IRIN Focus on ethnic conflicts in the central region

Over the past weeks, Nigeria’s central region has been racked by violent ethnic clashes that have claimed many lives and displaced thousands of people. Fighting that broke out in June has pitted Tivs against their mainly Hausa-speaking neighbours in Nasarawa State, leading to at least 100 deaths, according to the police - more than 200, according to other sources - and the displacement of more than 50,000 people. The bloodletting was sparked by the killing on 12 June of Musa Ibrahim, the traditional ruler of the Azara people, and four members of his entourage. The gunmen were not identified but, suspecting Tivs with whom they had a lingering land dispute of being behind the killing, Ibrahim’s people launched reprisal attacks. This led to intense inter-ethnic fighting in several towns and settlements across the state. The Tiv, who are a minority in Nasarawa, fled in large numbers to neighbouring Benue State where they form the majority. Local newspapers citing Red Cross sources said more than 40,000 displaced were camped in and around the Benue capital, Makurdi. Many others sought refuge further north in Plateau State. The fighting quickly spread from Nasarawa to nearby Taraba State, where the Tiv, once again in the minority, were attacked by the Fulani and the Kutebs, with whom they had also had violent clashes in recent years, around the town of Wukari. Displaced reluctant to go home While the fighting has died down following the sending of massive police reinforcements to the area, tension remains high and sporadic attacks by rival armed bands have reportedly continued. Despite assurances by the police in Nasarawa that the situation was now under control and safe enough for the displaced to return, very few people are willing to go back to areas where they barely escaped death just weeks ago. “As a matter of fact, many of those who escaped the fighting have vowed not to return to their old settlements for fear that a resurgence of violence is likely,” John Iyorche, a Makurdi resident, told IRIN. “We are already making arrangements to resettle some of our relatives who were displaced in Nasarawa here in Benue State,” he added. Another conflict developed around the town of Tafawa Balewa in Bauchi state almost concurrently with the fighting in Nasarawa. The town was the scene of violent clashes between Muslims and non-Muslims over an attempt by the state government to impose Islamic or Sharia law. Several people died in the clashes which, newspaper reports said, were sparked by an attempt by a Muslim bus driver in the town to segregate men from women in keeping with the requirements of Islamic law. Tafawa Balewa is mainly Christian. Evidently worried by the scale and national security implications of these and other communal clashes that have rocked Nigeria in the past two years, President Olusegun Obasanjo met on 13 July with governors from states affected by the violence. While details of the talks were not made public, Presidential Spokesman Tunji Oseni said the meeting took a broad view of the clashes - including their likely impact on national stability - and considered ways to manage and contain them. “If we are able to look at the conflicts as a natural challenge and give them a holistic view, they might not erupt again,” Oseni told journalists after the meeting. A volatile mix Ethnic clashes in Nigeria’s central region could indeed pose delicate problems for national stability. The region is home to about 130 of the country’s estimated 250 ethnic groups. They, together with the ethnic minorities of the oil-rich Delta region in the south, are often seen as the cement holding the three big ethnic blocs (Hausa-Fulani, Ibo and Yoruba) together in one Nigeria. Unlike the big three, each with a population of more than 20 million, the minority groups are considered too small to be viable as modern nation-states. In fact, they have have often demonstrated a greater keenness to have the country remain as one, for instance by providing the bulk of the soldiers who fought against secessionist Biafra during Nigeria’s civil war in the late 1960s. While the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta live in a region that has most of the oil that forms the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, the minorities of the central region occupy the country’s food basket. The soil in their area is reputed to be the richest in Nigeria and the people there are intensely agricultural, producing a variety of crops, ranging from grains to tubers, that feed the country’s ever-increasing urban population. “There are already widespread fears that the fighting in the area, taking place during the peak of the farming season, would certainly have a deleterious impact on this year’s harvest at a time of spiralling food prices,” Humphrey Azodo, an agricultural economist, told IRIN. He said growing communal unrest in the region was a sign of worsening inter-communal relations due to growing pressure on land. As a result of increasing desertification on Nigeria’s northernmost fringes, many pastoral people have started pushing southwards in search of grazing land, accounting to some extent for the conflict between Tivs and the pastoral Hausa-Fulani. Adding to the tension has been the decision of several states in the predominantly Muslim areas of northern Nigeria to pursue the strict application of Sharia. [Sharia had existed for a long time in northern Nigeria but was not strictly implemented until last year.] This has made non-Muslim ethnic minorities fearful of religious domination. “All of these have added up to create a mix that is not at all conducive to good neighbourliness,” Azodo said.