In the last few months, alleged attacks on innocent civilians by herdsmen across Nigeria have been on the rise. These attacks have preoccupied commentators from across the political and religious spectrum in Nigeria. Many of these pundits have ascribed the preponderance of these attacks to a particular ethnic group noted for their pastoral life: Fulanis.
The Fulanis are a majority Muslim ethnic group whose life are heavily dependent on animal pastures. As a result, some of these pundits have ossified around the discourse of an attempt by the Fulanis to reproduce the Usman Fodio Jihad of 1804, with the intent of spreading Islam across the country. The fact that current President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulani Muslim also adds to this speculation about the Fulanis planning to take over Nigeria. To buttress the point about a planned “Islamization” of Nigeria by these Fulani pastoralists, many of these pundits, especially those on social media often circulate pictures of herder’s wielding AK-47s while tending to their pasture. Many of these widely circulated pictures of alleged AK-47 wielding herders have been discredited as either photoshopped fakes or simply images found randomly on the Internet. More importantly, some Christian leaders such as Bishop Oyedepo of Winners Chapel recently claimed to have received a letter from herders where the herders wrote “God had given them the land.” Oyedepo’s claim of receiving a letter from herders who want to Islamize Nigeria has been proven to be false.
However, what is missing in this conversation is the question as to why and how a pastoralist community suddenly becomes a roving insurgency across the country. Several factors can be adduced for the incessant attacks on innocent farmers across the country.
Many of these factors are interrelated and intertwined. They include: the emergence of Boko Haram as a roving insurgency; the effects of climate change on herders; the spread of small arms across the Sahara Desert; and the growing ethnic and religious mistrust in Nigeria.
Before moving forward, it must be noted that many Nigerian communities always had lived in harmony with pastoralists. Many of us who grew up in rural Nigeria would remember the constant presence of Fulani herders in our community who were always welcomed with open arms. In the 1970s and 1980s many kids would welcome Fulani herders to town centers with the chant of “Baba Yaya,” signifying that the herders were the fathers of the cattle. Calling the herders Baba Yaya was not in anyway meant to discountenance the importance of fatherhood for the herders, but was in recognition of the love the herders had for their herds, as well as their kids who would also follow them around while herding cattle.
Why and how have the children of the Baba Yaya era, who are today’s pundits, suddenly become an advocate for the complete annihilation of Baba Yaya? What has changed? Unpacking these factors will help in deepening the conversation about these attacks particularly on farmers.
Recent reports indicate that the number of casualties associated with herdsmen violence is just behind that ascribed to Boko Haram in Nigeria. But there is a correlation between the dislodgement of Boko Haram from their most active sites in the Northeast and the rise in violence associated with the so-called herdsmen in many parts of Nigeria. While not disputing that there are attacks perpetrated by herdsmen, to put all attacks in one box will be tantamount to reductionism. It will be absolutely correct to assert that many of the attacks associated with herdsmen may actually be attacks carried out by remnants of Boko Haram dislodged from their most potent spaces. Thus, many of these dislodged Boko Haram militants have basically turned themselves into roving insurgents across the country. Additionally, the instability occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast has also meant that many pastoralists would have had to relocate their cattle to a safer pasture.
The presence of an unusually large number of herders has resulted in a form of economic, religious and political anxiety in the South. Herders moving through areas in search for new pastures has led to large scale destruction of farmlands. This is happening in areas not used to seeing a large number of herds. So, lives and properties are destroyed, and there is greater distrust amongst the population.
The crisis is compounded by the associated problem of small arms floating within the West African corridor, particularly the Maghreb route. The preponderance of small arms in the region has also meant an increase in rebellions, especially in states such as Nigeria with a weak security apparatus. A weak security architecture, combined with social injustice, creates rebellions that are in most cases lacking in ideological clarity. The lack of clarity makes these rebels susceptible to sponsorship from different interests, whose ultimate intent could be destabilization of the state as a result of their displacement from governmental patronage networks.
