Nigeria’s Herdsmen and Farmers Are Locked in a Deadly, Underreported Conflict

A Fulani herdsmen waters his cattle on a plain between Malkohi and Yola in Nigeria, May 7, 2015. Clashes between herdsmen and settled communities are claiming hundreds of lives annually in Nigeria.

 

The jihadi group Boko Haram are usually characterized as the biggest threat to Nigeria’s state security and even as one of the world’s deadliest militant groups.
But in the first four months of 2016, Boko Haram have actually been responsible for less deaths—208 to be precise—than other sectarian groups in Nigeria combined, which have accounted for 438 deaths so far, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker. A huge chunk of these are down to an ongoing conflict between predominantly Fulani herdsmen and settled farming communities, which is costing the Nigerian economy billions of dollars per year as well as hundreds—if not thousands—of lives.