Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Civilians are stepping in to keep the peace in the deadly feud between herders and farmers



Farmers and herders once lived harmoniously on Nigeria’s bucolic central plateau, but when Amos Lenji, a farmer, caught a young herdsman grazing cattle in his cornfields this October, he feared for his life.

His fear was rooted in a massacre that took place in June. More than 200 people, mostly farmers, were slaughtered by a gang of masked men dressed in black who marauded through the county of Barkin Ladi. Although no one was apprehended, the killers are suspected to be herdsmen.

It was the biggest bloodbath yet in a cycle of retaliatory killings between farmers and herders competing for space across Nigeria’s hinterlands. At least 1,300 were killed in just the first six months of 2018, according to the International Crisis Group. That is more than six times as many as were killed in Nigeria in the same period by Boko Haram, one of Africa’s deadliest terrorist groups.

Nigeria’s population has grown exponentially and is projected to surpass the United States’ by 2050, although Nigeria is 11 times smaller in area than the United States. Amid the boom, land has become increasingly scarce, and disputes over ownership are frequently turning bloody. New generations of farmers are planting on land traditionally used for grazing, and out of desperation, herders are grazing their cattle in fields still full of crops, destroying harvests. Many in the two groups now see each other as existential threats.

The near-constant violence has catapulted the farmer-herder crisis to the top of an already long list of security concerns in Nigeria. The country is roughly half Christian and half Muslim, and because farmers tend to be Christian and herders tend to be Muslim, the crisis has worsened the friction between the two religious communities. So far, Nigeria’s government has shown little capacity to prevent the fighting from spiraling further.

In the absence of an effective government response, locals have cobbled together groups of peacekeepers who have become the plateau’s de facto law enforcement. Barkin Ladi’s vigilantes, as they’re known, are particularly effective because they include farmers and herders. Bitrus Dung Pam, the local group leader, says he commands 30 times as many recruits as there are police in the whole county.

“When people see us, they trust us,” Pam said. “It’s not like the army or the police. We are the community.”

Pam was who Lenji thought of, standing there in the cornfield. He picked up his cellphone and asked for immediate help. The herdsman ran away.

“I had no other option,” Lenji said.

‘Vigilantes are our eyes’

Nigeria’s police and security forces are underequipped, underpaid and often deployed to unfamiliar areas of this diverse country of almost 200 million people.

Vigilante groups have proliferated out of necessity. They have formed a national umbrella organization that says it has nearly 350,000 members. They fill a giant law enforcement vacuum, but they also represent a homegrown approach to peacekeeping.

They build trust by settling not only potentially explosive disputes between farmers and herders, but also smaller ones. The process often resembles a court proceeding. On a recent day, vigilantes spent hours smoothing out a disagreement over money among women trying to raise chickens collectively.

The volunteers are everyday people, mechanics and bricklayers, men and women, and Muslims and Christians, and they represent all the plateau’s ethnic groups, including the two largest, the Berom and Fulani. Most farmers here are Christian and Berom, while most herders are Muslim and Fulani.

That inclusiveness commands the respect of local officials.

“No one will accuse them of being partisan or conniving with one tribe against the other,” said Yakubu Dati, a spokesman for the state government. “That is what we want, that is what this administration is all about, and we are doing everything to encourage other vigilante groups to emulate that so that peace can return permanently.”

But that doesn’t translate into any tangible state assistance. The volunteers pay for their own uniforms, and they carry hunting rifles and rubber pellets from home. In Barkin Ladi, they coordinate their patrols from donated office space in a small house and have just one vehicle.

They maintain a heavy presence along backcountry roads and man dozens of checkpoints in spots where violence has flared in the past. Since many are guarding their own villages, they simply walk to their posts. They are everywhere the police are not.

“If you call the police, they may tell you, ‘We don’t have fuel, give us some, and we will help you,’ ” said Edward G.M. Bot, the traditional leader of Barkin Ladi’s Berom community. “It is not like that with the vigilantes. The level of determination is totally different. They show up immediately. They stay overnight. They know who we are.”

Maj. Gen. Augustine Agundu, who commands Operation Safe Haven, the Nigerian military’s response to unrest on the plateau, said the volunteers were essential to his mission. The military, police and even aid groups have organized training for them, and Operation Safe Haven coordinates some of its patrolling activity with them.

