Associated Press (AP) – Christian Jonathan’s mother held the 9-month-old boy in her arms when she was shot dead during an attack on their village in northwestern Nigeria. The assailants cut off one of Christian’s fingers and left him on the side of the road with a bullet in his small leg.
“They left him on the ground next to his mother’s body,” said Joshua Jonathan, Christian’s father. “They thought the boy was dead.”
April’s nighttime attack in Runji in Kaduna state left 33 people dead, most of them burned to death or shot dead. Many more have since been killed in the ongoing clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities in the northwest and central regions of the West African nation, including more than 100 this month in the State of the Plateau.
The decades-long violence is becoming increasingly deadly, killing at least 2,600 people in 2021, according to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Once armed with sticks, the groups now fight with weapons that have been smuggled into the country.
Both sides accuse the government of injustice and marginalization, but the clashes have also taken on a religious dimension, giving rise to militias alongside herders, mostly Muslims, or farmers from Christian communities.
The growing security crisis presents a huge challenge for Nigeria’s new president, Bola Tinubu, who came to power in Nigeria – Africa’s biggest economy and one of its top oil producers – promising to improve lives affected communities and address the root causes of the crisis by providing jobs and ensuring justice. The inauguration of Tinubu is scheduled for Monday.
If left unchecked, analysts say the violence could further destabilize the country and push more of its 216 million people into poverty. UN agencies say the violence mainly affects children, who are already at risk of malnutrition, and women, who are often abducted and forced into marriage.
Security force response can be slow and arrests are rare, prompting a growing number of communities to defend themselves when under siege.
“There is a substantial loss of faith in the government as the protector of the citizens,” said Nnamdi Obasi, senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group. Obasi warned that the incoming administration’s failure to quickly resolve the conflict would lead to “more people seeking their own defense, more arms proliferation, more criminal groups, and an increase in organized armed groups.”
In Runji, an agrarian village, The Associated Press spoke with survivors in hospital beds and others visiting a mass grave and their razed homes. They said they had been under attack for hours and the gunmen had fled long before the security forces arrived.
Every home bears a scar.
Christopher Dauda’s family were trying to escape when the gunmen caught up with his wife and four children, killing all five. Danjuma Joshua’s two daughters were shot in the back as they tried to flee. In the house of Asabe Philip, who survived but has burns all over his body, the assailants burned five children alive as they cowered in a room.
Christian’s aunt tried to fill the void left by his mother’s murder. His father said Christian cried a lot and barely slept, although his physical injuries were gradually healing.
“We try to manage with what we have left,” said Joshua Jonathan.
On the other side of the conflict, herders say they are also under attack. They complain of cattle rustling and extrajudicial executions by local security groups working as community vigilantes.
Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, the president of the national herders association, denied that anyone in the group was responsible for the violence. Most of the herders belong to the Fulanis, an ethnic group.
“The Fulani are not the killers. Anyone who commits murder is not our member. Sometimes when communities accuse us of murders, 75% is not true; they have their own crisis but still blame the Fulani,” Bodejo said.
Nigerian security forces claim to have arrested dozens of gunmen and recovered their weapons. But the attackers are estimated to number in the thousands and can easily recruit new members, according to conflict researcher Abdulaziz Abdulaziz.
“There is a limit to kinetic (military) operations, as they do not address the socio-economic problem that has given rise to banditry in the region,” said Oluwole Ojewale of the Institute for Security Studies focused on security. ‘Africa. He said the new Tinubu administration must work with state governments to tackle unemployment, poverty and social injustice.
The recent violence has led to the formation of community, state and regional security teams which experts say could create bigger problems for Nigeria’s security architecture if not properly monitored.
And their recruits are young.
Felix Sunday, a student in Kaduna, said he was 16 when he joined a local vigilante group in 2021, and finds it difficult to combine night duty with his studies.
In much of West and Central Africa, porous national borders facilitate arms smuggling. A survey-based report released in 2021 by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in conjunction with the Nigerian government found that at least 6 million firearms may be in civilian hands in the country as of today. ‘era.
The military and police recovered hundreds of firearms in Nigeria last year, but gun smugglers elsewhere are compounding the problem.
“Things have gotten considerably worse. Some are large military weapons imported from other countries,” said Confidence MacHarry of Lagos-based security firm SBM Intelligence.
With sophisticated weaponry, the gunmen launched bold attacks in areas with a heavy security presence, including a military base and an airport in Kaduna, indicating the problem may be the motivation of the security forces themselves.
Survivors of the Plateau attack told the AP that police did not arrive until the next day, echoing comments from residents of Runji, which has a nearby security checkpoint.
“When we call the soldiers, it is after the attackers have left that the soldiers arrive. Even if we hear that they (the attackers) are coming and we report it to the government, they are not taking proactive measures,” said Simon Njam, a vigilante leader near Runji who uses bows, arrows and locally made rifles to secure the area. .
Part of the problem is that security forces are disorganized and unprepared to respond to attacks, according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.
“We don’t have a coordinated security sector that identifies and thwarts threats,” he said. “They have to work together to protect lives and right now we don’t see enough of that.”
The Nigerian military and police did not respond to written and telephone inquiries requesting a response to the allegations.
As more and more families mourn the loss of their loved ones, forced to replace farmland with cemeteries, their priority is to demand justice.
“How can people just come in and kill and nothing will happen?” Dauda asked Runji, reminiscing about his life with his wife and four children. “They can’t bring back my lost family, but the government can at least rebuild my home and provide justice.”