The emergence of two top contenders of northern extraction for the presidential election next year has drastically reduced the herders/farmers crisis that took a dangerous dimension early this year, with scores killed, Miyettei Allagh Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, has said.
Nigerians will go to the polls between February and March 2019 to elect state and federal legislators, as well as governors and a president. The election has been presaged by rancour and mudslinging between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which lost power in 2015
The top two contenders in the election, President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP are from the North Muslim Fulani.
“Now that it is the era of politics and fortunate for us both candidates are coming from the same North, from the same religion and almost from the same tribe, the crises have gone down,” Baba Ngelzarma, MACBAN National Secretary, told BusinessDay in Abuja.
The umbrella body for the cattle breeders in Nigeria alleged that the crisis has slowed down because politicians who usually fuel the crisis for their selfish interests have relaxed so that peace can return to the troubled areas for them to get votes.
“This is what we have been saying: the crisis is being aggravated by politicians and the criminality aspect of it,” Ngelzarma said.
Herders/farmer crisis in Nigeria heightened between 2015 and 2018 with thousands of Nigerians killed and property worth billions of naira destroyed, mostly in the Middle Belt region.
The United States Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in a report documented at least 19,890 deaths in Nigeria since June 2015, just after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office on May 29, 2015.
The United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) also disclosed that Fulani militias killed 1,061 people in about 106 attacks on communities in central Nigeria in the first quarter of 2018. CSW said 11 other attacks on communities in the southern parts of the country by the militia claimed a further 21 lives.
In Benue alone, Governor Samuel Ortom had revealed that the state lost N400 billion in the crisis since 2015 while Fulani herders also claimed they lost 1000 members and two million cows.
James Kwen, Abuja
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