Weapons used in Nigeria's Herder/Farmer Conflict linked to organised criminal networks- Report

"According to the December 2018 report from the rights group, Amnesty International, over 3,600 people have died in clashes between herders and farmers over the past three years in Nigeria. In the meantime the death toll is higher than the number of people who died from terror attacks by Boko-Haram..., The Nigerian authorities failure to investigate communal clashes and bring perpetrators to justice has fuelled a bloody escalation in the conflict between farmers and herders across the country"-DW

 A new report by Conflict Arm Research, UK , says Communities and armed groups engaged in Nigeria's herder-farmer conflicts use weapons derived from national, regional and transcontinental sources. The report identifies weapons diverted from state stockpiles across the sahel, and trafficked into Nigeria through long-range criminal networks. Furthermore, the report says; the herder-farmer conflict also involves weapons that match newly manufactured firearms from Turkey, which International criminal networks have smuggled in bulk to West Africa, making it possible for combatants to access ''relatively new weapons which arrive Nigeria thanks to the efforts of sophisticated transcontinental weapon traffickers". This is the first field based study of small arms and ammunition used by armed groups and communities in Northern Nigeria's herder-farmer conflicts. Click on this link to read the full report :  https://www.conflictarm.com/dispatches/nigerias-herder-farmer-conflict/  The herder-farmer clashes has contibuted to worsening security challenges in the country with the indigeneous population attributing it to ethnic cleansing and land-grabbing and accusing the federal government of inaction. There has been widespread call for the government to sack the current security chiefs due to lack of solutions to the persistence killings and kidnapping which has no correlation to herder-farmer confrontations.  According to Yakasai, an elder statesman and a founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum; "the current Service Chiefs have run out of ideas on how to resolve the current issues of insecurity in the country". He said, the president needs to change tactics and seek fresh hands that would help in bringing an end to issues of insecurity in the country. In his words; "The president's idea about insecurity has proved inadequate to deal with the threat to our lives and property and he should urgently change tactics and personnel in order to win the war against rising threats to the lives of Nigerians" Meanwhile the Senate and House of Representatives have passed a vote of no-confidence on the security agencies and the security architecture in the country which the president seems reluctant to restructure. Indigenous populations have expressed their desire to actively engage in the defence of their homelands and this is supported by a renowned human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, who has urged state governments which are not secured under the present political dispensation to set up state security agencies because the National Assembly has made laws for the establishment of other arms bearing institutions in the country. The federal government and the ruling party claims they are tackling insecurity despite the country ranking third on the 2019 Global Terrorism Index.  There is widespread belief that a recent high court ruling in favour of the Benue state government declaring RUGA settlement unlawful and unconstitutional could intensify renewed herders-farmers clashes across the states since the herders are uncompromising in accepting the ban on open grazing nationwide. The court order by Justice Olajuwon restraints the Attorney General of the federation and other agents of the federal government from making any attempt to allocate local and state lands to anyone for RUGA settlement in Benue state without the approval of the state Governor under Land Use Act of 1978. Benue state is one of hardest hit by the Fulani herdsmen opposed to the state's anti-grazing laws.

Uche Okeke