The government is failing to protect them
June 26, 2025 | Lagos
Those lucky enough to be light sleepers knew exactly what to do once they heard the gunshots: run. For the people squatting in the church, the school and the market stalls of Yelewata, a village in central Nigeria, the rainy night of June 13th was not the first time they had been attacked. After the gunshots came the raids; then, arson. Amnesty International reckons more than 100 people were gunned down, butchered and set ablaze that night.
Raids on villages are a common part of the long-running conflict over land between nomadic herders and settled farmers in Nigeria, especially across its border with the Sahel. Yet in recent years they have become more frequent and deadly.
Competition over resources has intensified and become enmeshed with banditry and, sometimes, jihadism. Successive governments have failed to quell the violence, which has displaced some 1.5m people in Benue, the state in which Yelewata is located and which is known as the breadbasket of Nigeria.
Land disputes between herders, who tend to be Muslims, and farmers, who are more likely to be Christians, go back decades. They have been worsening since the 2010s, as a combination of climate change and population growth has put more pressure on land. Climate-change-induced desertification across northern Nigeria and neighbouring countries in the Sahel, combined with a growing number of settled farmers in central Nigeria, has reduced the amount of land available for grazing. Longer rains have also made the lush lands of Nigeria’s middle belt more desirable.
The government has tried to tackle the problem by designating specific areas for cattle-herding. But this has gone down badly both with the pastoralists, who do not want to abandon their nomadic way of life, and with the farmers, who are wary of a permanent presence of herders they fear will continue to encroach on their land. Calls to ban cattle-grazing have stoked tensions rather than soothed them.
Meanwhile the most disturbing aspect of the conflict, its increasing lethality, has gone unaddressed. Jihadist terrorism and other militancy in northern Nigeria and the wider Sahel has accelerated the proliferation of weapons in the country. “Growing up, herders only came with staffs,” said James Ayatse, a leader in Benue, in a recent speech. “What we have now are criminal herders carrying assault rifles.”
Armed groups from across Nigeria and from neighbouring countries in the Sahel are believed to be behind many attacks. Raids along Benue’s border with Cameroon have intensified. Victims across the state report that some attackers speak unfamiliar dialects of Fulani, a language family spoken as far west as Mali.
Government officials agree that attackers these days are more likely to be sophisticated criminals than poor herders in search of grazing grounds. But they have had no luck penetrating the raiders’ networks or protecting victims. Raids happen because attackers “know the community leaders are defenceless”, says Isaac Olawale Albert, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Ibadan.
Security forces, overstretched by fighting terrorism in the north, often turn up late or end up outnumbered, provided they show up at all. The army chief has suggested that this is because local soldiers are in cahoots with the criminals (the army’s spokesperson swiftly contradicted him). Abandoned by the state, targeted groups launch reprisal attacks to seek justice on their own, worsening the violence. The former state governor complained that the government in Abuja did not pay enough attention to places that are difficult to access. Bola Tinubu, the president, abandoned a planned condolence visit to Yelewata citing flooded roads.
On June 25th, nearly two weeks after the attack in Yelewata, authorities have at least arrested some suspects. That may go some way towards calming tempers. Yet without a dramatic overhaul of Nigeria’s security apparatus, the deadly night-time raids look set to continue
