Stopping Violence in Nigeria: A Local Perspective
A few months ago in April, I traveled to Northern Nigeria, Kaduna, Plateau, and Kano state, visiting community-based organizations and women peace-builders that have been at the forefront of the peacebuilding efforts and, most importantly, connecting with local communities that have suffered for years due to the ethnoreligious conflict, and communal violence.
On my way to Plateau state, which is home to 40 ethnic communities and where much of the deadly attacks from Boko Haram and now recent banditry have taken place, my colleague and I were discussing a range of national societal issues, from corruption to community religious ethnic tension and of-course terrorism. However, there was a moment in the conversation where he pointed at a bridge that separated Kaduna and Plateau states and said, 'Do you know how many local community members from both states have been fighting and dying over where precisely on the bridge that belongs to them?
As a fellow African diaspora, issues of tribalism and other forms of social division being among the root causes of violence is not a new phenomenon for a continent that has been colonized and used as a playground for divide-and-rule tactics. However, what is now even more complicated is how much of these historical root causes of violence have become interconnected to the everyday social, economic, and political problems of African countries.
Over the last few decades, Northern Nigeria has witnessed complex insecurity and violence fuelled by farmer-herder tension rooted in ethnic and religious tension and competition over land and resources, which have led to organized armed groups and an endless cycle of reprisal attacks.
As Nigeria enters its election period, the existing identity-based politics, social inequality, and poverty have created a fragile environment where political events will most likely provoke ethno-sectarian violence and eventually contribute to widespread atrocities as campaign rhetoric panders to ethnic and religious division and grievances.
It is important to understand how atrocities like what happened on Sunday 5th June in South-West Nigeria, where a gunman walked into a church, and killed 50 people who had attended Sunday service is not an isolated incident.
The illusion of peace
While the absence of an all-out direct war has provided Nigeria with somewhat of a relative peace, which has made the country become a destination for global investment and trade, however, we cannot ignore the atrocities and violence taking place within local communities and the inability of the Nigerian government both at the federal and state level to address in the insecurity, coordinate and provide resources to civil society organization so that they are better equipped in preventing and responding to violence.
A day before I arrived in Plateau state, on April 10th, armed groups known as 'bandits' but classified by the government as terrorists attacked nine ethnic villages; according to local communities that I spoke with, this attack killed up to 150 civilians, despite the initial report provided by the authorities attempting to minimize the significance of the level of insecurity in Northern Nigeria.
The armed groups terrorizing communities across Northern and Southern Nigeria, whether it is considered bandits, terrorist, or criminal gangs, is part of a more significant issue of the failure of the Nigerian government to grasp and tackle the multifaceted insecurity and violence as if the state-level violence will not eventually spiral into a national level instability.
The necessity for social and economic justice
Throughout my visit, it was evident that many of the root causes of atrocities being committed were also driven by a lack of social and economic development and opportunities. Almost everyone I met repeated the quote 'idle man is a devil's workshop', the idea that if someone has nothing to do, then one will be easily influenced and encouraged to participate in forms of social disruption and violence.
When I was shown videos of the armed bandits' groups being rounded by the military men and thrown on top of each other into a pickup truck, I recognized that the majority were young boys and men, most likely vulnerable youth from communities and households suffering from poverty and social exclusion.
This is why Nigeria's civil society organizations have been raising awareness of the link between poverty and insecurity, thus advocating for more development approaches within peacebuilding. For example, the Peace Initiative Network based in Kano state has been filling the gap over the last few decades to provide essential vocational and economic training to youths and women from vulnerable communities, alongside strengthening the role of community leaders to prevent and address violence.
As a result, I met with many young men who graduated and have now opened business initiatives, utilizing this newfound opportunity to sustain themselves and act as role models for other young people within their community.
In communities with persistent farmer-herder inter-communal violence, economic and climate-based factors such as competition over land and resources have also been the main drivers of the endless cycle of conflict.
What makes it even more complex is that what might have started as a low-level dispute between two ethnic neighbors over land, water scarcity, or overgrazing on a farm can easily ignite full-blown ethnoreligious violence in which entire families and communities can be wiped out due to a single incident.
In Kaduna, I met a group of women directly affected by the religious crisis. The majority of the Women's Peace Committee members had suffered from the atrocities, recounting stories of their husbands and children being murdered, cases of SGBV and homes and shops wholly burned out and left in ruins. In reality, we cannot nurture and talk about peace if people who have lived through violence are unable to rebuild their lives and communities.
The interfaith women's peace committee, made up of diverse Muslim and Christian women, emphasized strongly the need to have social and economic justice, alongside the resources to support their journey to re-imagine and promote peace.
Women-led organizations like LEGASI based in Kaduna have prioritized women's leadership and participation. Despite the limited resources and funding available, they currently support local women's groups like the interfaith women's peace committee. In addition, it provides small grants to local community groups to facilitate inter-communal reconciliation dialogue between ethnic, and religious communities, counter hate speech, and promote peaceful messages.
Strengthening national responsibility for atrocities prevention and response and civilian protection
I had come to this trip with the intention to better understand the effectiveness of a local approach to atrocities prevention and response in addressing the multifaceted dynamics of violence.
Almost every CSO representative, activist, and local community leader I met during my work trip in Nigeria all contributed to preventing and responding to atrocities, whether it was addressing the social-economic factors, and historical grievances that contribute to farmer-herder conflict, to conducting advocacy awareness on peacebuilding, healing, reconciliation between ethnic communities, and youth empowerment.
However, what I found striking is that while all this is all of the work of CSOs and local peacebuilders is very much essential to creating the conditions needed for a sense of peace and social cohesion, there is a critical component that is missing which is the government commitment towards atrocities prevention and response.
The Nigerian government has little to no incentives to address the complex root causes of violence or provide civilian protection. As a result, the majority of Nigeria's CSOs depend heavily on Western donor funding, limited to only 1-2 years of programs, which makes it impossible to tackle the various causes of violence contributing to atrocities being committed against innocent civilians.
In the upcoming months of Nigeria's election campaigning, it is more likely that we will witness further outbreaks of inter-communal violence, and terrorist attacks, and there will be a time when Nigerian political leaders can longer cover up the insecurities facing the country, and it will be forced to finally acknowledge it own responsibility on human security.