Past is Prologue: Criminal & Reprisal Attacks in Nigeria's Middle Belt
Publisher: Search for Common Ground
Author(s): Chom Bagu and Katie Smith
Date: 2017
Topics: Conflict Causes, Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Governance, Land, Livelihoods, Renewable Resources
Countries: Nigeria
Communities in Central Nigeria are locked in a worsening cycle of violence between largely Christian farming communities and predominantly Muslim pastoralists, most of whom are ethnic Fulani. Environmental degradation, population growth, and regional instability have altered migration patterns and pushed herders further southward during seasonal migrations. Limited access to arable land and unreliable water sources have increased natural resource pressures, resulting in blocked grazing routes and destruction of farmland by Fulani cattle. In addition, the price of cattle has drastically increased resulting in larger herds being handled by an increasingly professionalized and weaponized herding community. In response, organized gangs of criminals have coalesced to profit off cattle theft and trade in a vast and lucrative stolen cattle syndicate. These have accounted for violent clashes that have claimed thousands of lives. Widespread impunity for these violent clashes has allowed these gangs of bandits to instigate violence, appropriate blame, and rob and rustle cattle for personal gain. Political opportunism plays an important role in the conflict as well, as local traditional, political, and religious leaders often manipulate public sentiments and encourage violence for political expediency. Land and rustling disputes have a deadly tendency to spark self-perpetuating cycles of indiscriminate reprisal attacks playing out along ethno-religious fault lines.