Nigerians call for homegrown fixes to violence as foreign military threats loom - As-salamu alaykum
As-salamu alaykum. Amid claims of attacks targeting Christians, people on the ground and experts say the crisis is complex and are rejecting calls for outside military intervention.
When Lawrence Zhongo and his wife tied the knot in 2023, relatives and friends from their part of central Nigeria came to celebrate. Since then he has been heartbroken as reports keep coming of deadly raids that took the lives of people who once shared their joy. “I can’t count how many relatives and friends I have lost. My wife lost eight relatives in the Zike attack in April,” Zhongo, a yam and maize farmer from Miango in Plateau State, told reporters. “These were people who came to my wedding.”
In that raid, gunmen entered homes in Zike village overnight, killing more than 50 people, including children. Days earlier a similar attack reportedly killed about 40 people in a nearby area.
For decades the middle belt has seen vicious communal clashes, often between Fulani herders (mostly Muslim) and mostly Christian farmers, driven largely by competition over land and water. At the same time, northern Nigeria has suffered for years from Boko Haram and ISIL-affiliated groups that have killed and displaced thousands while trying to impose extreme interpretations of religion.
Even as different groups suffer, a foreign leader threatened military intervention, framing the crisis as a one-sided attack on Christians. That rhetoric alarmed many Nigerians. Abuja has strongly denied the single-faith framing and many Nigerians say the problem is more complicated.
President Bola Tinubu responded that describing Nigeria as religiously intolerant doesn’t fit the country’s reality and that the government is working to protect freedom of belief for all. Locally, even those angry at the state for failing to protect them don’t want foreign boots on their soil.
Zhongo, traumatised by repeated losses, blames a failed security system and says he’s given up on authorities’ ability or will to stop the violence. Local figures say more than a thousand people have been killed in Miango since 2001 and many families now cannot tend their farms and are facing hunger.
But Zhongo, a Christian, stresses the pain is not limited to one faith. “Muslims are also killed in the attacks. There are Muslims and other Fulanis who have been affected,” he said, recalling the killing of some Fulani leaders.
Others tell similar stories. Ali Tiga, who converted from Islam to Christianity, said he still remembers getting the call that his sister-in-law had been killed while he was at a wedding. “My brother’s pregnant wife was killed, her stomach cut open and the foetus removed,” he said. He has lost multiple friends and relatives in recent years.
Fulani herder Aliyu (first name only) described ambushes in grazing areas that have cost him brothers and cattle, and lamented how once-close ties between Muslim and Christian neighbours have frayed. “We grew up together - we attended the same schools and celebrated Christmas and Sallah together. Now there are some communities where I can’t even set foot,” he said.
Nigeria is a diverse, secular country of about 220 million people with a near-even split between Christians and Muslims and over 250 ethnic groups. The middle belt is where this diversity - and conflict over shrinking resources - is most visible.
Outside threats and loud political claims have sparked debate in Nigeria about insecurity, the loss of life across regions, and the government’s apparent inability to rein in violent actors. Government initiatives, like the National Livestock Transformation Plan launched in 2019 to promote ranching and reduce herder-farmer clashes, and state anti-grazing laws, have faced implementation problems. Military operations to flush out attackers have been criticised as ineffective and sometimes biased.
Analysts say the crisis is layered: armed groups do target people for religious reasons in some cases, but much of the violence in the middle belt stems from competition for land and water worsened by climate change and population pressure. Poor governance, weak policing, porous borders, and lack of prosecutions have also fuelled accusations of collusion and eroded trust in state institutions.
Experts recommend locally led solutions: stronger prosecutions of perpetrators regardless of identity, community-based early warning systems, scaled-up interfaith and community mediation, and pairing security deployments with human-rights safeguards. Addressing root causes like unemployment, poverty, and weak infrastructure is crucial, they say, because force alone won’t stop another group from arising.
Many on the ground fear foreign military action would make things worse. “We hope Tinubu can come up with a strategy to use internal forces to fight the terrorists and not invite external forces; it is going to be a shameful thing,” Zhongo said. Others worry outside intervention could increase civilian suffering and displacement.
Still, residents want effective protection and justice. “The Nigerian government is enough if they are willing to fight these terrorists,” Zhongo said. “I buried a lot of people. I am tired of all the mass burials.”
May Allah grant patience and relief to all those affected and guide leaders to solutions that protect lives and foster justice.
https://www.aljazeera.com/feat