Climate Change fuels religious conflicts in Nigeria

The effect of climate change in Nigeria is taking a turn for the worse with renewed hostilities between Moslems herdsmen from the North and Christians farmers in the South over access to grazing fields.The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) this week called on the National Assembly to reject any bill intended to pave the way for the creation of grazing fields in the south of the country for herdsmen from the north. The Christian body in a statement described such legislative agenda as divisive and inflammable and one capable of igniting another religious crisis between the North and the South.

The Chairman of CAN in the South-East geopolitical zone, Most. Reverend David Eberechukwu, said in the statement that herdsmen were already causing grievous harm to their Christian host communities and that creating such fields would amount to legitimizing terror and empowering Moslem herdsmen to further visit aggressions on southern farmers whose farmlands are routinely invaded with crops destroyed by herdsmen armed with automatic weapons.

Reverend Eberechukwu noted that, "currently, the situation has become unbearable and we have seen Fulani herdsmen invading and terrorizing defenseless Christian farming communities.

“Those agitating for the creation of grazing fields in the south should desist from such agenda and instead seek creative ways to solve this climate change problem that has damaged the once peaceful co-existence between Christians and Moslems."

In the wake of climate change and desertification in the semi-arid northern region, grazing fields in that part of the country are now without grasses, forcing an exodus of herdsmen and their cattle to the South in search of water and pasture. At first, all the cattle ate were grasses but later they were increasingly driven through farmlands by their shepherds. Reports became rife of entire cassava farms, yam and corn fields eaten up by rampaging livestock. No compensation was ever recorded just as little remorse was ever shown by the itinerant herdsmen.

From Delta State to Anambra, Rivers to Imo, and from Ogun to Edo, Oyo to Ondo State all in the South, newspaper accounts abound of bloody clashes between armed herdsmen and farming communities. In the Middle Belt region, particularly Benue, Nasarawa and Plateau States, scores of villages have been attacked and razed down. In 2014 at least 36 farmers were massacred and 7 villages destroyed by herdsmen in an attack on Agatu local government area of Benue State. The killings had occurred barely two days after some herdsmen struck at Ikpele and Okpopolo communities in the state, killing seven farmers and displacing over 6,000 inhabitants.

Last October hundreds of women from four local government areas in Enugu State staged a protest urging government to halt attacks by Fulani herdsmen who they said molest, maim, rape and destroy their farmland and livestocks.

The women from the Anglican Diocese of Enugu North comprising Enugu-North, Enugu-East, Udi and Ezeagu council areas, lamented that the activities of herdsmen remained unchecked by the Federal Police and military even as many farming communities live in perpetual danger.

Three attempts have been made so far in the Nigeria's National Assembly to pass a bill for the creation of the National Grazing Routes and Reserve Commission. The bill seeks the acquisition of lands across the 36 states of Nigeria for the purpose of providing pastures for herdsmen and their cattle. The move has severally been resisted by the Christian South who instead advocate the building of ranches in the north and the employing of irrigation and other climate-mitigation measures to make useful the vast and abundant land in the north.

By Emmanuel Mayah