The Nigerian government has struggled to come up with a comprehensive policy to address the crisis. In some states, grazing has been banned entirely, while in others, herders have been asked to move their cattle to ranges set aside for them. On the plateau, the main policy seems to be Operation Safe Haven’s military intervention and tacit support for the community-led effort.

“The vigilantes are our eyes,” Agundu said.

‘Poisoned relationships’

The violence between farmers and herders is Nigeria’s deadliest, but it is just one of three major conflicts exposing the fraying social fabric in this country.

For a decade, Boko Haram has terrorized the northeast, killing tens of thousands, burning entire villages and kidnapping an untold number of children. And in the Niger Delta in the country’s south, guerrilla groups continue to target foreign oil companies and the government, slowing Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy.

All these crises have led local communities to arm themselves against perceived enemies, while in the background, gargantuan challenges such as rapid population growth, climate change and religious rivalries deepen.

On the central plateau, Berom farmers are in the majority. Many believe that they are indigenous and that nomadic Fulani herders are either interlopers or invaders. The same dynamic is playing out across semiarid parts of Africa, but most violently here, where the plateau’s edges seem to provide a closed arena for battle.

“I won’t be sad if all the Fulani leave this place,” said Rose Mashinging, 36, a farmer who lives in a village that was attacked in June. “It is Berom land anyhow.”

The polarization has penetrated Nigeria’s politics. The country is set to hold a presidential election in February, and many in the mostly Christian south accuse President Muhammadu Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, of siding with herders.

His predecessor was voted out partly because he was perceived as weak against Boko Haram. Buhari’s reelection will partly rely on convincing skeptics that he is serious about peace in the Middle Belt, an ethnically diverse band across the country that is home to Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, though his government has done little to intervene in the conflict so far.

On the plateau, Fulani leaders say that members of the state security forces, who are mostly Christian, actively discriminate against the herders, and the leaders also allege that security personnel have engaged in revenge attacks. (Agundu, the commander of Operation Safe Haven, denies those charges.) Local ardos, or Fulani traditional headmen, complained that police don’t take cases they file seriously. And reports of Berom farmers stealing cattle are common, and the subsequent clashes often result in the deaths of herdsmen.

“It is a mess of poisoned relationships — layers of grievance that accumulated for generations are exploding,” said Adam Higazi, an anthropological researcher at the University of Amsterdam who has been based on the plateau for more than a decade. “Most people on the plateau don’t think of anything else now except the animosity.”

‘They can’t save us’

The vigilantes’ biggest hurdle is that they don’t have the strongest tool available to state law enforcement: lethal weapons. Without them, they can be easily overrun by the kind of marauding gang that terrorized Barkin Ladi in June. With such weapons, however, they might become more like soldiers or bandits themselves and be implicated in the killings.

Idris Gidado, the ardo of the villages worst affected in June, said that he would ordinarily commend the civilian peacekeepers for their bravery but that a recent incident had disillusioned him.

A Fulani man from Gidado’s own village had robbed a family of farmers. The volunteers caught him and handed him over to the police. The police released him quickly, and the ardo suspects that money was exchanged. The man robbed another family, and the sequence of events was repeated. In late October, the man raped a woman in his village, the ardo says.

“We want the vigilantes to succeed,” Gidado said. “But there is no system of justice here to allow that.”

The local police commissioner, Austin Agbonlahor, said he did not doubt the ardo’s story, but he said no formal complaint had been lodged.

Most of the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by the fighting are too fearful to return home. Maren Zachariah’s entire village, Garwaza, was abandoned in June. Garwaza was ransacked by the attackers, and its central church — with its fresco of Jesus and painted map of Africa — was left gutted and burned. It has been colonized by thousands of bees.

“We want to return, but the government doesn’t provide security. They only come as far as the nearest town. And our vigilantes can warn us, but they can’t save us,” Zachariah said. “The big trouble started on a sunny day like today. It can happen again any time.”

Amid the distrust, Barkin Ladi’s multiethnic vigilantes are setting an example for peaceful coexistence.

Mangwei Mashinging, the brother of the farmer who wishes the Fulani would leave the plateau, said he thinks peace is possible. That is why he joined the volunteer group.

