In-DepthAfrica

Herders vs. Farmers: Nigeria’s Other Security Crisis

Herders vs. Farmers: Nigeria’s Other Security Crisis
A nomadic Fulani herder grazes his sheep on parched land around Gadabeji, Niger, May 11, 2010 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

KADUNA, Nigeria—The funeral took place on a sunny, late March morning in Goska, a village in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state. Against the backdrop of mud homes covered with corrugated zinc roofing, people bustled down the single dusty road that runs through the town to a patch of land next to a church. Hundreds formed a crowd around a brown casket to bury 50-year-old Gideon Morik, a community leader who died on March 16.

One of Gideon’s solemn-faced wives made her way silently to the center of the field. She dabbed her face with a handkerchief as she placed a vase of flowers on top of the casket. “I miss him,” she mumbled in the Hausa language, which is dominant in northern Nigeria, then sat beside her mother-in-law, tears running down her cheeks. “Today is a bad day, very bad day for us.”

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