The question then becomes, how are these insurgents with no clarity of purpose able to recruit members into their dysfunctional group? The answer to this question is not far-fetched. First, the effect of climate change on the rise of social inequality in many parts of the country has meant the increased susceptibility of socially vulnerable groups to recruitment. The Lake Chad basin that had for many years provided employment for many young adults in the region is drying up. Many whose livelihood depended on their ability to fish, graze or farm have had to contend with two obstacles — drying rivers as a result of climate change and insurgency by Boko Haram in the name of religion. In the absence of gainful employment, those who could not flee the insurgents are either forced into it or incentivized to join.
In this hysteria, elites in the South are pushing their states to abandon the project of animal husbandry as a large scale agricultural policy. Many governors elected, by not only indigenes of their states but all residents of the state, including Fulanis, now are awoken at night from nightmarish visions of invasion by cattle with sutured head like demons. The cattle have become the metaphor for an alleged Islamization of Southern Nigeria by those considered to be “alien” even if these same aliens are entitled to rights as Nigerians.
Many in our human rights community have abandoned the struggle for the rights of all citizens. Yesterday’s human rights activists have become today’s champions of ethno-nationalism in alliance with those they had previously despised as collaborators with military autocrats. But in idiotic shortsightedness, driven by the Southern elites bigotry to see Islamization where there is none, they are blinded to see the potentials that abound in terms of employment opportunities and fiduciary gains for the people if animal husbandry is commercialized in their states
The elite make it look as if the North has a God-given right to monopolize the animal husbandry industry. This is myopia at its worst affliction. Relying on the vituperative tantrums of religious merchants, media profiteers and ethnic irredentists, who are hell bent on causing division and ethnic hatred in furtherance of their own self serving agenda, is not the way to go. We owe a duty to ourselves to free the Nigerian state from this melancholy.
MiddleDimension: when a pic of this helo is taking in the air, you see the rotors clearly and can know how many they are. but in the pics of the other maybe western helos taken, the blades are seen to turn very fast. you can't know how many they are, the rotors.
compare your pic with the one of the rhodesian army above.
is there any reason for this?
It depends on the camera used in taking the picture.
bidexiii: Our gallant troops kick BHT ass again. Goniri village, was attacked yesterday evening by Boko Haram, our gallant Soldiers repelled the attack and neutralized some of them. Captured 5x guntrucks , arms and ammunition. KUDOS TO OUR TROOPS.
This is the kind of news we want!!!!!!!
Why are those vehicles mangled up though? As if they were ran over by tank.
Gallant Troops of Sectors 2 and 3 of the Multinational Joint Task Force comprising Nigerians and Chadians with coordinated Air Interdiction, embarked on clearance operations at CROSS KAUWA-BAGA-DORON NAIRA villages on 21 June 2019. The operation was aimed at disrupting BHT supplies and line of communications.
During the operation, 42 BHTs were neutralized while several others were wounded. Unfortunately, one Chadian Soldier lost his life whilst 12 other Soldiers were WIA.
jpphilips: I dont expect you to be smart enough to understand that what is happening now have wider implications, with ISWAP having photo sessions with our trucks, APCs, mortar and SF rifles, it means that Nigeria and the whole of Sahel region is at a huge risk of foreign invasion. This is how it will play out;
Nigeria with its huge population will continue supplying fighters in droves for ISWAP, hitting military targets monthly will continuously supply them with arms & equipments, stolen APC's will make subsequent hits easier (already playing out), it's just a matter of time, their operations will grow beyond the NE, stretch into the NW to connect the Lower Sahel, to continue feeding and raising funds through Jizya tax, Kano will go but im certain they won't want to push southwards but northwards for obvious reasons.
