Fulani Herdsmen And The Rest Of Us
BY ROTSHAK ZUMSHIT
Introduction
Nigeria as a nation-state is under severe internal socio-economic and security threats. At a more general level, the threat has its own unique economic and political dimensions.
Each of these dimensions has greatly affected the nation’s stability and can be traced to the Fulani herdsmen’s expansionist agenda (or is it jihad?), a lethargic or nonchalant leadership, poverty, kidnapping, banditry, insurgency, armed robbery and an odious corruption as never before witnessed in the country’s history.
Historical Background
The first crisis between herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria was recorded in 1948. The second was in 1951 and led to the migration to Sudan of Fulani Bororo who had earlier come with Othman Dan Fodio in his jihad of the 19th century. In 1955, the Fulani instigated and carried out a clash/genocide which led to the Sudanese Government issuing a quit notice to all the Fulanin Bororo to vacate Sudan. They left and thereafter spread into almost all the countries of West Africa.
In April 1956, the then Northern Nigerian Government sent a delegation to Sudan comprising Alhaji Mohammad Ribadu, Minister of Lands, Alhaji Abubakar Akalai of Sokoto Native Administration, Malam Maaji Shani, Legal Adviser, Borno Native Administration, and Mr. J.R. Knowles, Senior Veterinary Officer. This led to the Fulani’s eventual relocation to Nigeria two years later. They also came with their nomadic lifestyle.
The Current State Of Affairs
These nomadic Fulani settled among many communities in Nigeria where they were made welcome. They temporarily settled on sites that were farmlands of indigenous farmers. That has been the case for many years, with occasional clashes between farmers and herders.
Most Fulani who are used to migrating from one place to the other did not take advantage of buying lands for grazing or ranches. This state of affairs has led to constant conflicts between the Fulani herders and farmers, with the former inflicting heavy casualties on the latter due to their abilities to procure weapons.
Over the years, an accurate account of the death toll resulting from these outbreaks of violence in Nigeria is difficult to come by due to the lack of a dedicated database. Therefore, most of the evidence comes from newspaper reports of various incidents involving the herdsmen and farmers in settled communities. Some sources claim that since 2001, over 60,000 persons have died as a result of the Fulani attacks, making it deadlier than the Boko Haram Islamist terrorism.
According to a BBC report, over 50,000 deaths were caused by the crises between 2001 and 2004 alone. Of these deaths, women and children accounted for almost 35,000. Some accounts say that the violent confrontations started in the 1990s or earlier. Another report put the economic costs of the herdsmen’s attacks on Benue, Kaduna, Nassarawa and Plateau states at about $14 billion annually.
Happenings since 2015 when the government of Muhammadu Buhari took power, have risen the octave of the hersdmen’s attacks on almost all communities of Nigeria. It is now no longer a matter of herdsmen’s attacks on farmers or what the Buhari government and its agents prefer to call farmers/herders’ clashes. Now what we have is a deadly group of sadistic, blood-thirsty killers of Fulani extraction who migrated into Nigeria since their tribesman became Nigeria’s President in 2015 attacking citizens all over the country, especially in the Middle-Belt, southern, eastern and western Nigeria.
Little wonder, the Global Terrorism Index showed the Fulani herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world in 2014. Only the fearsome trio of Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab were adjudged deadlier.
Although attacks on communities in Nigeria, especially in Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and Taraba states, could be said to predate the Buhari administration, the administration’s actions and inactions in the face of these continued attacks have subjected it to much flak by Nigerians.
One of the most heinous attacks perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen in the Buhari era was the Agatu Massacre in Benue State. In February 2016, over 300 persons from the communities were massacred while some 7,000 others were displaced. These killings were accompanied by the destruction of houses and other property as well as allegations of rape. According to the Fulani leader, the attacks were reprisals against the Agatu people for killing a prominent Fulani man and stealing his cattle in 2013.
The fact that it took the president more than one week to issue a statement of condemnation and order an investigation, and that his spokesman stated his silence on the crisis was because he “[the President] is not a (sic) talkative” angered many Nigerians. Moreover, allegations of either inaction or outright collusion with the herdsmen have been levelled against the government and security agencies many times before.
In an interaction, the member representing Agatu in the Benue State House of Assembly, Mr. Sule Audu, accused the military of allowing the Fulani herdsmen to occupy the sacked communities while their cattle, numbering over 100,000, freely grazed on their farmlands. That the president is Fulani also added ammunition to the Fulani attackers who saw his slow (or zero) response as tacit support for the killers.
On April 25, 2016, suspected armed Fulani invaders attacked Ukpabi Nimbo, a town in Enugu State, killing many people. This drew nationwide condemnation and once again highlighted the potential threat of the conflict feeding other security flashpoints. The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), a group agitating for a restoration of the Republic of Biafra, warned that there would be repercussions should such killings continue.
The group was proscribed and labelled a terrorist group by the Muhammadu Buhari led APC but not so the killer Fulani herdsmen and bandits. Some communities in the South-East zone have also threatened reprisal attacks.
