 casualties in 2014, a massive increase from the 63 recorded in 2013, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace Global Terrorism Index 2015. Analysts, however, have cautioned against grouping the attacks together under a single perpetrator and against classifying Fulani herdsmen as an organized militant group.

The Fulani is a disparate, mostly Muslim ethnic group spread across West Africa. Also known as Fula or Peul, Fulani people have traditionally led nomadic lifestyles as cattle herders following their livestock’s migratory patterns. They have clashed with a wide range of ethnic communities, including fellow Muslims such as the Hausa and Christian communities in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Information Minister says Government is working to resolve issue of Fulani Herdsmen

Nigerian information minister Lai Mohammed said the government is working to resolve clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farming communities in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s government is “working very silently” to resolve ongoing clashes between herdsmen and farmers that have killed hundreds in 2016, according to its information minister.

The conflict between the roaming pastoralists, who mainly come from the Fulani ethnic group, and settled farming communities has ramped up in recent months. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an inquiry into clashes that resulted in hundreds of deaths between Fulani herdsmen and farmers armed with guns and machetes in February in Nigeria’s central Benue state.

A series of reports in 2015 by humanitarian agency Mercy Corps estimated that the four states most affected by the violence—Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and Nassarawa—stand to gain up to a total of $13.7 billion annually if the conflict is reduced to near-zero.

Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said on Sunday at a prayer service in the southwest Ogun state that the government was aware of the problem and was taking steps to address it.

“These communal clashes are very delicate issues, very emotional and what the government is doing is working very silently to ensure that people who used to live together before without any conflict will go back to that. In [a] few weeks from now, we will begin to see the result of that,” said Mohammed, according to Nigeria’s Premium Times.

The herdsmen-farmer conflict is just one of several security issues the Nigerian government is trying to deal with. The jihadi group Boko Haram—which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in March 2015—is continuing a bloody insurgency in the northeast that began in 2009 and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million.

Militants have also upped attacks on oil pipelines in 2016, contributing to a grinding fuel shortage and recalling the Niger Delta militancy of the mid-2000s, which saw armed groups patrolling the Delta’s creeks and kidnapping oil workers. Additionally, pro-Biafran protesters have continued to clash with Nigerian security forces in the country’s southeast.

The Fulani is an ethnic group spread across West Africa that constitutes one of the main ethnicities in Nigeria. The Fulani controlled the Sokoto caliphate, one of Africa’s major 19th-century empires, until it was overthrown by the British in the early 1900s. The herdsmen-farmer conflict has often been characterized as an ethnic war between the roaming Fulani and settled ethnic groups, including the Hausa and Christian communities, but the authors of the Mercy Corps reports argue that the conflict is primarily a war over scant resources.

Nigeria’s herdsmen and farmers are locked in a deadly, underreported conflict

fherdsmen — A Fulani herdsmen waters his cattle on a plain between Malkohi and Yola in Nigeria, May 7, 2015. Clashes between herdsmen and settled communities are claiming hundreds of lives annually in Nigeria.

The jihadi group Boko Haram are usually characterized as the biggest threat to Nigeria’s state security and even as one of the world’s deadliest militant groups.

But in the first four months of 2016, Boko Haram have actually been responsible for less deaths—208 to be precise—than other sectarian groups in Nigeria combined, which have accounted for 438 deaths so far, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker. A huge chunk of these are down to an ongoing conflict between predominantly Fulani herdsmen and settled farming communities, which is costing the Nigerian economy billions of dollars per year as well as hundreds—if not thousands—of lives.

The Fulani —also known as the Fula or Peul—constitute a mostly Muslim people scattered throughout West Africa but concentrated in certain places, such as northern Nigeria. Fulanis are primarily nomadic cattle herders who follow their livestock along migratory patterns. This wandering lifestyle has brought them into conflict with settled farming communities in Nigeria, who have accused the Fulani of cattle rustling, kidnapping and murder.

Clashes between mostly Fulani herdsmen and settled communities have been concentrated in north central Nigeria, particularly the states of Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and Nassarawa. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an inquiry into clashes between herdsmen and farmers in Benue at the end of February, which reportedly resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands being displaced. As well as the obvious security threat, the low-level battles are draining Nigeria’s economy of resources and potential funds. A series of reports published in July 2015 by global humanitarian agency Mercy Corps found that the four problem states stood to gain up to $13.7 billion annually in total macroeconomic benefits if the conflict between herdsmen and farmers was reduced to near-zero. And the benefits are not just limited to state-level—Nigerian households affected by the ongoing clashes could expect their incomes to increase by between 64 and 210 percent were the conflicts to be resolved.

Nigeria’s Middle Belt—where the four problem states are located—is an area of ethnic and religious diversity, where the majority Muslim north meets the largely Christian south. On top of this, the Fulani have historical rivalries with other ethnic groups in Nigeria, particularly the Hausa. Led by the religious reformer Usman dan Fodio, a Fulani army fought a four-year jihad in the predominantly Hausa states of what is now northern Nigeria, eventually triumphing and establishing the Sokoto caliphate. The caliphate was one of the most prominent African empires in the 19th century and was only abolished by the British in 1903.

Because of this fraught geography and history, the herdsmen-farmer conflict is often characterized as ethnic or religious in nature. But this is a mischaracterization, according to Lisa Inks, one of the authors of the Mercy Corps reports. “We definitely believe that the conflicts are caused primarily by competition for scarce resources,” says Inks, citing land and water as the two major conflict drivers. According to Inks, solutions lie in supporting both parties by the establishment of grazing reserves for livestock, increasing funding for communities affected by the clashes and improving security at conflict hotspots.

The security implications of marauding, armed Fulani herdsmen are significant for Nigeria, already struggling to contain the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast , revived militant attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta and substantial pro-Biafran protests in the southeast. If taken together, casualties attributed to Fulani herdsmen in 2014 totaled 1,229, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace Global Terrorism Index 2015. It is problematic, however, to group Fulani herdsmen together into a single unit and classify them as a terrorist movement, according to Leena Koni Hoffman, Nigeria expert and associate fellow at Chatham House. Fulani herdsmen cannot be considered a terrorist group akin to Boko Haram or the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), says Hoffman, because of “the absence of a core ideology around the violence.”

Despite the lack of an ideological basis, links between the organized militants of Boko Haram and the roaming Fulani herdsmen have been suggested before. According to Hoffman, collaboration between herdsmen and Boko Haram is unlikely in terms of formal affiliation but could take place in different types of “criminal activity,” such as cattle rustling. “There could be a link between groups who are exploiting the context of insecurity and instability [in Nigeria] to strengthen their position,” says Hoffman.

Whether such links exist or not, the herdsmen-farmers conflict is clearly damaging Buhari’s vision of a unified Nigeria and sucking potential resources and revenues out of the country. “The farmer-herdsmen conflict is not even the most high-profile conflict in Nigeria,” says Inks, “[But] even this ongoing, relatively low-level intercommunal conflict is costing the country billions.”

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