₦airaland Forum

By Gift Habib


An estimated 30,000 armed Fulani militants are operating across Nigeria in groups ranging from 10 to 1,000 members, according to the May 2026 report released by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The report stated that the militants have become some of the deadliest non-state actors driving religious freedom violations in Nigeria.

Titled “Nonstate Violators of Religious Freedom in Nigeria: Fulani Militants,” the report said attacks carried out by armed actors of Fulani ethnic background intensified insecurity across the Middle Belt and Southern regions, leaving thousands dead, displacing communities and deepening tensions between religious groups.

“Violence by Fulani militants caused the highest number of deaths among all religious communities in Nigeria over the last year as compared to attacks by organised insurgent groups and criminal gangs,” the report stated.

The commission said many of the attacks were directed at Christian communities, though Muslim communities had also suffered raids, killings and kidnappings.

According to the report,

While the groups lack centralised leadership, USCIRF stated that some collaborate with criminal gangs and extremist organisations.

The report explained, “These actors operate in a variety of contexts and with a multiplicity of likely aims and motivations.

“While many Fulani militant groups wage independent attacks, others periodically coordinate with a wide range of other actors, from conventional bandit gangs seeking financial enrichment to recognised terrorist organisations that espouse a violent interpretation of Islam.”

The commission noted that militants frequently attack isolated rural communities at night using motorcycles, automatic weapons and machetes.

“They often wield machetes and descend on vulnerable communities during the night, eliciting terror as a way to force victims to quickly leave and to achieve greater control of desired land,” the report said.

USCIRF explained that attacks by Fulani militants and other armed groups had displaced at least 1.3 million people in the Middle Belt, forcing many into overcrowded camps lacking adequate sanitation and security.

The report detailed several attacks carried out in 2025 and early 2026, including mass killings in Benue and Plateau states.

“One attack in Benue in June 2025 killed at least 200 people, including internally displaced persons living in a Catholic mission,” the report said.

USCIRF also cited the massacre in Yelwata, Benue State, in 2025, where more than 200 Christians, “mostly sleeping women and children,” were reportedly killed and over 3,000 people displaced.

The commission said militants deliberately timed some attacks to coincide with Christian religious holidays.

“Militant actors have often carried out operations during Christian holidays such as Christmas or Easter to further maximise the psychological impact,” the report stated.

It added that in February 2026, suspected Fulani militants reportedly killed at least 32 people in Niger State and attacked Holy Trinity Parish in the Kafanchan Diocese of Kaduna State, killing three people and abducting 11 others, including parish priest Father Nathaniel Asuwaye.

The report also documented kidnappings targeting both churches and mosques.

“In February 2026, armed men kidnapped an imam and seven worshipers from a mosque in Plateau,” USCIRF stated, adding that the kidnappers demanded a ransom of N16m.

Bandits abduct 13 in Kebbi border community
The commission said Palm Sunday and Easter attacks in April 2026 left dozens dead in Plateau, Kaduna and Benue states.

“On Easter Sunday, Fulani militants reportedly killed five worshippers at two churches in Kaduna State while abducting 31 others,” the report stated.

USCIRF said conflicting narratives surrounding the violence had complicated efforts to determine the motivations behind the attacks.

The commission highlighted, “Some observers have argued that environmental and economic factors are the driving force behind Fulani militants’ acts of violence, while others have suggested that these actors are engaged in a concerted campaign of outright genocide against non-Muslims, especially Christians.

“In fact, multiple and overlapping factors, including religion in many cases, likely spur Fulani militants to attack communities or individuals.”

The report criticised the federal and state authorities for what it described as inadequate responses to the violence.

“Victims have long reported that security forces are consistently slow to respond to attacks on their communities,” the commission stated.

USCIRF further stated that some Christian advocates accused security agencies of showing favouritism toward Muslim communities during investigations and security operations.

The report noted that governors from 11 states launched an initiative in June 2025 to establish ranch lands for herders in a bid to reduce clashes over grazing routes and farmland.

At the federal level, USCIRF linked renewed Federal Government’s action to the October 2025 decision by the US President Donald Trump to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over religious freedom violations.

Following the designation, President Bola Tinubu classified kidnappers and violent armed groups, including Fulani militants, as “terrorists” in December 2025, the commission stated.

The report said the security agencies rescued 309 hostages in January 2026 during operations in Kogi and Kwara states, arresting 129 suspected Fulani militants and killing 55 others.

USCIRF also highlighted growing scrutiny of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria.

The organisation has faced allegations from Christian leaders that it failed to stop militant violence and land invasions. However, MACBAN denied supporting criminal activity.

