FOR indigenes and residents of Yelwata, a rural community in Guma Local Government area of Benue State, June 13, 2025, would forever remain etched in their memory. On that day, the community, a border town between Nasarawa and Benue States experienced torrential rain, which forced many of the locals indoors as early as 8pm. The rain, seen as a sign of blessing by many of the residents, who are predominantly farmers who planned to head out to their farms the following morning.
However, shortly after 10pm, the residents were roused from sleep as armed militia men invaded the community and began shooting sporadically. Militia men, alleged to be of Fulani stock, had struck. Their mode of operation was to catch the residents unawares, which they succeeded in doing by dousing the houses, mostly built from mud and zinc with petrol, before setting them ablaze.
Those who succeeded in making it outside were shot dead while several others were burnt alive. By the time the smoke cleared, over 200 residents have been dispatched to the great beyond. The following morning, charred remains of old men, women, and children were all that were left behind by the militia men.
Yelwata is less than 40 minutes’ drive from Makurdi, the state capital, but the militia men operated for more than three hours before retreating. Locals, recounting their woes, said that more than 100-armed militia were involved in the attack. A family of 10 was completely wiped out. Some lost both parents and children, while several others lost their means of livelihood.
There were rumours that the militia men were going to attack the community even before they struck, but the local vigilantes could do little or nothing to rein in the armed militia men. When the scale of the horror perpetrated in Yelwata became manifest, the entire nation was in grief, and President Bola Tinubu was forced to clear his schedule last week Wednesday for a visit to the community.
He saw first-hand, the horror perpetrated by the invading marauders. The traditional ruler of the Tiv, the Tor Tiv V, James Ayatse, told the visiting President Tinubu that the killings in Benue State in general and Yelwata in particular should not be described as a clash between herders and farmers, but a planned attack aimed at taking over their land.
“Your Excellency, what took place here is not herders-farmers clashes, it’s not communal clashes, it’s not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. This is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits that has lasted for decades. Wrong diagnosis will always lead to wrong treatment… We are dealing with something far more sinister than we think. It’s not about learning to live with your neighbours; we are dealing with a war.”
Indeed, the war over land and water have been on in Nigeria for a very long time, with those in power playing politics with it. We are still dancing around the issues. Crisis between farmers and herders have been on for a very long time, and has now degenerated to full-scale skirmishes. In Nigeria and several West African Countries, cattle herders prefer to move their cattle from one place to the other, regardless of borders, looking for grass for their cattle. In the process, they come in contact with farmlands, which in most cases, become food for their cattle.
Several calls for cattle herders to embrace modern systems of animal husbandry such as ranching have always been ignored. During the President Goodluck Jonathan regime, he even promised the importation of grass from Brazil to feed the cattle. The initiative was part of a broader effort to improve cattle quality, increase milk production, and reduce clashes between herders and farmers by providing a reliable source of feed within designated ranching areas. The imported grass will be cultivated in Nigeria, with the aim of establishing sustainable, commercial-scale grass production.
But when former President Muhammadu Buhari, a fellow herder came into power in 2015, he treated the issue with so much levity.
With drought and desertification ravaging the north, it is natural for pastoralists to move down south in search of greener environment and water. Again, a growing population and the effects of climate change have exacerbated the herders’ plight, as more than 35 per cent of Nigeria’s land is threatened by desertification.
While the Nigerian constitution places responsibility on the government to ensure the security of its people and properties, past and present administrations have not managed to put an end to the clashes between herdsmen and farmers. In some parts of the country – particularly the middle belt region, including Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Kogi states – they have escalated.
As expected, ethnic and religious dimensions of the conflict appear to be overshadowing the underlying basis, which is competition over natural resources. In the absence of a well-coordinated national response, it is mainly individual states that have taken the initiative. On October 20, 2014, a committee led by a retired Major-General Lawrence Onoja in Benue State – an area that enjoys year-round grazing due to its favourable climate – recommended changing the law to ban uncontrolled movement of livestock.
The committee also called for a disarmament programme to prevent unauthorised use of firearms. In the Middle Belt, Plateau and Benue states were the worst hit by these invaders, prompting former Governor Samuel Ortom to sign into law, the Open Grazing Prohibition Bill 2017, which prescribed a five-year jail term for a herder or pastoralist caught engaging in open grazing of animals in Benue State.