“We thank God for the Fulani,” he said. He says Fulani neighbors saved many farmers during June’s massacre. “It is not as if the world is so simple — that Fulanis are bad and Beroms are good. Both groups have both kinds of people. We have to be on the side of peace.”

In October, when the vigilantes brought together Amos Lenji, his farmer neighbors and the family of the herdsman whose livestock trampled their cornfields to discuss compensation, everyone was a bit surprised to find out that the opposing parties shared close family friends.

The tension lifted. The farmers proposed that instead of paying for the damaged crops, the herdsman’s kin pay their mediators for fuel to keep doing their work. The two sides shook hands and headed home.

This project was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

Friday, December 7, 2018

Nigeria is third most terrorised country in the world

Nigeria, for the fourth consecutive year, occupies the third position among countries worst hit by terrorism, globally, according to the 2018 ranking on terrorism. This has been blamed on the activities of Boko Haram and herdsmen.

Apart from 2014 when Nigeria was ranked fourth, it has remained in the unenviable third position in the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) ranking since 2015.

Mixed reactions have trailed the report. While former vice president and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said the country’s ranking in terrorism shows the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) failed promises, the APC said report was far from reality.

In the latest report released on Wednesday, Iraq, a country in the Middle-East, is ranked first, a position it has held since 2014. Afghanistan has ranked second since 2013. Syria and Pakistan are ranked fourth and fifth respectively.

Others among the top 10 countries worst hit by terrorism in 2017 are Somalia (6th), India (7th), Yemen (8th), Egypt (9th), and Philippines (10th).

The good news, however, is that there has been a reduction in the number of deaths caused by terrorism in Nigeria in 2017, just like the other three preceding years, according to the report

“When compared to the peak of terrorist deaths in 2014, the largest falls in
the number of deaths occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan, with falls of 6,466, 5,950, and 912 deaths respectively,” said the 2018 GTI report.

The report said deaths from terrorism in Nigeria fell to 1,532 in 2017, a decrease of 16 per cent from the prior year.

There were 63 per cent and 34 per cent drop in deaths in the country in 2016 and 2015 respectively, according to the report.

“This highlights the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency operations undertaken in Nigeria and its neighbours, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad,” the report said, adding that the world has also experienced a drop in deaths from terrorism in 2017.

The GTI, while analysing global trends in terrorism in 2017, described the reduction in deaths in Nigeria and Iraq “the most dramatic.”

Boko Haram attacks, the report said, have substantially reduced in Chad and other neighbouring countries; and Al-Shabaab, in 2017, overtook Boko Haram as the deadliest terror group in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The GTI report raised concern over the killings by herdsmen, saying terrorism was shifting from Nigeria’s North-East region to the country’s Middle-Belt.

The report said: “In Nigeria in 2018, there has been a dramatic increase in violence involving Fulani extremists even as deaths committed by Boko Haram are falling.

“In 2018 alone, deaths committed by nomadic Fulani herders are estimated to be six times greater than the number committed by Boko Haram.

“In 2017, 327 terrorism deaths across Nigeria and Mali were reportedly committed by Fulani extremists, along with 2,501 additional deaths in the three years prior with the vast majority of these deaths being civilians.

“While deaths (killings) committed by Fulani extremists decreased following the peak of 1,169 deaths in 2014, violence from the group in 2018 is expected to surpass that peak. Nearly 1,700 violent deaths have been attributed to the Fulani Ethnic Militia from January to September 2018. An estimated 89 per cent of those killed were civilians.”

According to the report, two, out of 20 most fatal terrorist attacks, occurred in Nigeria. One was on March 20, 2017, when assailants identified as “Fulani extremists” opened fire at a market in Zaki Ibiam, Benue State killing 73 people. The other was on July 25, 2017, when Boko Haram terrorists opened fire on a Frontier Exploration Services team convoy at Jibi, killing 60 people.

The GTI, which is in its sixth edition, is produced annually by the Institute for Economics & Peace, an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank with offices in Sydney, New York, and Mexico City.

Reacting to Nigeria’s rating, former Vice President Atiku has described this as a function of the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to keep its campaign promises to Nigerians.

