What’s fuelling the crisis in Nigeria’s Middle Belt
For over a decade, a crisis has been quietly and methodically consuming Nigeria’s agricultural heartland. The conflict in the Middle Belt, once dismissed as localised clashes between farmers and herders, has metastasised into a multi-faceted national security threat. The violence, fuelled by a dangerous confluence of environmental pressures, easy access to weapons, and state negligence, is an existential threat to the country’s food security and social cohesion. Tomorrow, I’ll be joining NewsCentralTV on Twitter Spaces to discuss this with a distinguished panel: Confidence MacHarry, a senior analyst with SBM Intelligence; Steven Kefas, a journalist and founder of the Middle Belt Times; Haroun Yusuf Ademola, a medical doctor and founder of the NGO Love for Health; Ier Jonathan-Ichaver, founder of Sesor, a foundation that provides relief to displaced persons; Stanley Kavwam, a Deputy National Publicity Secretary with the Middle Belt Forum; and Zariyi Yusuf, a lecturer at Veritas University. It’s a conversation that can no longer be ignored.
The roots of this crisis are complex, yet tragically predictable. Climate change and desertification in northern Nigeria have decimated grazing lands, forcing pastoralists southwards into the fertile Middle Belt. This migration has inevitably intensified competition for land with settled farming communities, leading to disputes that have since exploded into full-blown conflict. Since 2010, these clashes have undergone a deadly transformation. What was once settled with sticks and negotiation now involves military-grade firearms and systematic violence. This proliferation of weaponry has turned a resource conflict into a campaign of terror, with herders and other armed groups engaging in targeted killings, massacres, and the deliberate destruction of crops and grain stores. The December 2023 Bokkos massacre, which claimed 140 lives, and the brutal attacks in Benue this year are chilling testaments to this new, more lethal reality.
The human cost is staggering, with profound consequences for a country already grappling with poverty and instability. Over 2.2 million people have been displaced nationwide, abandoning their homes and farms in what were once Nigeria’s most productive agricultural zones. In Benue State alone, 300,000 people are crowded into makeshift camps. The loss of agricultural output in these states has directly contributed to soaring food inflation, which hit 35.41% in January 2024. As a result, the number of food-insecure Nigerians rose dramatically from 66.2 million in early 2023 to 100 million a year later. The cycle is vicious: climate change and conflict push herders south, their cattle destroy farms, a cycle of violence is worsened, and food scarcity fuels a humanitarian crisis that further destabilises communities.
Alarmingly, the violence is no longer confined to the Middle Belt. It has spread southward, with intensifying outbreaks in states like Enugu, Ondo, and Delta. This geographical expansion is a clear warning that the crisis threatens to consume the entire country. Protests by women in Enugu in March 2025 and by farmers in Delta and Bayelsa are stark indicators of a growing public outrage over what is perceived as government inaction. However, as the reports rightly point out, this justified anger also risks spilling over into attacks on innocent Fulani civilians, further exacerbating the ethnic and religious fault lines that have been dangerously politicised.
The government’s response has been woefully inadequate. While initiatives like the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) and state anti-open grazing laws exist on paper, their implementation has been a dismal failure. Political resistance, corruption, and a pervasive lack of will to prosecute perpetrators have rendered these policies toothless. Military operations like ‘Exercise Ayem Akpatuma’ provide only temporary relief, failing to address the fundamental causes of the conflict. The fragmented regulatory landscape, with inconsistent enforcement of grazing bans, inadvertently allows violence to simply shift from one state to another. This failure of governance is perhaps the most critical driver of the crisis, fostering a climate of impunity that emboldens the perpetrators.
To avert a national catastrophe, Nigeria requires a multifaceted and courageous approach. First, there must be a genuine, impartial effort to restore the state’s monopoly on force through robust arms control measures and the swift prosecution of all perpetrators of violence. Second, a holistic land reform strategy is needed to establish clear and equitable grazing rights and land ownership. This must be coupled with serious investment in climate adaptation programmes, such as modern ranching and irrigation, to reduce the resource competition that fuels the conflict. Finally, there must be a depoliticisation of the crisis. All parties must reject ethnic and religious narratives and commit to dialogue and reconciliation.
The fate of Nigeria’s food security and national stability hangs in the balance. As I prepare to discuss this issue tomorrow, it’s clear that this is more than a regional problem; it’s a systemic national emergency. The time for decisive, impartial, and sustained action is not merely due — it’s now the only path forward.