UNENDING VIOLENCE IN ADAMAWA COMMUNITY
All the stakeholders should do more to stem communal conflicts
Barely a few weeks after Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri brokered a peace deal between the Bachama and Chobo communities resulting from longstanding land disputes, a fresh crisis broke out last week leading to deaths and destruction. Seven women were reportedly killed and several others wounded while protesting what they described as “delayed response,” and thinly supported charges of bias by security forces to stem tensions between the troubled communities in Lamurde Local government Area of Adamawa State. In the course of the protest, security forces allegedly fired shots into the crowd of the unarmed women protesters who blocked their passage leading to fatalities. The Headquarters of 23 Brigade of the Nigerian Army has denied the allegation, insisting that the women were killed by some militia members who were supporting one of the warring groups. The army added that the troops only responded to distress calls in the communities to restore peace. In response to the renewed violence, the state government has imposed a 24-hour curfew on Lamurde local government area.
While we commiserate with the families of the deceased, the Lamurde violence has once again deepened anxiety over unresolved land disputes, ethnic mistrust and repeated security failures across the country. Longstanding land conflicts, besides tearing communities apart, often leave in their wake deaths, destruction, and displacement.
In June 2022, a series of clashes between neighbouring Boshikiri community in Guyuk Local government area and Kupte, Wuro Mallam Isa and Tudun Wada communities in the same local government led to deaths and a wave of population displacement. This year alone, Lamurde has witnessed three major rounds of violence which resulted in looting homes, setting farms ablaze and forcing many residents to flee for safety. Yet the Bachama and Chobo ethnic groups have lived side by side as neighbours in Lamurde for centuries, intermarrying and speaking each other’s language, besides sharing the same social infrastructure like schools, markets, and health centres.
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While the Chobo, said to be the original inhabitants, live in the mountainous area of Lamurde, including Wammi, Lakan, and Sikori, which extend towards the border with Gombe State, the Bachama are settled in Rigange, Waduku, and other lowland areas. But disputes over predominantly farmlands with both sides claiming ancestral ownership, have long resulted in frequent outbreaks of violence, with the communities resorting to self-help. Only last July, violence broke out in the Bachama communities of Rigangun and Waduku, following a dispute over farmland. Sadly, security measures put in place to contain attacks and cycle of reprisals, have failed to prevent a renewed outbreak of violence. And as tension escalates, confidence in local dispute resolution has waned as many communities began to organise self-defence groups to protect their kinsmen and farmlands.
Described as militias, many of the armed youths on both sides have escalated the risk of violence, turning what were once manageable disputes into recurring security nightmares. Unfortunately, the shift from dialogue to self-help has made the conflict harder to contain and more deadly. This is not helped with the influx of illegal Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) into the country. The ease of access to these weapons has made individuals and communities more fortified and hence less amenable to entreaties to make peace. Indeed, in Nigeria the surge for the offensive is enabled because many communities are self-arming to protect themselves. But the frequency of these clashes is frightening, taking into consideration their implications for peace and security in the nation.
We call on authorities in Abuja and the states to arrest this rapid and steady slide into anarchy by addressing the conditions that make violent attacks tools of expressing grievances between and among communities.