Atiku, who is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate for the 2019 polls, said it was unfortunate that the present administration could not deliver on its campaign promise to secure the country.

Speaking through his media aide, Paul Ibe, the former Vice President noted that that is the more reason Nigerians cannot take the APC serious in the run-up to the 2019 polls.

According to him, “it is very clear that this coincides with the era of the APC led administration. Again, it is also a confirmation of their failed promises. They have failed on economy. They have failed on alleviating poverty. They have again, failed on security. Then
you ask yourself without security, what can we do? That explains why every nook and cranny – the North West, the North Central, the North East, the South South – everywhere is a theatre of one war or the other.

He said: “It is not about promises. It is about policies. That is why we are different from them. You look at the well articulated policy, which Atiku has reeled out; it is a framework, and Nigerian are interrogating it. And security is an integral part of it.” In its reaction, the APC has dismissed the report, describing it as rating faraway from the reality on ground.

According to National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, the rating was wrong, stressing that Nigerians who are on ground have the accurate rating.

Said he: “We cannot join issues with people far away from the reality. Nigerians have their own rating because Nigerians who could not move freely in Abuja before the APC came in have their rating. The residents of Abuja formerly perpetually under fears of insurgents attack have their ratings. People of the North East have their own rating because they understand the difference between when they could not even live in Borno or Yobe and Adamawa states and now. They know that insurgency has been degraded to the extent that they don’t have any community under their control.”

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Nigeria arrest 'fake first lady'

A woman who used various false identities to gain access to Nigeria's presidential complex to allegedly run business scams has been arrested.

The secret service said Amina Mohammed initially posed as Kogi state's first lady to gain entry to the presidential villa in the capital, Abuja.

She then allegedly invited people to the villa making them believe it was at the invitation of the president's wife.

At a press briefing about the arrest, Ms Mohammed shouted: "It is a lie."

Peter Afunanya, a spokesman for Nigeria's domestic spy agency, known as the Department of State Security (DSS), told reporters the scandal took place while First Lady Aisha Buhari was out of the country in November 2017.

Wealthy businessman Alexander Chika Okafor, invited to the the presidential villa by Ms Mohammed, accused her of defrauding him of 150m naira ($414,000, £323,000) over a property deal in the main city, Lagos, the secret service spokesman said.

"Investigation has shown that this unholy enterprise is not to the knowledge of the first lady," Mr Afunanya said.

Ms Mohammed "took advantage of the fact that personalities such as first ladies, ministers and certain categories of officials are not taken through rigorous protocols and security checks at the villa posts", he added.

The BBC's Ishaq Khalid in Abuja says the security breach is shocking as the presidential complex, known as Aso Rock, is well guarded by the DSS and police officers.

All staff working there have to have passes, that include biometric data, and all visitors need to be signed in, he says.

In September, the DSS arrested one of the first lady's aides for allegedly raising funds under false pretences. He denies the allegations.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who faces re-election in February, came into office promising to tackle the "enormous" scale of corruption in Nigeria.

Arrest warrant issued for Nigeria ex-oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke

Nigeria’s main anti corruption body has issued an international arrest warrant for its former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke.

The authorities accuse her of misappropriating public funds worth several millions of US dollars.

Alison-Madueke is currently being investigated in the United Kingdom but Nigeria wants her to face trial in her country for an alleged act of illegal acceptance and giving gratifications.


The former Nigerian Minister in charge of oil is currently in London. She is to appear before Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on February 25, 2019.

Alison-Madueke is also associated with alleged money laundering cases in several countries like the United States and Italy.

She’s been released on bail from the British courts, which arrested her in 2015 and seized her passports.

Alison-Madueke, was oil minister of former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan from 2010 to 2015.

She became the first woman to lead the organization of oil exporting countries (OPEC).

President Muhamadu Buhari pledged to fight corruption when he assumed office as president of Africa’s most populous nation in 2015.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Video - Striking teachers, rigid government and students’ misery in education in Nigeria



It has been nearly a month since the students of government universities in Nigeria have had any class. For, the teachers have been on a strike protesting funding for education in the country. While those who can afford are moving towards private institutions, those who can’t are staring at an uncertain future as the deadlock between the government and the teachers continues.