UK House of Lords Peer: There is a critical need for urgent and
effective intervention in Nigeria.
Just this past weekend, at least 200 people
are reported to have died in coordinated attacks on around 50 communities in
Nigeria’s Plateau state. The majority of victims were women and children. While
there is now a dawn to dusk curfew, the area remains tense.
This
most recent episode is particularly shocking, but such attacks have become all
too common. Indeed, it is the latest in an extended pattern of violence
occurring on a daily basis in Nigeria – particularly across the Middle Belt.
Armed
with sophisticated weaponry, including AK-47s, and on at least one occasion,
rocket launchers, the Fulani herder militia is believed to have murdered more
men, women and children in 2015, 2016 and 2017 than even Boko Haram,
destroying, overrunning and seizing property and land, and displacing tens of
thousands of people.
Whilst
there has been a long history of disputes between nomadic Fulani herders and
predominately Christian farming communities across the Sahel, recent reports
show that attacks by the Fulani herder militia are now occurring with such
frequency, intensity, organisation and asymmetry, that references to
‘farmer-herder clashes’ no longer suffice.
Some
local observers have gone so far as to describe the rising attacks as a
campaign of ethno-religious cleansing.
The
situation has been exacerbated by an inadequate government response, which in
turn has fostered impunity. Beyond intermittent verbal condemnations,
definitive action has not been taken to end it. There even exist abiding
concerns regarding possible complicity of elements in Nigeria’s armed forces in
militia attacks.
In
light of this inadequate official response, communities feel they can no longer
rely on government for protection or justice, leading to a growth in vigilante
groups that periodically embark on retaliatory violence; such attacks have been
duly documented.
The
human rights advocacy organization, CSW, reports that there have been seven
instances of violence targeting Fulani herders or communities in central
Nigeria within the four-month timeframe, in which 61 people lost their lives.
By contrast, Fulani herder militia perpetrated at least 106 attacks on
communities in central Nigeria in the first quarter of 2018, claiming 1061
lives.
Although it may not be definitive,
its list of documented attacks attempts to provide as comprehensive a record as
possible, in order to underline the critical need for urgent and effective
intervention.
This
must begin with the characterisation of the problem. The international
community must recognise the considerable escalation in the regularity,
intensity and sophisticated nature of violence perpetrated by armed groups in
central Nigeria, alongside the stark asymmetry.
Moreover,
we must urge the Nigerian Government to guarantee the protection of all
Nigerians, regardless of creed or ethnicity, encouraging it to take stronger
and more effective measures to address violence by the Fulani Militia,
alongside the continued threat posed by Boko Haram. As a matter of urgency, the
Nigerian Government should formulate a comprehensive security strategy that
adequately resources the security forces to address this and other sources of
violence.
Finally,
Federal and state governments must prioritise the unbiased enforcement of the
rule of law.
Allegations
of complicity in violence must be investigated urgently, perpetrators must be
prosecuted, and victims of current and past episodes of terrorist and militia
violence must be adequately compensated.
The
number of attacks and casualties is staggering, and day in day out, communities
Nigeria are paying the highest of price for the absence of an effective
official response.
The
purpose of Thursday’s short House of Lords debate is to encourage the Foreign
Office to recognise the ever-increasing scale and severity of the violence we
are seeing in Nigeria; to characterise it correctly in order to address it
accordingly; and, as a matter of urgency, do all we can to stop it.
Lord Alton of Liverpool is an
Independent Crossbench Peer
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