Nigeria: Restructuring And The Herdsmen Question

By Adetokunbo Pearse

Reform in the fiscal and the security sectors can aid the effort to alleviate the growing tension between nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers which has captured national consciousness lately. Unfortunately these clashes are fast becoming a way of life in Nigeria. 

In 2017 alone deadly confrontation between roving herdsman and local communities were reported in every geopolitical zone except the north-west. Sometimes it is the herdsmen who get the worst of it as in the celebrated case in 2000 when then General Muhammadu Buhari led a delegation to governor Lam Adesina to protest the killing of dozens of Fulani herdsmen in Oyo State. At other times it is the local communities who suffer as in the most recent incident of January 1, 2018 with the massacre of some 70 citizens of Guma and Logo local government areas of Benue State by herdsmen or their agents.

Nigeria: Now An Abattoir Under President Buhari

By Reno Omokri

In July 2012, clashes between natives and herdsmen reached a head in Plateau state leading to tens of deaths on both sides. Then President Goodluck Jonathan, when briefed about the situation insisted that there wouldn’t be such impunity under his leadership and immediately ordered the army to go to the affected communities and fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book.

The military immediately obeyed the then President’s orders and sent troops to Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. They ordered all residents to leave their residence for temporary accommodation provided for them so they could conduct a joint air and ground operation to flush out the armed herdsmen who had been suspected of killing innocent Nigerians.