Fleeing Herdsmen Clashing with Southern Christian Farmers
Fleeing Fulani Herdsmen Cause Havoc In Nigeria’s Eastern Flank
Yemisi Izuora/Agency Report
Muslim herdsmen fleeing Boko Haram jihadists and fast-spreading desertification in the north of Nigeria are clashing with Christian farmers in the south, adding a dangerous new dimension to the sectarian tensions and militancy plaguing the country.
Thousands of people from Muslim Fulani tribes have moved southwards this year, leading to a series of clashes over land that have killed more than 350 people, most of them Christian crop farmers, according to residents and rights activists.
The fighting threatens to fracture the country further by bolstering support for a Christian secessionist movement in the southeast, which has been lingering for decades but gained fresh momentum late last year when resentment over poverty and the arrest of one of its leaders spilled over into street protests.
The conflict is also exposing a growing problem that has attracted less international attention than Boko Haram and the militants threatening oil production in the Niger Delta region.
Fertile land is becoming scarcer across the country, and conflict over this dwindling resource is likely to intensify. The population of poverty-stricken Nigeria is expected to more than double to almost 400 million by 2050, according to the United Nations.
There are no signs that the secessionists will take up arms against the government like in the 1967-70 civil war that killed one million people. But the clashes and growing resentment at the arrival of Muslim herdsmen come at a time when many people in the southeast are complaining about widespread poverty.
In one of the deadliest clashes, about 50 people were killed in April when Fulanis attacked the village of Nimbo in southeastern Nigeria, according to residents, rights groups and lawmakers who visited Nimbo after the violence.
They said the attackers opened fire on villagers and torched a house where a priest and his family were sleeping, with the family only surviving by jumping out of a window.
“The Fulanis … came in the town and shot at any man they saw and killed him,” said Joseph Obeta, another priest in Nimbo, which is now almost deserted after hundreds of villagers fled during or after the attack.
Obeta said if there was an independent state in the southeast of Nigeria, it would be easier to prevent such violence.
“It would make a difference if the southeast were on its own.”
He was echoing the sentiment of campaigners lobbying for an independent state. They say they want to stop the Muslim north from dominating the Christian south of the West African country, which is split fairly evenly between Muslims and Christians.
They say the influx of herdsmen from the north is part of a plan by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani Muslim, to turn Nigeria into an Islamic nation – an allegation vehemently denied by the government and Buhari.
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