Herder-farmer conflicts: Nextier wants training for security agencies on loyalty to constitution

By George Okereke

National institutions involved in managing herder-farmer conflicts in Benue and other states should be given thorough training on loyalty to the country’s constitution, even at the risk of disobeying powerful political interests that wish to project and pursue narrow provincial interests.
The training should be extended to all security institutions in the country with emphasis on the need for loyalty to the constitution and national values rather than parochial regime interests.
These were some of the recommendations by a strategic public policy firm, Nextier, in a report it recently published on the persistent conflicts between farmers and cattle rearers in Benue state and other parts of the country.
According to the report authored by Dr. Ben Nwosu and Dr. Ndu Nwokolo, an Associate Consultant and a Managing Partner and Chief Executive at Nextier respectively, the recommendations became necessary “in light of the government’s lack of decisiveness in dealing with the persistent attacks on communities.”
Titled “Benue Conflicts and Governmental Helplessness,” the report also recommended that “the national security architecture should be reorganised to include more local participation as it pertains to a more robust local policing and its nature.
“There is a need to build local intelligence and early warming responses around Benue Community Volunteer Guards and other local non-state security outfits in order to respond to some of these attacks before they occur.”
It noted that the frequent violence in Benue and some other states of the country and the increasing pressure it entails for the country’s security institution had imposed the need to reorganise the national security architecture to include more local participation.
“In other words, there should be conversations about more robust local policing and the nature it should take.
There is a need to build local intelligence and early warming responses around Benue Community Volunteer Guards and other local non-state security outfits in order to respond to some of these attacks before they occur,” the report emphasised.
It added: “Therefore, a synergy between formal (National security outfits) and semi-formal (in this case, state-governments-supported policing outfits) should be given serious consideration. Any security architecture that is not driven by local intelligence and knowledge may not likely be successful.”
Nextier observed that the agrarian violence in Benue State appeared intractable. “The reason is that state security institutions that should stop the conflicts are hampered by vested interests in government, which fails to permit the security forces to be guided by the constitution and ethos of service to the national interest.
“Consequently, mass killings occur with impunity while the governmental institutions fail to act not for lack of capacity but for narrow regime loyalty. In the process, the government appears like a subject conditioned into learned helplessness while its citizens are constantly exposed to the danger of mass murder.”
Recalling some of the major attacks between 2015 and 2023 which allegedly claimed over 5000 lives, Nextier SDP Policy Weekly, in the report, lamented the utter helplessness of Benue State Government in the midst of the crisis due to constitutional impairment.
It said: “The Benue State of Nigeria is perhaps as unsafe as any severely terrorised territory. That valley of green vegetation that correctly prides itself as the nation’s food basket appears to have become a valley of blood flowing from constantly marauded agrarian communities. It is indeed one of the most persistent violence related to contestations for livelihood.
“The implication of this violence includes not only the depopulation of communities with constant killings but also forced abandonment of ancestral homes, expansion of the camps of internally displaced persons in the State and inability to cultivate the land due to well-founded fears of attack. Apart from the looming food insecurity from this crisis, the displaced communities are forcefully occupied by their attackers.
“Reinforcing the whole climate of terror from agrarian violence is the learned helplessness of the government in the presence of the long-running carnage and population displacement in Benue State. The State government is obviously hampered due to constitutional limits of sub-national governments on matters of security and control of security apparatuses.
“In moments of desperation and helplessness, the Benue State Government had openly accused the Buhari-led Federal Government of treating the tragedy with indifference and connivance with the Fulani herdsmen who were behind the attacks.
“Thus, in its bid to provide security in some of its communities, the Benue state government August 2022 inaugurated its Community Volunteer Guards, with the main arm of providing conventional security in most of its rural agro-communities that are constantly under attack.
“Overall, the poor official response to the attritional violence supports its continuity and the festering insecurity in the Benue Valley.
“In response to continuing violent attacks and the destruction of crops, the Benue State government enacted an anti-open grazing law in 2017 to prevent the unrestricted movement of cattle and its attendant damages. This law was not well-received by the herders, and it no doubt added to the tensions. which were already at a high level.”