Competition for resources required for crop farming and grazing has driven the conflict between Hausa farmers and Fulani herders
, two populations with close cultural ties in Nigeria’s northwest, according to a new report, which highlights other layers of violence that have precipitated humanitarian and economic challenges in the region.
“Diminishing water sources and an increase in desert or semi-desert conditions have shrunk both arable land and pasture,” the report said. “The region’s rapidly growing population has meanwhile increased demand for available land. In the absence of more efficient methods of both crop and livestock production, the desertification and the population growth have intensified competition for territory suitable for farming and grazing.
The report brought a perspective, that is rarely acknowledged in commentaries on Nigeria’s unabated herder-farmer violence: as the herders are involved in violence with farming populations in the Middle Belt and further south, so are they with Hausa farming groups in the northwest, commonly regarded as the core north.
To highlight an example, the report drew on the clearing of parts of Kuyambana forests, including grazing reserves and Fulani herders’ hamlets, in Zamfara State, and allocation of the land for crop farming, thereby causing herders’ trespass on farmlands and then farmers’ demands for compensation for damaged crops.
“As violence escalated, they increasingly acquired more sophisticated firepower, much of it in the form of arms smuggled in from the Sahara and the Sahel via international routes. “Violence is also orchestrated by attackers with the purpose of scaring residents and state security agents away from the mining areas in order to take control, leading to further displacement of populations and dilution of state presence on the ground. Criminal groups use proceeds from such raids to acquire more weapons and fuel yet more criminal activity,” the report said.
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