I hear the ignorant arguement of ISWAP wishing to control territories, they learnt some lessons in the Arabian peninsula and will not make that mistake again, for west africa, its a mobile force with capability to take out government presence and take control of civil rule, extorting businesses and civilians, any attempt to dislodge them will be met with stiff resistance from nowhere after which they disperse and become civilians once again, several intels have confirmed this.
You may argue that you stand a chance of taking out their equipments with air strikes, make no mistakes, with the last attempt to capture an MLRS, all its rockets were taken, so far, ISWAP is utilizing those rockets in an improvised fashion, you still cant guess the end of this road? they are coming for our Roland it is just a matter of time, how effective will our airforce be afterwards?
The next phase will be consolidating their gains by taking control of businesses, factories, industries in controlled regions, that will get the attention of the security council who won't wish them to be more financially capable but first of all sanction Nigeria with an arms embargo for aiding ISWAP, Nigeria becomes glaringly inefficient and helpless that will be the only justification they need to invade Nigeria and closely expand their global reach. The Sahel region has a lot of uranium deposits, the security council will never allow any of it to fall into ISWAP's hands even if it means destroying Nigeria, with these interests at the back of our minds, gentlemen, they are coming.
Denying the realities of the next decade is not in anyone's interest except you dont stay in Nigeria, what must be done is report this situation to the security council and log it in as a growing global threat to be countered, Nigeria must swallow her pride and request for an arms recovery taskforce, a pocket size modern foreign special forces & equipments mixed with our guys that are good enough and monitored by the security council, their objective will be to recover or destroy anything these guys take, it could be a one nation action plan or a coalition of nations.
Our guys in foreign affairs are not making this move now because the military consistently lives in denial, we always argue if the CIC is onboard of this development. What is happening in Nigeria has serious global consequences. You can not do anything in Foreign Affairs if the guys on ground keeps pushing out pleasant narratives, the time to act is now.
Nigeria has almost contracted out her infrastructure to China to the extent that 50% of our recurrent expenditure go to them, our guys in Foreign affairs can bring this deal to china already looking for a launch pad to protect her vast interest in Africa, this could be the deal China is waiting for, by limiting it to a task force, CAATSA provisions will not be violated & Nigeria's interest in the SC protected.
This proposal will have serious political consequence no doubt but I bet it's nothing compared to the political consequence of a UN arms embargo and western invasion. we must choose the less of both evil.
God bless Nigeria!!!
I agree with some parts of your argument.
Right now the terrorists are winning the war in the NE. Over 90% of their attacks on NA bases have been successful. In fact, Nigerian Army has now, inadvertently, become their largest supplier of weapons and ammunition. Most of the trucks that were bought from Innoson have fallen into the hands of the terrorists. Beryl assault rifle, the standard issue of our SF have found their ways into the hands of the outlawed group. Some of our advance sniper rifle have been seen in the terrorists propaganda videos. The terrorists now believe that God is really behind them which is why their campaign has been largely successful. Many closet fanatic Northerners have now moved beyond salivating to the terror group propaganda videos to joining them. Indeed Nigeria is in a huge mess.
The situation is made more dire because many Nigerians don't know what is going on. The press has been successful gagged and any reporter who dare discuss the fact in the NE will be labelled an enemy of the state and a terrorist sympathizer. Worse still the Commander in Chief is clueless about the current state of affairs. He has been regurgitating the same old nonsense for the past four years, "Boko Haram has been technically defeated."
What about the human cost of this war? Within the space of a year NA has lost almost more soldiers than it did during Jonathan era. The situation at the battle front is worsening by the day. Our troops' lives have become worthless. Buratai is now so used to hearing news of dozens of dead soldiers that the death of ten soldiers in a single attack is not calamitous to him. Remember the death of four US soldiers in Niger that happened almost two years ago? New York Times is still writing article about it.That is a country that value human life.
More so, the intermittent airstrike from NAF has been rendered ineffective by the terrorists since they now fully understand the patterns of the airstrike.
