It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing a debate on this important and grave issue. I also thank other hon. Members for their invaluable contributions today.
Without doubt, the farmer-herder conflict has become Nigeria’s gravest security challenge. The tensions and violence between nomadic Fulani herdsmen, who are mostly Muslim, and farmers, who are predominantly Christian, over land and natural resources have a long history throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As we heard from the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), and at the start of the speech by the hon. Member for Strangford, there have been 60,000 deaths since 2001, and attacks have escalated dramatically this year.
According to a report released by the International Crisis Group in July, violence between Nigerian farmers and herders killed at least 1,300 people in the first half of 2018 and claimed
“about six times more civilian lives than the Boko Haram insurgency”.
Outside this Chamber, very few people are aware of the current conflict in Nigeria, yet we are all very much aware of Boko Haram. Indeed, when researching for this debate, I found only a small number of articles in the press, so the first question to ask is: why is this conflict largely unreported?
In June, 86 people died in just one incident in Plateau state after violent clashes broke out between farmers and cattle herders, and the violence has continued unrelentingly during the second half of the year. It is clear that this violence has evolved from spontaneous reactions to deadlier planned attacks, particularly in Benue, Plateau, Adamawa, Nasarawa and Taraba states. The conflict’s roots lie in the degradation of land due to climate change, and increasing violence in the country’s far north, which has forced herders south. As farms and settlements expand, they swallow up grazing reserves and block traditional migration routes, and farmers’ crops are damaged by the herders’ indiscriminate grazing.
Three immediate factors explain the escalation of violence this year. First, there is the rapid growth of ethnic militias bearing illegally acquired weapons—that point has already been made. Second, there is the failure of the Nigerian Government to prosecute past perpetrators or notice early warnings of impending attacks. Third,
there is the introduction in November last year of anti-grazing laws, which were strongly opposed by herders, sparking further clashes with farmers.
Nigeria’s Administration, led by President Buhari, have been accused of not doing enough to stop the violence. The report in September 2017 by the International Crisis Group analysed the roots of the conflict and laid out detailed recommendations for resolving it. Those recommendations remain largely valid, and I suggest that the Minister reads the report if she has not already done so. It focuses on immediate priorities—tasks that both the federal and state authorities, as well as community leaders and Nigeria’s international partners, must urgently undertake to stop the violence spinning out of control. It recommends that the Nigerian Government deploy more police in affected areas, improve local ties to gather better intelligence, and respond speedily to early warnings and distress calls. In addition, they should begin to disarm armed groups, and closely watch land borders to stop the inflow of firearms. The Nigerian Government should also order an investigation into all recent major incidents of farmer-herder violence, and may need to expedite the trials of anyone found to have participated in violence. They should expand in detail the new national livestock transformation plan and implement it immediately. It is also important that they encourage herder-farmer dialogue and support local peace initiatives.
Where do the UK Government fit in? They can play a leading role in tackling this conflict, and it goes without saying that they must do all they can to put a stop to this violence. Can the Minister tell us today what co-ordinated and practical actions DFID is taking to alleviate the tensions around resources and whether it is providing enough aid to ensure that people are not at risk of starvation or of losing their cattle or harvests? It is important that more resources should be committed to internally displaced persons in Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau states, with special attention to women and children, who constitute the majority of the displaced.