Section 33 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended) provides that ‘every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria’. Exodus 20:13 prohibits unlawful killing in the commandments of God that ‘thou shall not kill’. Deliberately therefore, God and man have made the right to life the most basic of all human rights; it is made so fundamental amongst all other rights because you need it to enforce and enjoy them. It is the principal right and all other rights are ancillary thereto. On March 28 and April 2, 2025 respectively, gunmen in targeted attacks invaded Ruwi, Mangor, Daffo, Manguna, Hurti and Tadai communities in Plateau State, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. Although security agencies are yet to release official casualty figures, residents claimed that at least 52 people were killed, with many others injured or still missing. Here is the account of one of the survivors as monitored in the media.
“We were living in peace, with no provocation. Then gunmen on motorcycles arrived, shooting indiscriminately. We ran for our lives, children alongside us. We had no nowhere to hide. Many were killed. Our homes were burnt. We call on the government to help us.”
As has been the usual pattern of the government’s responses, the Presidency has issued a lame statement condemning the gruesome attacks with a supposed pledge to bring the perpetrators to justice. On Friday, March 28, 2025, hunters returning from their hunting expedition were ambushed by vigilantes in Uromi, Edo State and they were brutally murdered by a mob in a reckless display of intolerance. In these and other reprehensible attacks, humanity is desecrated. No decent society should condone mob justice or jungle justice, by whatever name it is called. It is commendable that security agencies have been able to track down the Uromi demons but it should not stop there. The inability or unwillingness of the government to tackle headlong the festering conflicts between herders and farmers is the root cause of the increasing sense of desperation and frustration across the land. From Benue to Ondo, Kaduna, Delta, Plateau, Niger, Nassarawa, Borno, Zamfara and Edo States, Nigeria has become an open field of mass murders. A uniform response from the government and security agencies to these barbaric tendencies will give the people some sense of relief. The federal and state governments should ensure that Nigerians are treated equally irrespective of their ethnic, tribal, and religious inclinations. In a fragile country, the overt deployment of double standards is destructive and leads to unintended outcomes. The tragedy in Uromi unfolded when a mob set upon 16 Fulani hunters travelling through the community. Accused of being complicit in the serial security breaches that have rendered local farmers vulnerable, the hunters were dragged from their vehicles, lynched, and their bodies mutilated. It is horrific, despicable, offensive and remains intolerable now and for all times. But it goes beyond condemnations and isolated responses because these ignominious attacks cut across the length and breadth of Nigeria and the government must not be perceived as employing double standards in its responses and actions.
Earlier on in February, 2025, Edo State witnessed the death of 27 farmers and no action was taken by the government. On March 19, 2025 in Ondo State, 5 farmers were shot dead by suspected herdsmen in Aba Oyinbo in Akure North Local Government area of the state. Before then, about 14 persons were murdered by gunmen in Ademekun, Aba Sunday, Aba Pastor and Alajido in the same local government area. No specific action has been taken by the government to hunt down the attackers to bring them to justice. Several communities in Zamfara and Borno States are reportedly paying tribute to bandits and criminals in order to live in their own homelands. Fulani herdsmen, with a sense of gross entitlement, encroach on farmlands and kill farmers for resisting the violation of their livelihoods. Human life is sacrosanct and it is with the same outrage that the government has responded to the Uromi killings that it should attend to the Plateau, Zamfara and Ondo attacks, as an expression of its commitment to end violence and mass murders in the country. In 2014, the Global Terrorism Index listed Fulani herdsmen among the four most dangerous terrorist groups in the world because of their killing sprees in Nigeria. It is time for the government to take decisive actions in addressing this menace as it is hypocritical to have selective responses to the same criminal conduct.
The government should leverage on relevant provisions of the Constitution to avert the looming disaster staring the nation in the face. Section 41 (1) grants to every person the right ‘to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria’. For the herdsmen, the freedom of movement should necessarily be extended to controlled grazing and thus, it cannot be tenable to propose that any citizen of Nigeria should be expelled or prevented from taking residency in any part of the country on account of ethnicity, religion or vocation. However, section 41 (2) allows the government to make any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society to derogate from the freedom of movement granted by the same Constitution in certain cases. In essence, a law against open and uncoordinated grazing will fall within the category of laws that are reasonably justifiable to secure peace, law and order. Additionally, section 41 (2) permits the imposition of ‘restrictions on the residence or movement of any person who has committed or is reasonably suspected to have committed a criminal offence’. In order to avoid negative profiling of any group of persons, the law against open grazing should only impose reasonable restrictions upon anyone found to have violated it, after due and proper trial. Now, section 43 grants to every citizen the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria. Even though the Constitution places emphasis on ‘immovable property’, which in this case is land, this can and should be extended to moveable property, in this case cattle. In law, ownership of immovable property can be through customary inheritance in the case of farmers, while acquisition of immovable property can be through valid assignment, in the case of herders. In essence, where a herdsman desires to graze upon the immovable property of another, he should go through section 43 to acquire land from the owners to advance his vocation. This cannot be done through open grazing because section 44 (1) prohibits compulsory acquisition or forceful possession of land in stating that ‘no interest in an immovable property shall be taken possession of compulsorily and no right over or interest in any such property shall be acquired compulsorily in any part of Nigeria except in the manner and for the purposes prescribed by law.’ Open grazing amounts to a flagrant violation of section 44 (1), for a citizen to invade the customary inheritance of another citizen to destroy the farmlands, harvest crops thereat unlawfully and forcefully chase away the owners, rape them at will or kill them if they venture any form of resistance.
It is gratifying that the government has set up a separate Ministry of Livestock in order to take care of the constant clashes between herdsmen and farmers. The solution to this matter is for herdsmen to embrace ranching and for land owners to display brotherhood to lease or assign land and allow mutual co-existence as was the case in times past. Well over a year after this laudable initiative however, nothing tangible has been accomplished in this regard, as it would seem to be another political gimmick of the government to curry favour and secure unmerited patronage. There is thus a roadmap provided by the Constitution for the resolution of this hydra-headed monster. The unwillingness or seeming incapacity of the government to confront the real issue is the underlying fuel that is propelling the killings, especially the ones by the herdsmen. The issue of selective justice also raises troubling questions about the value placed on the life of the citizens as if one life matters more than the other. The criminals who killed the Fulani men in Uromi must be brought to justice, just as those responsible for previous attacks on farmers and civilians must also face the law. Until Nigeria embraces the rule of law and discards partiality in the dispensation of justice, the cycle of violence will persist. And although one is outraged with the killings in Uromi, we get more diminished when killings take place in other locations and the government is pretending to be helpless or condoning them. Government should encourage and work with herders to adopt the ranching option instead of trampling roughshod on farming communities. This is the practice in other jurisdictions like Brazil, Egypt and Netherlands, where the livestock business exceeds that of Nigeria. Government should not lose sight of the unfortunate impression already created in the minds of citizens that they cannot be protected by the system, hence the resort to self-help and vigilante options. We should however not descend to the state of violence for violence as that will lead us nowhere. A further solution lies in a comprehensive security overhaul as the Nigeria Police Force is understaffed and ill-equipped to handle the country’s security challenges. The Federal Government should rise above ethnic biases and ensure that every Nigerian life is valued equally and granted adequate protection. Any government that claims to be incapable of or shows itself to be unwilling to tackle insecurity headlong has no business retaining power.
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