Similar cases of attacks in almost all regions of Nigeria (except the Northeast which the Fulani gunmen seem to have left for Boko Haram) have been reported. It is baffling that virtually no successful prosecution or conviction has been secured on any of these incidents of killing and wanton destruction of property by the herdsmen.
To aggravate the people’s sense of betrayal, the governor of Kaduna State and a powerful ally of the President, Nasir el-Rufai, once accepted settling the herdsmen to stop them from killing the mainly Christian population of Southern Kaduna. Kaduna was embroiled in a crisis involving Fulani herdsmen and Southern Kaduna residents in December 2016. It is worthy of note that these attacks by the Fulani against Southern Kaduna indigenous communities have persisted up till today.
The most disturbing aspect of it is that the attacks were carried out during the 24-hours curfew in the state. As in the case of the Agatu mayhem, the Southern Kaduna killings were said to be reprisal attacks by Fulani herdsmen for previous alleged murders. Even if the compensation was made in good faith, that the governor, a Muslim Fulani, paid fellow Muslim Fulani, rather than bring them to justice, was seen by many as emboldening the killer herdsmen.
Even a UN report on herdsmen’s-perpetrated attacks in Nigeria slammed “the complete impunity enjoyed so far by the perpetrators.” According to other reports, 5 persons were also arrested over the Nimbo massacre even though it was allegedly perpetrated by over 500 armed herdsmen. However, one thing is certain: it is worrying when attacks and reprisals can be carried out in a country with little or no consequences for the perpetrators.
Perhaps the most perplexing question surrounding the attacks is how herdsmen end up with sophisticated weapons like the AK-47 semi-automatic rifle. As has been noted by some concerned Nigerians, the spectre of a fully-armed Fulani herdsman is new. Several factors, such as the Libyan crisis and the resulting free flow of firearms in the wake of Ghaddafi’s death, gun-running, and local politics have been blamed for the Fulani herdsmen’s relatively easy access to dangerous and sophisticated weapons.
A related problem is Nigeria’s porous borders. The recent spate of herdsmen-perpetrated violence has also been attributed to foreign transhumance Fulani. If this is true, the fact that foreigners can travel as far as Southeast and Southwestern Nigeria to wreak havoc points to an even deeper problem that has plagued successive administrations in Nigeria, and persists even more pervasively under the present Buhari administration.
The atrocities perpetrated by the Fulani herdsmen include destruction of houses and churches, as well as the seizure of land and property belonging to Christians. Reports have also emerged of Fulani herdsmen kidnapping Christian schoolgirls to marry them to Muslim men. Another matter of utmost concern is the fact that the Fulani herdsmen have become increasingly militarized as they now openly wield AK-47 rifles without any fear. It is on record that Nigeria is now home to over 350 million illegal weapons.
Nigerian and foreign newspapers are often unable to provide the exact numbers of attacks and Nigerian and foreign journalists have rarely access to first-hand testimonies and tend to report inaccurate figures. But according to the Global Terrorism Index, the Fulani herdsmen had killed over 800 people by the end of 2015. The year 2016 saw even more deaths in Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and Enugu states.
Between 2017 and 2018, over 500 people were killed by these Fulani herdsmen mostly in Taraba, Plateau, Kaduna and Benue states.
One of the other brutal reminders to the herdsmen’s cruelty was the massacre of 73 innocent people in Logo and Guma local government areas of Benue State in the early hours of the New Year day of 2018. The immediate trigger of that orgy of violence was the herdsmen’s opposition to the anti-open grazing law enacted by the Benue State Government, which took effect from November of the previous year.
And although Fulani leaders were said to have claimed responsibility for that attack, no single perpetrator was ever arrested by the security forces. This has continued to fuel fears and accusations that state players have a hand in these bloody orgies of violence being perpetrated by well-armed and well-motivated Fulani militia in most parts of the country.
The Fulani herdsmen also killed over 400 persons in 2019 in attacks that have spread over eight states of Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa, Katsina and Zamfara. Even at the time of writing this article, more communities were being attacked all over the country with the death still rising.
Conclusion
Nigeria has never had it this bad in terms of insecurity. Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency (2015 onwards) has seen a sharp increase in its sinister but subtle attempts to force Islamization on the country. It is alleged that appointing his fellow Muslim Fulani into most of the key security positions of the country is a strategy towards achieving this hidden, egregious, agenda. Most Nigerians say that this is sheer nepotism, regionalism, Islamization and ‘religionism’ being perfected with a nauseating gusto.
Hundreds of thousands of people, especially Christians, who have been driven out of their villages and away from their means of livelihood by the Fulani violence have been forced to become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). They now live in crowded, unhealthy and informal IDP camps all over the country.
Given the continuous occupation of their villages and communities by Fulani herdsmen, the lack of government support, the lack of proper education for their children and the high vulnerability of IDP camps, these Nigerians continue to suffer after the brutality of the initial Fulani militia attacks.
…Zumshit is an Abuja-based veteran journalist and public affairs commentator
