Violence between herders and farmers called ‘eco-violence’ has occurred for decades, but in recent years the conflict has intensified. As of 2021, 357,473 people were displaced in Benue state alone. The available statistics of persons in other states affected by this crisis is equally scary.
Today, what is known as violence in the Sahel is escalating, killing more than 11,000 people in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso since 2012. Such conflict has emerged for a number of reasons, including religious insurgencies and access to water and grazing resources. Climate change leading to environmental degradation exacerbates these clashes.
The Sahel region is a large semi-arid land mass located to the immediate south of the Sahara desert. It stretches from Senegal on Africa’s western coast to Eritrea on the opposite Red Sea coast. It is home to the Fulani, or Fula people, one of the most widely dispersed ethnic groups in West Africa. Nomadic Fulani herdsmen have historically grazed their cattle throughout the region. The Sahel however is acutely experiencing the effects of climate change. Environmental degradation has diminished the grazing opportunities available to the Fulani. According to the World Bank, 75% of the Sahel is now too dry for livestock herders to settle in one place. Since the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, Fulani herdsmen have gradually been forced to migrate away from the Sahel region in search of pasture and water for their livestock. Their settlement into areas they previously visited nomadically has become a source of dispute with settled farmers. As they compete for access to scarce water and grazing resources, these disputes often spill over into violent conflict.
Why violence in Nigeria is escalating
Violence between herders and farmers called eco-violence has occurred for decades. But in recent years the conflict has intensified with mass murder and displacements leading to the rise of internally displaced persons (IDP) around the region.
This is particularly true in Nigeria’s Benue state in the present North-central location where 92 people were killed in 10 different incidents between March and June of 2022 alone. This is beside other locations in states like Nasarawa, Enugu, Kogi, Plateau, Gombe, Bauchi and other states in the core north as well as a good number of states in the South-west part of the country. Located in the country’s fertile Middle Belt, competition over arable land and grazing resources has grown intensely. Both settled farmers and Fulani herders claim rights to the land.
A deep research into the causes of this crisis examined the reasons behind the escalating violence. It was found out that the events experienced by Nigeria in recent years were consistent with what is known as the ‘Homer-Dixon model’.
The Homer-Dixon model predicts that scarcity of environmental resources and socio-political processes such as population growth can lead to political instability and the formation of authoritarian political structures. This in turn leads to changes in the distribution of opportunities and thereby lead to increased violent conflicts.
General Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani man, was elected as Nigeria’s president in 2015. Through what many described as nepotistic domestic policies and corruption, his government, they noted, shifted the political opportunities available in the country to his Fulani ethnic group. This has created the conditions for violence to escalate. This claim however is subject to criticism as investigation reveals that the president is not guilty of the allegation as he himself had noted in his inaugural speech of 2015 that he belongs to everybody, but belongs to no one in particular.
However, it was an open secret that between 2015 and 2018, the federal government increased its efforts to secure grazing pastures for Fulani herders. By this, they proposed the formation of open grazing zones which would take land from indigenous farmers and give it to Fulani herdsmen. A bill to that effect was hurriedly drafted and forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration. Although the bills were prevented from coming into law by a section of the legislators, the president’s special adviser on media and publicity, Femi Adesina however urged Nigerians to either surrender their lands to Fulani herders or risk losing their lives in the persisting conflict.
Therefore, policies such as this, that clearly favours certain groups justify the perceived grievances of Fulani herders and create an atmosphere that encourages violence under any guise as it portends to have the backing of federal might.
Also, it was discovered that under the present administration, the likelihood of Fulani herders facing punishment for committing violent acts have also reduced compared to the crimes committed. The Miyetti Allah, a Fulani cattle breeders association, claimed responsibility for the massacre of 72 people in 2018 in Benue, but the group’s leader, Garius Gololo, is yet to be charged to court for any offence and the criminalities continue.
Against this backdrop, herders seem to have been allowed to violently address their grievances against the settled farmers of the region thereby resulting in several reprisal attacks and extensive destruction within the region. As of 2021, an estimated 357,473 people were displaced in Benue according to reports.
What needs to change?
Climate change forces people to migrate and creates the necessary pressure for conflict to emerge. Avoiding migration towards places where agricultural and water resources are already scarce can only be done through action to mitigate climate change.
The surge in violence however has largely been caused by failures of government to address the root cause of the problems and confront them fairly. Addressing Nigeria’s structure of political opportunities is therefore equally important. In Nigeria and much of the Sahel region, ethnic relations underpin political posts with government contracts given with bias and sanctions for criminal behaviour non existent. In the countries within the region, people of the ethnic group in power are often afforded greater political opportunities.
History has shown that this can jeopardise effective governance and the security of a country’s ethnic groups. This is because when the rules are changed to favour one group, this may encourage clashes between ethnic groups that frequently become violent. The case of insurrection in the South-east and South-west comes to mind.
Change to an open political system in which the government ensures equitable representation would contribute to reducing the impacts of environmental resource scarcity and consequently the rise of eco-violence. If neither the effects of Nigeria’s current political structure favouring certain ethnic groups are addressed nor any counter-measures taken, widespread violence would continue following the next election in 2023.
Metro
