Resource Wars in Nigerian Farmlands

Photo Source: Wall Street Journal

By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Up Front

In the fertile Middle Belt of Nigeria, Benue State has long been celebrated as the nation’s food basket, yet it has also become the epicentre of one of Africa’s most troubling internal conflicts. Within the village of Aya Mbalom, Christian farmers and Muslim Fulani herdsmen once lived in relative harmony, their livelihoods tied to the land and its rhythms. That fragile coexistence has unravelled in recent years, replaced by violence, displacement, and destruction. The April 2018 attack on St Ignatius Catholic Church, where gunmen killed two priests and at least seventeen worshippers, marked a grim turning point. Reuters and Premium Times reported the incident as part of a wider wave of assaults across Benue, underscoring the vulnerability of rural communities. Joe Parkinson of the Wall Street Journal later described Nigeria’s farmer–herder clashes as cumulatively more lethal than Boko Haram’s insurgency, a reminder that dispersed communal violence can produce staggering death tolls over time.

Since then, Benue has witnessed repeated atrocities. Amnesty International documented in July 2025 that more than half a million people had been displaced across the state, with camps in Guma and Makurdi hosting tens of thousands in dire conditions. Human Rights Watch noted that in June 2025, over a hundred people were killed in Yelewata, an attack that epitomised the state’s failure to protect civilians. Al Jazeera reported at least fifty-six deaths in twin assaults in April 2025, stressing that official figures often underestimate the true toll. These accounts converge on the same conclusion: the crisis is systemic, eroding the social fabric of Benue and leaving families trapped in cycles of flight, rebuilding, and renewed attacks.

The roots of the conflict lie in overlapping pressures. Benue’s fertile soils have long attracted farmers, while Fulani herders traditionally moved cattle southward during dry seasons. International Crisis Group has repeatedly warned that desertification in northern Nigeria and the Sahel is forcing pastoralists into settled farming zones, intensifying disputes. While claims that '75% of land' in states such as Sokoto and Katsina has become desert are contested, the trend of land degradation is undeniable. Longer dry seasons, erratic rainfall, and shrinking grazing corridors push herders into areas where farmers are expanding cultivation to feed growing populations. Nigeria’s population, projected by the United Nations to surpass that of the United States by 2050, places immense strain on land and water. In Benue, average farm sizes shrink as families grow, intensifying competition. Journalists from the Investigative Journalism Centre in 2025 documented families in Ukum and Guma repeatedly displaced, rebuilding homes only to face renewed attacks.

Policy choices have sharpened tensions. In 2017, Benue enacted an anti-open-grazing law, intended to protect farms and encourage ranching. Premium Times and Vanguard reported that while farmers welcomed the measure, pastoralists saw it as punitive, lacking viable alternatives. Enforcement often triggered confrontations, and without investment in ranching infrastructure or compensation schemes, the law became a flashpoint rather than a solution. The human toll is staggering. Amnesty International described 'squalid' conditions in IDP camps, with inadequate water, sanitation, and healthcare. UNICEF’s situation reports in 2025 highlighted severe needs among children and pregnant women in Guma. Journalists from Channels TV reported protests in Makurdi after attacks, with residents alleging that warnings had been ignored and security forces arrived too late. Agricultural output has collapsed. Cassava, maize, and soy production in Makurdi and surrounding areas has been repeatedly disrupted, threatening national food security. Schools, clinics, boreholes, and reservoirs have been destroyed or abandoned, compounding the humanitarian emergency. Camps formed in repurposed primary schools, with thousands sharing a handful of toilets, have become semi-permanent features, a stark indictment of prolonged insecurity.

Political responses have often been inadequate. President Muhammadu Buhari urged dialogue and attributed the conflict partly to poverty and unemployment, controversially downplaying the prevalence of firearms among herders. Nigerian newspapers criticised these remarks, noting that survivors consistently reported attackers armed with rifles. The White House, under successive administrations, expressed concern over communal killings, with State Department statements urging accountability. Nigerian editorialists interpreted this as a clash of perspectives between Abuja and Washington, though it reflected standard human rights diplomacy. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka visited Makurdi in 2018 and warned that the killings resembled 'ethnic cleansing,' invoking parallels with Yugoslavia in the 1990s. His remarks, carried by Pulse Nigeria, underscored the gravity of the crisis but also risked oversimplifying its complex drivers. Analysts such as Crisis Group stress that Fulani civilians are themselves victims of violence and cattle rustling, and that armed actors claiming to represent communities rarely speak for them. Grey Dynamics in 2023 similarly cautioned against treating 'Fulani herdsmen' as a monolith, noting that identity militias often invoke communal labels without legitimacy.

Rumours abound. Claims that Boko Haram militants have been hired to attack Christian villages circulate widely, but investigative outlets and rights groups have not substantiated systemic coordination. Journalists like Joe Parkinson emphasise the need to distinguish between insurgency in the northeast and communal conflict in the Middle Belt, while acknowledging overlaps in weapon flows and criminality. On the herder side, leaders of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association have blamed cattle rustling for reprisals, with statements carried by Nigerian media. Usman Ngelzerma, head of a Fulani advocacy group, has accused regional media of bias and documented slain Fulani civilians. These grievances are real, but they cannot justify attacks on non-combatants.

The crisis in Benue is part of a wider Sahelian pattern. Pastoral mobility has long been an adaptive strategy, with herders moving cattle across thousands of miles from Senegal eastwards. As climate stress sharpens, pastoralists extend movements southward, colliding with farmers expanding cultivation. Reuters and Al Jazeera have chronicled similar clashes in Plateau, Kaduna, and Nasarawa, and International Crisis Group warns that without investment in grazing corridors and dispute resolution, 'resource wars' could spread across West Africa.

Three commitments are essential for responsible analysis and policy. Evidence discipline requires reliance on multiple independent sources for casualty estimates and perpetrator attribution. Where figures diverge, analysts must explain why—access limits, duplication, or politicisation—rather than sensationalise. Structural diagnosis demands focus on land governance, climate adaptation, and security provisioning. Anti-open-grazing laws without ranching investment invite confrontation. Conversely, properly funded ranching pilots, mapped transhumance corridors, and drought-resilient fodder schemes reduce friction. Accountability and protection are non-negotiable. Attacks on civilians, churches, schools, and clinics are serious crimes. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International call for investigations and prosecutions. Nigerian authorities should prioritise mobile courts for rural crimes, integrate vigilante structures under lawful oversight, and deploy rapid response units to flashpoints. This is not a call to arm civilians—a step that risks civil war—but to restore public security through professional policing.

Practical steps include expanding early-warning systems linking village councils, religious leaders, and security agencies; funding boreholes and buffer zones with fair compensation; convening mediation forums between herders’ associations, farmers’ unions, and church councils; prosecuting perpetrators transparently; and scaling humanitarian support to IDPs. Aya Mbalom’s tragedy is not only about inter-communal grievance but about the state’s responsibility to secure lives and livelihoods amid climate stress and demographic pressure. Journalism—from Reuters’ casualty reports to ICIR’s field narratives—shows how survival wars engulf families when governance fails. Human rights documentation—from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch—provides the record. Analysis—from Crisis Group—frames the path out. The task now is to turn evidence into policy: demilitarise identities, secure rural spaces, and restore the pastoral–agrarian coexistence that once defined Benue’s heartland.