If the average Nigerians realize the true extent of this war, they would wake up every day cursing the generation of Buratai and Buhari. Buratai for lying to senile Buhari and Buhari for not looking beyond his personal relationship with the Chief and seeing the reality.
Left to me, I would say we should pay Russia to help us nuke the entire Sambisa and Lake Chad. Let us start afresh.
There is a saying, "if things could go wrong, it will go wrong." It behoves on us to stop this calamity because it will get out of control if we don't.
Sizzorkay: Most of these remote areas had little to no Govt presence to begin with, so obviously BH elements live somewhere in that same area, i think everyone knows that, and the military can't be everywhere, you spread too thin and that's how you get overwhelmed when they attack, so i wouldn't say they control anything, if the military wanna go there and take it from them, they will. BH can't stop them. It's about focusing on areas that matters most.
NA is failing in that important role, that is the point!
Are you even reading what I wrote at all? It isn't really about territorial control to these people. They are just bleeding NA dry. Killing soldiers and looting their bases. Heck, Calibre Obscura posted a picture of the terrorists holding a standard issue of our Special Forces.
I don't even advocate having so many poorly defended bases scattered about the theatre of operation. We need proper bases that would make the terrorists regret their action every damn time they launch an attack.
Sizzorkay: And he got that info from BH daily briefings in the Sambisa Forest? Just asking for a friend Being able to carry out attacks in other parts is one thing, roaming those new parts like they do now is what i say possibly won't happen. They have to solidify their hold in the north-east first, and that's been taken away from them, as in way back when they control large territories compared to now.
NA is not forthcoming with the true extent of territory the terrorists control. Indeed there are places in Borno that are still partially controlled by the groups.
However, we should be realistic and move beyond what territory the terrorists control and what they don't because the terrorists are not fighting for territory. Their prime location around lake Chad is sustaining their operations.
They are fighting a war of attrition and unfortunately they are winning!
Sizzorkay: Personally i think BH or whatever they call themselves have plateaued long ago, someone saying BH will eventually overrun Abuja etc isn't gonna happen, they are contained where they are now and won't spread anywhere, i don't think that will happen, if it was going to, it would have, i think BH of today is weaker than before. Just my opinion, and in other words, the Military is doing a good job in containing them in that sector, but they could do much better obviously .
Donclerikuzo once said the terrorists are working on plans that would allow them strike any part of Nigeria with ease. I hope NIA is being proactive otherwise we will be in serious sheeeee.
krattoss: u know the man can track the account where the money is been wired right?
One chance thieves here in FCT use POS to steal money from their victim's account. They mostly are never caught. They are brazen and never seem to worry about being tracked.
Right now, the country is a mess and sadly it is only going to get worse.
NAF AIRCRAFT OBLITERATES TACTICAL COMMAND CENTRE, NEUTRALIZES SEVERAL TERRORISTS AT ALAFA IN BORNO STATE
The Air Task Force (ATF) of Operation LAFIYA DOLE has recorded another major breakthrough against remnants of Boko Haram Terrorists (BHTs) operating in the Sambisa Forest general area of Borno State. The operation, which led to the obliteration of a major tactical command centre as well as the neutralization of several terrorists, was executed today, 10 June 2019, after persistent Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions led to the identification of a compound within Alafa on the fringes of the Sambisa Forest that was being used by the terrorists as a command post. Accordingly, the ATF dispatched an Alpha Jet to attack the location.
Overhead the vicinity of interest, the target compound was spotted with heavy presence of terrorists. The Alpha Jet attacked the location in successive passes scoring accurate hits on the target leading to the obliteration of the tactical command centre and neutralization of several BHT fighters.
The NAF, operating in concert with surface forces, will sustain its operations to completely degrade the terrorists in the Northeast.
IBIKUNLE DARAMOLA Air Commodore Director of Public Relations and Information Nigerian Air Force
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