Violence perpetrated by an armed group comprising members of the Fulani ethnic group (also known as the Fulani militia) has occurred since March 2010, when over 400 people died in coordinated night attacks on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot in Plateau State. In some instances, entire families were killed by the attackers, who woke the villagers from their sleep with gunfire and shouting, before setting homes on fire and attacking men, women and children, including babies. Many suffered severe machete wounds, and several bodies were decapitated.
The killings were widely described as being in reprisal for violence that had occurred in Kuru Karama, Plateau State, on 19 January 2010 that was widely reported, both locally and internationally, as a massacre by Christians of around 150 Muslim villagers. However, the non-Muslim village head of Kuru Karama who fled the violence, later confirmed that non-Muslims were among the casualties.
The attacks on Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot essentially formed the blueprint for future militia attacks, which have occurred almost cyclically in states across central Nigeria, and which now occur in southern Nigeria. The violence has also contributed to a proliferation of small arms and the surge lawlessness that is currently afflicting communities in the northwest. While violence in central states is ethno-religious in nature and involves land grabbing through forced displacement, areas in the northwest which are experiencing extortion and murder are largely Muslim farming communities of Hausa ethnicity, although the plight of the equally vulnerable minority Christian areas is eclipsed by the magnitude of attacks on the majority religious community.
Since 2015 Nigeria has witnessed a spike in militia violence that has largely gone unchecked, Insecurity is now rampant throughout the nation. For example on 29 January 2024, two traditional rulers were killed in the southern state of Ekiti and a third escaped after their vehicles were intercepted by gunmen of Fulani ethnicity along the Oke-Ako road in Ikole Local Government Area (LGA), as they returned from a security meeting. Even the Federal Capital, Abuja, is no longer immune, as Fulani kidnappers inhabiting the forests surrounding Abuja attack neighbourhoods, break into homes and kidnap entire families, including non-Fulani Muslims.
According to the Civil Society Joint Action Group, Community of Practice Against Mass Atrocities and Nigeria Mourns, at least 2,423 people were killed in mass atrocity-related incidents and at least 1,872 persons were abducted in the eight months since President Tinubu took his oath of office: ‘We are particularly concerned about the upsurge in abductions, noting that at least 230 incidents, in most of which multiple victims were involved, occurred within the first 2 weeks of January 2024 alone.’
In a worrying admission, Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas, lamented that it was ‘quite unfortunate that most of our forests have been taken over by bandits, kidnappers and other terrorists that have been unleashing mayhem on innocent Nigerians.’