“We do not support, condone, harbour, finance, or protect any form of criminality, extremism or violence,” the association said, according to the report.

USCIRF said the US Congress introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026 in February, proposing sanctions against MACBAN over allegations of involvement in severe religious freedom violations.

Despite recent security measures and peace initiatives, the commission warned that violence remained widespread.

“As a result, central Nigeria remains entrenched in an intense, daily, and seemingly perpetual crisis of insecurity,” the report concluded.

The commission added that the crisis was likely to continue “until the federal and several state governments create broader underlying conditions that are more conducive to the safe practice of religious freedom.”

helinues:
30,000 people holding over 200m people on random

That's why I always feel disgusted reading about herdsmen operating in any part of the Southern regions, what's their population? Like an outsiders can come to your land to displace you?

DoTheNeedful:
30,000 poorly educated people with guns are dangerous. There are some countries in the world who don't have up to 30,000 soldiers in their armies.

helinues:
What is the purpose of una education if some uneducated people can be sacking you in your own land

DoTheNeedful:
Na person wey hold gun be the oga. A tout with an AK-45 facing an MIT professor is the boss.

BlocksNG:
Tinubu is very weak, a weakling.

Quest7777:
Have you ever wondered why Buhari said "An Attack on Boko Haram is an Attack on the North"

Or why the North never protested against Boko Haram +Banditry, but will quickly rise in protest against US attack on terrorists.

Or why "repentant" terrorists are recruited into the Nigerian Army.

Or why the NSA said Terrorists are our brothers & should be handled with kid gloves.
...

Let's keep deceiving ourselves that we are one, in this forced Geographical Contraption called Nigeria.

Imagine joining Israel🇮🇱 & Iran🇮🇷 together as a country and expecting them to unite as one and make progress.

Don't imagine again; that's Nigeria🇳🇬.

favour32:
Nigeria is one on paper.
But in reality,not one.

iichidodo:
There's no centralization of leadership of their terrorist activities because it has become a socio cultural aspect of the Fulani, from the ordinary herder with his clan in the bush to deep inside the confines of Government where the Fulani hold powerful influence.This generation of young Fulani in their thousands especially those in the bush are hard pressed by various factors to shun the ways of their cattle herder fathers and follow the route of their local heroes like bello turji, dogo gide etc... Every bush Fulani even those trooping into the country from other West African countries, wants to make money by hook or crook. You cannot kill the whole Fulani to stop the menace, it will be a crime against humanity, but you can tag,track and analyse their movements,hell even predict their actions, based on socio-economic, socio-cultural and climate change factors, as how it impacts the security of lives and properties of the locals in various regions of the country...

franchasng:
Imagine just 30,000 militants holding more than 200million Nigerians on ransom?

The only reason this is happening is because Bola Tinubu the incumbent President of Nigeria allowed it.


You are the President for Christ's sake, act like one!


Stop playing politics with everything.



If you know Nigerian security are compromised by some of the Fulanis or Hausa-Fulanis or staunch Muslims in the army or Police being sympathetic to these terrorists, then take them by surprise by going abroad to hire a competent, ruthless foreign mercenaries that will operate with sophisticated modern weapons and security technologies and then order Chief of Army staff and Chief of Defense staff to send all Nigerian soldiers back to their respective barracks! Any soldier found outside the barrack will be treated as a terrorist.



Empower states to form their local forest guards and let them use highest grade weapons.


Combine this with the foreign mercenaries combing all Nigerian forests with surveillance and attack drones, and watch insecurity reduced to less than 10% within few months.

WizardOfNG:
Here we go again. Nigeria's problem, many decades long, begins and end with Tinubu according to you bigots. Can you people ever rise above your indoctrinated prejudice against Yorubas and the SW?

Which Southern President has allowed USA operate in Nigeria as we are seeing today? Even OBJ, a military general, will be hesitant. Certainly not GEJ who simply does not have the capacity.

What you guys show here daily is the problem of Nigeria. I.e an inability of Nigerians to rise above petty ethno-religious chauvinism to see what matters and what is in the best progressive interest of Nigeria.

If you guys are truly progressive and mean well for Nigerian, assuming you see the big picture clearly, you will know Tinubu is a President all Nigerians should get behind so we have honest conversations with ourselves and put some measures in place to rehabilitate our nation.

Tinubu is perhaps the only Southern leader who can facilitate that. Never that fraud Obi you ethnocentric lot deify.

DoTheNeedful:
Na person wey hold gun be the oga. A tout with an AK-45 facing an MIT professor is the boss.