Ethnic and religious violence grips Nigeria’s Kaduna state

KADUNA: Long-standing tensions between herdsmen and farmers have flared up again in Kaduna state, northern Nigeria, leaving possibly hundreds dead in tit-for-tat violence. Earlier this month at least 21 people were killed and several homes were destroyed when suspected cattle drivers attacked five farming communities.

Three districts in the predominantly Christian south of the state-Kaura, Jema’a and Zangon Kataf-have been riven by conflict for the last three decades. But the clashes between the Muslim, largely Hausaspeaking Fulani cattle drivers and the mainly Christian farmers have escalated since December, when a Fulani chief was killed. The Roman Catholic Church last month claimed more than 800 local Christians have died in that time and 27,000 people have been forced to flee, while 16 churches and 1,500 homes were destroyed. Police and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) disputed the figures but still put the death toll at about 200.

Foreign herdsmen?

Land and grazing rights have long been seen as the root of the fighting, although politics, religion and ethnicity are also driving factors. The Kaduna state governor, Nasir el-Rufai, blamed the latest attacks on herdsmen from as far away as Chad in the east and Mali to the west. Traditional cattle routes bring nomadic Fulani from about 14 African countries into southern Kaduna as they seek out pastures for their herds. Ibrahim Abdullahi, from the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), said foreign-based Fulani lost cattle in post-election violence that hit Kaduna in 2011. El-Rufai said he had to compensate them for their livestock to prevent further revenge attacks. But Sunday Ibrahim, secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in northern Nigeria, disagreed with the payments and said they had been ineffective. “Paying herdsmen who crossed into Nigeria and killed such a large number of people only emboldens them to carry out more killings for which they get paid,” he told AFP.

Fulani of the Jema’a emirate began ruling the pagan tribes of what is now southern Kaduna state in the early 1800s, as part of the Sokoto caliphate in northern Nigeria. Solomon Musa, from the Southern Kaduna People’s Union, said the Fulani treated indigenous tribes as “second-class citizens” and still do, putting “a wedge to peaceful coexistence”. Benedicta Kato, publisher of Minority Report Nigeria that documents the violence, said nothing changed even with the later conversion of tribes to Christianity and British colonial rule. “The general feeling of oppression of our ancestors is there,” she said. The Kaduna state government has tried to ensure equal rights but tensions remain. Last month, suspected Christian militia ambushed the Jema’a emir’s convoy. He escaped unhurt.