A TruthNigeria Investigation | By Ekani Olikita
(Abuja) — For more than a decade, Christian communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt have faced relentless attacks by Fulani ethnic militias—violence that has left thousands dead, millions displaced, and farmlands deserted. Yet successive governments, global agencies, and sections of the media continue to describe the killings as a “farmers–herders conflict” or fallout of “climate change.”
Mounting evidence, however, shows these narratives have become convenient shields—masking what victims and analysts describe as a coordinated campaign of ethnic and religious persecution.
The Convenient Scapegoat
Officials and international partners often trace the crisis to desertification in northern Nigeria, claiming that shrinking grazing fields push Fulani herders southward in search of fertile land. While partly true, this explanation dangerously oversimplifies a complex, organized pattern of attacks.
Climate change is global, but nowhere else has it produced systematic massacres, village burnings, and the destruction of churches. Desertification cannot explain the midnight slaughter of women and children or the coordinated raids on Christian farming communities.
From Grazing to Grievance
What once were genuine disputes over grazing routes have evolved into deliberate, military-style assaults by Fulani militias wielding sophisticated weapons and enjoying near-total impunity.
Investigations show these attacks are premeditated—supported by logistics and reconnaissance—contradicting claims of spontaneous “communal clashes.” Labeling them as “farmers–herders crises” gives the illusion of balance and erases the asymmetry between armed invaders and unarmed villagers.
Weaponizing Global Narratives
International agencies and climate advocates—often echoing official government lines—frame the killings as collateral fallout from environmental stress. This framing attracts donor funding for “peacebuilding” and “pastoral reform” projects that rarely reach the victims.
Instead, these programs have become lucrative bureaucratic ventures for consultants and politicians, while displaced families in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, and Southern Kaduna struggle for food, water, and shelter.
The Silence of the State
Despite years of massacres, prosecutions remain rare. Government statements frequently describe the attacks as “reprisals,” “banditry,” or “mutual clashes,” avoiding terms like terrorism or genocide.
This deliberate language shields perpetrators and shifts blame onto victims. Villagers who attempt self-defense are branded as troublemakers, while attackers are recast as “aggrieved herders.” Such manipulation of words denies victims justice and emboldens aggressors.
Ethnic Agenda Disguised as Ecological Migration
Survivors insist the violence follows a pattern of land occupation and demographic change. Once Christian villages are destroyed, new settlers often move in—sometimes under security watch.
In Benue and Plateau States, where anti-open grazing laws exist, attacks have intensified, suggesting not environmental migration but retaliation. The victims remain overwhelmingly Christian farmers, reinforcing fears of a slow-moving campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing disguised as ecological displacement.
TruthNigeria Changing the Narrative
Christopher Ahangba Ayati, Benue State Director of Information and community leader of Ayati—one of the hardest-hit areas—told TruthNigeria:
“Until TruthNigeria came on board, these attacks were falsely reported as ‘farmer–herder clashes’ caused by climate change. Now the world is seeing the real picture—the genocide against Christians in Nigeria. This awareness even influenced President Donald Trump’s recent redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.”
Exposing the Myths
American filmmaker Judd Saul, founder of Equipping the Persecuted, and award-winning journalist Lara Logan have been instrumental in exposing these misleading narratives internationally.
Saul told TruthNigeria that when 258 Christians were killed in Yelewata, Benue State, in June 2025, some international media reported only 100 deaths, describing the massacre as a “tribal conflict.”
“In Nigeria, journalists are often paid to publish government narratives,” Saul said. “If they’re not invited, it means the event ‘didn’t happen.’”
At a Washington press briefing on July 24, 2025, Logan added:
“Before TruthNigeria, many Nigerian journalists repeated the line that Fulani herders were merely displaced by climate change. It’s absolute nonsense. That’s how climate change became a smokescreen for what’s really happening.”
The Cost of False Narratives
The human and economic toll is staggering. Millions of farmers have lost their homes and livelihoods, worsening food insecurity across the nation. By reducing organized terror to “environmental stress,” state and international actors have protected perpetrators and silenced victims.
Persistent denial not only deepens humanitarian suffering but also weakens Nigeria’s moral standing and international credibility.
A Call for Truth and Accountability
Nigeria cannot end this bloodshed without confronting reality. While climate change may worsen resource scarcity, it is not the cause of terrorism. Victims who spoke to TruthNigeria identified the true drivers as ideology, identity, land, and political power.
The path to peace begins with honesty—naming perpetrators, protecting victims, and rejecting narratives that conceal crimes against humanity.
What is unfolding in Nigeria’s Middle Belt is not a “climate story,” but a human tragedy—a war of displacement and silence, where truth itself is under attack.
Ekani Olikita
Conflict Reporter, TruthNigeria