Ortom incurred the wrath of the Buhari’s administration for that legislation. In a clear demonstration of the Buhari government’s support for the herders, the then Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, declared the ban on open grazing by Ortom and other southern Governors as illegal, stressing that it infringed on the freedom of movement of Nigerians enshrined in the constitution.
With the actions of the administration favouring the herders, Commissioners of Police and Divisional Police Officers (DPO) were scared of arresting the herders for fear of victimisation by the authorities. The police also refused to enforce the law enacted by Ortom, which prompted him to create Livestock Guards to ensure compliance with the law.
Many southern Governors copied Ortom’s model and enacted the Anti-Open Grazing Laws. Now, many of the pastoralists have identified the law as the harbinger of the current crisis in Benue state and other Southern states, with many of them positing that they have a right to live and work in Benue State or any other state in the country of their birth.
Following their forceful eviction from the state alongside their cattle, the pastoralists and their militia men are now out to give the locals a hell of a time.
It is not only in Yelwata that the stiff competition for land has led to loss of lives. Few years ago, in Alingani, Nasarawa State, the village was destroyed by farmers with the support of the local Ombatse militia who belong to Nigeria’s Eggon ethnic group. In one account of the battle in Alingani, a Fulani herdsman, Najid, 27, said fighting broke out when an Eggon farmer accused one of the herdsmen of grazing animals on his land.
“Everything belongs to Allah. Every piece of land belongs to Allah and not you,” the Fulani herdsman reportedly told the farmer. That is the belief of most Fulani herdsmen. And that is the crux of the incessant clashes between farmers and herders. The farmers and other indigenous communities have a different idea entirely from the herders, and expectedly, there will almost always be a clash due to their different beliefs.
According to police, 60 people were killed in the Alingani crisis, and more than 80 houses and properties destroyed. Eleven children, under the age of ten, drowned in the nearby Guyaka River while trying to flee the violence, and the number of casualties keep rising on a daily basis.
Few months back, 33 persons were killed by suspected herdsmen in attacks on Gwer West and Apa local government areas of Benue State, leaving many residents missing.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, in 2023, said that over 60,000 Nigerians have been killed as a result of the incessant clashes between herders and farmers. He also lamented that, farmers and herders’ clashes, which were hitherto seen as a regional or a confined conflict, have taken a new dimension, as it has expanded into a wider conflict beyond the borders of many West African countries.
On his part, the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, represented by Professor Abdullahi Mohammed Ya’u, lamented that the farmers/herder’s conflict has taken more lives than most of the crises seen in the country, adding that the problem is still ongoing and affecting the nation’s collective socio-economic interests. He added that the NSA office has expanded its focus to tackle the security issues involved through dialogue and community engagements in collaboration with all relevant authorities.
Despite these, there has been little or no reprieve. In the past, the Federal Government adopted a policy of establishing a network of grazing reserves and routes for pastoralists, putting the number in the country at 415 grazing reserves, but only a third of them are being used, while others have been built on, or are used for farming. In April, 2014, the then Agriculture Minister, Akinwumi Adesina, said that only 141 of the reserves had been officially logged, and less than 20 of those were suitable for use by pastoralists.
In 2009, the government embarked on a project costed at $247million to mark out grazing reserves across Katsina and Bauchi states in Northern Nigeria, as well as Abuja. Establishing these three reserves, which are meant to serve the needs of around 15 million pastoralists, involves demarcating 175,000 hectares of grazing land, building veterinary units, and constructing settlements for nomads to use on their way through.
The government also began demarcating a 1,400 km livestock route from Sokoto State in the northwest to Oyo State in the southwest; and another 2,000 km route from Adamawa State in the northeast to Calabar in the Delta region.
Besides grazing routes, the government also earmarked N10b for the Great Green Wall Programme (GGWP), designed to help combat desertification, which is a major factor driving pastoralists from the far north to head south in search of better grazing grounds.
Despite the government’s efforts, its plans have not met with favour from either the Fulani herdsmen or the farmers. Herdsmen view any encroachment on their grazing lands and migration routes by farmers as a provocation. Farmers feel that government should ban open grazing and establish modern ranching for pastoralists. Many state Governors in the South are also not comfortable allocating land for ranching, or for the establishment of cattle colonies.
Until the federal government exercises the political will to tackle these issues headlong, we will continue to dance on eggshells. Those in government knows exactly what to do to resolve the farmers/herders’ clash. And until those things are done, another Yelwata pogrom is waiting to happen.
See you next week.
- Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column, Monday Discourse, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays..