(published by The Southerner on Thursday, May 8, 2025)
By Akanimo Sampson
In the vastly polluted Niger Delta, Nigeria’s main oil and gas region, the conflict between farmers and the rampaging herders is posing a severe security challenge, and is claiming more lives across the country than the Boko Haram insurgency.
The conflict is seriously threatening Nigeria’s security, undermining national stability and unity, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and increasing ethnic, regional, and religious polarisation.
In Akwa Ibom State for instance, the state’s Human Rights Community, a network of civil society organisations, has demanded the identify of all cow owners, and compelled them to ranch their cows and livestock;
paramount rulers and traditional fathers being held responsible for any security infraction in their areas of authority; and non-indigenes occupying forests and farmlands in the state, have been told to vacate them immediately.
Convener of the group, Clifford Thomas, a lawyer, and its
Director of Publicity, Dr. Victor David, have said that the authorities should clear and remove all Chadians, Sudanese, Fulani and foreign nationals who attack persons in the name of begging in the state, pointing out, “they are mostly seen at the city centers like Plaza in Ikot Ekpene, Uyo and elsewhere in the dtate.”
In the rural farming communities of the Niger Delta, the raging conflict between the invading herders and the indigenous farmers has become very troubling, and a major threat to food security. Currently, the conflict has evolved from spontaneous clashes to well-planned attacks, involving targeted killings, destruction of properties, and criminality, including kidnap for ransom.
The Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), a civic group, has argued that if the growing menace is not mitigated, the conflict could intensify and take on dangerous ethnic, religious, and criminal dimensions.
“This could adversely impact the dynamics of insecurity in the region, with significant socio-economic, political and security consequences.
“The recent trends in the conflict could intensify ethno-religious and communal hostilities and violence in the region.The organised criminal aspects of the conflict could trigger a cycle of violence whereby any attack against farmers or herders would result in punitive reprisals. It could also cause the spread of illicit arms and the proliferation of local militias and vigilantes which could result in communal and criminal violence as well as human rights violations”, says PIND.
Arguably, the impact of the lingering conflict could be economically devastating since recurrent clashes have caused internal displacement, depleting agricultural labour force, and disrupting farming and livestock production. While this has reduced agricultural output and undermined the agro-allied sector, it could certainly cause food insecurity and expand rural poverty.
“Recurrent clashes between herders, farmers, and fishers could present additional security challenges for government in the region. It could cause the proliferation of local vigilantes and ethnic militias as self-help mechanisms. This could cause human rights violations, civil disorder, and mob violence including extra-judicial killings”, PIND added.
However, the main driver of the conflict is economic in nature, with land-related issues at the core, particularly issues of accessibility and use of land and water resources.
Since the Sahelian drought of the 1970s and 1980s, increased migration of herders into the humid forest zone of West Africa has caused a massive increase in the frequency of farmer-herder conflicts.
Disturbingly, land and water resources are under increasing stress due to climate change, leading to fierce competition and violent conflict over their use.
While climate change was not a precursor to the migration of herders to the oil region, it has increased migration to the forest zone, from areas with increased frequency of drought and lower availability of natural resources into new havens with better resources for livestock.
The continuing migration is causing clashes with farmers who complain that the herders do not stick to the uncultivated areas, destroying their crops and livelihoods. To tame this monster, the obviously compromised security forces, should be seen to be vigorously enforcing the anti-open grazing law, and produce far more reaching results than that of Ondo State.
Ondo is, however, a member state of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Interestingly, a magistrates’ court in Akure, the state capital, sentenced Dan Bello, a herder, to 10 years imprisonment for violating the state’s anti-open grazing law and causing N50 million worth of damage to farmland.
The convict was found guilty on all five counts filed against him, including conspiracy, unlawful grazing, malicious damage, breach of peace, and illegal entry.
The incident, according to the prosecution, occurred on October 27, 2023, when Bello grazed his cattle on a farm owned by the National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN), located along the Ago Panu–Ute Road in Owo Local Government Area. His cattle destroyed young palm trees and watermelon crops planted across two hectares of land.
The prosecuting counsel, P. O. Nwafor, told the court that Bello did not obtain a permit for grazing and encroached on land not designated for livestock under the state Livestock Rearing and Grazing Regulation Law, 2021.
The prosecution further alleged that the situation escalated when one of the herders, who fled during the initial incident, returned the following day with six others and set fire to the farm, destroying a motorcycle in the process.
While a farm guard, who testified during the trial, said he apprehended Bello as the second herder escaped, Damilola Sekoni, the presiding magistrate, held that the prosecution presented credible and convincing evidence against the accused. The herder was accordingly sentenced to four years in prison on the first count without an option of fine, two years on the second count with an option of N50,000 fine, and one year each on the third and fourth counts.
Though on the fifth count, he was handed two years imprisonment without an option of fine, the sentences are to run concurrently. The court however, ruled that Bello could be discharged if he pays N20million in compensation to the complainant.
The criminal aspects of the conflict was first reported by PIND in Ondo in April 2023. The report pointed out that the conflict caused over 100 fatalities between January 2020 and December 2022 in the NDDC state. There has been a rise in communal tensions as the conflict has become increasingly intertwined with organised criminal violence, including kidnapping for ransom and armed banditry.
For instance, In February 2023, six residents, including farmers and traders were allegedly killed and over 30 hectares of farmland destroyed during clashes between herders and farmers in Arimogija, Molege, and Ute communities in Ose LGA. In March, bandits allegedly abducted a 19-year old girl from her residence in Imoru community, Ose LGA and duly molested her.
And, on March 24, 2023, three residents were kidnapped by suspected armed herdsmen in Ayede-Ogbese community in Akure North LGA. The incident triggered series of protests by residents in Uso and Ayede-Ogbese communities in Owo and Akure North LGAs respectively.
It is, however, quite sad that the Tinubu administration has not yet fashion out the right method for curbing the herders-farmers crisis across Nigeria. So far, solution is not yet in sight due to lack of an accord, between Abuja and the governments of the affected Middle-Belt, South-West, South-East, and the South-South states on the appropriate way to end the scourge.
It is even being said in some quarters that the continuous lack of a deal on the menace, is attributable to the sentimentalisation of this sensitive national issue, giving the wide ethnic and religious differences between two warring groups. The herders are mainly Muslims and Fulani, and the crop farmers who are predominantly Christians from the Middle-Belt and Ndigbo of Eastern Nigeria.
Pending when Abuja will come up with a holistic solution that is whole-heartedly accepted by all the blocs entangled in the conflict, for now, the Tinubu administration should insist on
ranches to enable it assess its potentials instead of brushing the option aside without subjecting it to any form of experimentation.
