I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of armed violence against farming communities in Nigeria.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate—it is of the upmost importance that the House, the Government and the whole international community do not ignore such immense and devastating suffering. I am grateful to all hon. Members for participating in the debate, and I particularly thank the Minister for her esteemed presence and for her informative remarks last Thursday, when she spoke at an event that examined some of these issues, which was organised by the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief.
I imagine that some hon. Members will discuss the Boko Haram crisis, so I will focus on the conflict between nomadic herders and farming communities. According to some estimates, it has claimed up to 60,000 lives since 2001. I would like to discuss the scale of the violence, how to resolve the crisis, and the long-term consequences of failure to address the violence.
For decades, nomadic cattle herders from north Nigeria, who belong predominantly to the Muslim Hausa Fulani ethnic group, have been in dispute over land with predominantly Christian farming communities further south. However, in recent years, the scale and violence of these disputes has escalated dramatically, and we will want to look at the reasons for that in the discussions we have today. As many as 1,300 people have been killed in violence between these groups since January, and at least 300,000 have been displaced. The conflict is estimated to cost the Nigerian economy $10.5 billion a year. It is good to see the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) in his place; he is the Government envoy to Nigeria, so we look forward to his comments. We cannot ignore the impact on the Nigerian economy.
The International Crisis Group has said:
“What were once spontaneous attacks have become premeditated scorched-earth campaigns in which marauders often take villages by surprise at night.”
When we talk about these enormous crises, there is sometimes a danger that we forget about people and their families—we cannot do that. Real people have lost their entire families. Real people have seen their homes and villages destroyed. Real people have been devastated, disfigured and dismembered. In terms of sheer scale and horror, the violence we have witnessed in Nigeria is six times deadlier than the Boko Haram crisis of 2018 —six times more horrible, more horrific, more evil and more brutal.