An investigative report by the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative has concluded that there are similarities in the approaches used by the rampaging Fulani herdsmen and the ruthless Boko Haram sect. The same report also raised fears that if the Nigerian government continues to sideline this conflict and fail to provide meaningful security for affected communities, the Fulani militants will likely prove far more challenging than the menace of insurgency that has ravaged the North-East.

The 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative is a US-based advocacy group, with a vision to create a world where religious freedom is embraced as a universal right. Explaining how insurgency developed in Northern Nigeria, the report says “Boko Haram loosely followed a four stage development.” Those stages went from:

  1. Nascent movement building upon local grievances and lack of good governance.
  2. Lack of proper engagement by the Nigerian government in an atmosphere of impunity.
  3. Hardening of organizational ideology and religious identification with increasingly aggressive acts of destruction, to a
  4. Full-scale conflict impacting millions to a degree that is now forcing the Nigerian government and international community to more robustly seek resolution.

According to the report, “Fulani militants in the Middle Belt rapidly progressed through the first two stages and are currently in the third stage. Without intervention, the crisis in the Middle Belt will continue to escalate.”

As it stands now, the Nigerian government seems not to have addressed the Fulani herdsmen crisis with the right approach. Attacks by the herdsmen have not abated; instead, they have greatly increased in 2016. The Global Terrorism Index has ranked the rampaging Fulani herdsmen as the fourth most deadly terrorist group in the world, only behind Boko Haram, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL), and Al-Shabaab.

“In the past sixteen months, there have been 55 separate attacks by the Fulani herdsmen in 14 different states resulting in over 1,000 deaths. Even though the data for 2016 only includes four months, there has already been a 190 percent increase in fatalities from 2015 to 2016. Benue State has been the most impacted, with 26 distinct attacks leaving 738 dead,” the report says.

The report however suggested the intervention of the United States government and the United Nations to save Nigeria. It recommends that the US help Nigeria develop a robust approach to address the rising Fulani herdsmen crisis, which should be “inclusive of equitable disarmament, transparent response to impacted and displaced communities, and policy provisions around farming and grazing rights.”

In its recommendations to the United Nations, the report says there is need for a “visit by the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur of IDPs to Nigeria with a formal report to the Security Council that includes an action plan on the protection of communities and people, their empowerment in the political process, and development of long-term stability and reintegration.”

There is need for the government of Nigeria to address the Fulani herdsmen crisis. Although Nigeria has made significant progress in fighting insurgency in the north, rooting out the insurgents has been very difficult. The restoration of the destroyed region will also take years. In light of this, it will be suicidal for the Nigerian government to allow another fire like Boko Haram spread wildly. Nigeria will become far too hot to handle.

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