There is systematic violence taking place in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, writes Onyedikachi Madueke. The government calls it local skirmishes, but the reality goes deeper than that.
On 13 June 2025, a silent crisis escalated in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. In coordinated attacks across communities in Benue State, Northcentral region, more than 200 people lost their lives. The response was tepid. Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, issued a statement only after Pope Leo XIV publicly prayed for the victims. The pope described the attack against the predominantly Christian community in Benue State as “a terrible massacre.” The Nigerian president’s framing of the violence as a “herder-farmer clash” was fiercely rejected by local leaders.
The most significant criticism came from Tor Tiv, Professor James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse, the chairman of the Benue State Traditional Rulers Council, who also serves as the paramount ruler of the Tiv ethnic nation. In his speech addressing the Nigerian president, he referred to the violence as a “full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign” rather than a mere communal dispute as the president framed it. He emphasised that these incidents are not isolated but indicative of a much deeper crisis affecting North-Central Nigeria.
Beyond Benue: A regional pattern of violence
Communities across the North-Central region in Plateau, Nasarawa, and Southern Kaduna have suffered devastating attacks that follow a chillingly similar script—night raids, mass killings, razed villages, and mass displacements. Between 2023 and May 2025, over 6,800 people have been murdered in Benue State, while over 2600 were killed in Plateau State in coordinated assaults attributed to suspected armed groups, including herders. In Nasarawa’s Doma and Awe, recurring violence has displaced tens of thousands, many of whom still live in temporary camps with no clear prospects of return. These incidents are often explained away as “local clashes,” but victims across the region increasingly describe them as systematic assaults on indigenous Christian farming communities.
This shared experience has fostered a sense of collective siege among Middle Belt minorities—mostly Christian and ethnically non-Fulani—who feel that the Nigerian state has failed to acknowledge the scale, intent, and religious undertones of the crisis. For many, the language of “herder-farmer clashes” functions as political camouflage, muting the urgency, obscuring historical roots, and absolving both state actors and non-state militias of accountability.
Historical memory and the shadow of jihad
The conflicts in North-Central Nigeria, also known as the Middle Belt, are rooted in a long and complex history of ethnic, religious, and territorial tensions. Many communities in this region link their mistrust of ethnic Fulani pastoral groups to events dating back more than two centuries, specifically to the 1804 Islamic jihad led by Usman dan Fodio. This event established the Sokoto Caliphate, a powerful Islamic empire in what is now northern Nigeria. Its influence extended into the north central region—today known as the Middle Belt—where it disrupted local power structures and replaced them with Islamic-Fulani-aligned rulers in some areas. Several ethnic groups in the Middle Belt were never fully conquered. In their oral histories, the resistance to the Caliphate is remembered not just as a military struggle, but as a fight to preserve their way of life. These deep historical memories continue to shape how some communities view current conflicts, framing them not merely as disputes over land or resources, but as part of a longer legacy of resistance against perceived domination.
These historical memories are not relics of the past—they actively shape how contemporary violence is interpreted. In many villages, attacks by suspected Fulani militias are seen not just as economic acts, but as a continuation of historical aggression. This narrative, however controversial, has become entrenched in the public psyche of many Christian communities across the Middle Belt, fuelling deep mistrust and heightening the sense that they are fighting for their very existence.
Although many herder-farmer disputes across Africa are resource-based, the conflict in Nigeria’s Middle Belt carries distinctly religious undertones. Victims in Benue, Plateau, and Southern Kaduna are overwhelmingly Christian; the attackers are often identified by survivors as Fulani Muslims. While correlation is not causation, this religious polarity feeds the belief that the violence is part of a broader agenda of Islamisation—especially when viewed alongside the spread of extremist ideologies in the Sahel and northern Nigeria.
Investigative reports from organisations like Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have highlighted that what began as economic competition has morphed into a heavily securitised conflict, with religious identities framing both fear and retaliation. Churches are burned, pastors killed, and Christian communities emptied in what many local leaders call “ethnic cleansing.”
Still, not all Fulani herders are aggressors, and many reject any association with jihadism. Herders’ groups argue that their movements are driven by shrinking grazing lands, climate change, and attacks from local militias. They decry the stereotyping of all nomadic Fulani as terrorists. However, the presence of sophisticated weaponry among some attackers, and occasional links to jihadist groups such as Boko Haram or Islamic State West African Province, have blurred the line between pastoralism and insurgency, making it harder to separate fact from fear.
Ethno-territorial geopolitics
What is unfolding across North-Central Nigeria is not simply a security crisis but an identity crisis. In “ethno-territorial geopolitics,” the contest is not just for resources, but for symbolic and physical space. Many indigenous communities view land not merely as property but as ancestral heritage, cultural identity, and spiritual anchor. Invasions, therefore, are not seen as economic incursions but as cultural erasure.
The Nigerian state’s failure to grasp this dynamic, and its tendency to downplay it, has deepened the mistrust between affected communities and federal authorities. Victims increasingly believe that security forces are either complicit or indifferent, given the lack of arrests, prosecutions, or restitution for the thousands displaced and killed. This perception is compounded when state officials repeat the “herder-farmer clash” narrative, which many see as denialism or deliberate obfuscation.
The herder-farmer conflict in North-Central Nigeria is not monolithic. Criminality, opportunism, and revenge killings have all muddied the waters. Some attacks are clearly economically linked to cattle rustling, banditry, and illicit land acquisition. Others may be acts of retaliation or driven by ethnic hate. But what makes the situation so combustible is the blurring of lines between legitimate grievance and extremist mobilisation.
There is growing concern that violent non-state actors such as local militias and transnational jihadists are exploiting this ambiguity. In places like Niger and Nasarawa states, alliances between local herders, armed bandits, and extremist groups have reportedly emerged, turning local land disputes into national security threats. This hybridisation of violence is dangerous. It transforms local tensions into militarised confrontations and feeds into broader narratives of religious war.
The escalating violence in North-Central Nigeria demands urgent and nuanced attention. The prevailing discourse of resource disputes misses the deeper, more volatile undercurrents of historical trauma, religious identity, and political exclusion. What is happening in Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, and beyond is not simply a clash over land but a multifaceted crisis rooted in the long shadow of history and the broken promises of the present.
To move forward, Nigeria must confront this uncomfortable reality. Policymakers must replace euphemisms with clarity, ensure justice for victims, and promote inclusive peace processes that engage both herder and farmer communities without erasing the asymmetries of violence. Above all, the Nigerian state must recognise that without addressing the ethno-religious dimensions of this crisis, any security response will be partial, and ultimately, futile.
Photo credit: Paul Kagame used with permission CC BY-NC-ND 2.0