Bishop accuses Nigeria of supporting violent extremists

A Catholic bishop in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna state has accused the government of supplying weapons to Fulani herdsmen, whose attacks have spread across the country’s north and middle belt regions.

The accusation follows several calls for the government to take action against the persisting violence.

Bishop Joseph Bagobiri from Kaduna’s town of Kafanchan likened the herdsmen’s attacks to those of Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Bagobiri told Aid to the Church in Need, a U.S.-based Catholic charity, some Fulanis who work in customs and internal affairs ministries supply weapons to the herdsmen.

“We can see that there is a well-hatched and heavily funded program of systematic elimination,” he said. “Government at both state and federal level is headed by Fulanis who seem to be more sympathetic to the aggressors and killers than to the vulnerable victims.”

The bishop’s comment followed an April 15 attack on a village at Kaduna’s outskirts, where the herdsmen disrupted a congregation that gathered for an Easter vigil service. The militants killed 12 people. Bagobiri said security officials have not made any arrests.

Fulani herdsmen have increasingly become a violent group across Nigeria. Changing environmental conditions have forced herders to move toward southern and western Nigeria in search of grazing pastures. In 2013, Fulani militants killed 63 people across the country. By 2014, the number of deaths rose to 1,229 and has been on the increase since then. Several ethnic groups and political leaders in some of the affected regions have continued to decry the government’s inaction.

Tiv Diaspora Forum, a Benue state ethnic group association whose members reside abroad, last month addressed a letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. The group condemned the attacks and lack of prosecution from security officials and called the government’s silence a refusal to admit the ongoing damage caused by the herdsmen. Food prices already have shot up in some affected areas where farmers abandoned their lands in fear of attacks.

“If the Buhari government does not effectively tackle the herdsmen problem, Nigeria could well be sitting on a time bomb with potential for a catastrophic regional humanitarian crisis,” the group said in a statement.

Delta state Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa also referred to the attacks as a national crisis and called on the federal government to break its silence by introducing policies to keep the herdsmen accountable.

Pastor James Wuye, the co-executive director of Interfaith Mediation Center in Kaduna, confirmed the Fulani militants pose a security problem. Wuye said the militants also attack indigenous farmers and other small neighboring communities.

The center already is hosting some reconciliation efforts between the herding community and the famers, but there is also need for the government’s security intervention, he said.

“It comes down to the fact that issues between herders and pastoralists have not been handled properly,” Wuye said.