The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has criticized the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, for his use of the term “herders-farmers clashes,” stating that the term inaccurately portrays the situation as clashes instead of armed herders’ terrorism against farmers.
Responding to Tajudeen’s claim that these clashes resulted in 60,000 deaths over 22 years, HURIWA urged the speaker to focus on prosecuting and punishing the killer herders rather than discussing casualty figures.
The group also challenged Tajudeen to provide the source of his casualty data. The speaker’s statement was made during an interactive session by the House Ad hoc Committee on recurring conflicts between farmers and herders in Gombe State.
Continuing, HURIWA expressed shock that politicians, especially from Northern Nigeria, have attempted to downplay the one-sided attacks on farmers by armed Fulani herders, highlighting that attacks by herders caused more deaths in 2018 than those attributed to Boko Haram, according to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) of 2019 just as the group added that the report also indicated a shift of terrorism from Nigeria’s North-East region to the Middle Belt, with increased violence between herders and farmers.
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HURIWA further emphasized the urgency of addressing this issue and condemned the inaccurate representation of the situation as mere clashes between two groups. The organization urged for a more accurate recognition of the herders’ attacks as acts of terrorism against farmers.
