Free Republic

Zamfara State in northern Nigeria is suffering from a long-term conflict between mostly Muslim Fulani nomadic herders and mostly Christian Hausa farmers. Zamfara has a population of about ten million, of which about 20% are Fulani and other tribal herders. Disputes between herders and farmers have been accelerated by increasing populations, the ability of herders to breed and treat cattle for “tsetse fly” related diseases, and poor and disputed land titles.While numbers are difficult to validate, hundreds, possibly thousands, have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their lands and homes. Armed camps in forested areas, kidnapping,...

Kidnapped students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization Kaduna, have appealed to the Government not to use force to rescue them as their captors warned that such moves would lead to the killing of all the students. Benson Emmanuel, one of the students who spoke in a video that went viral on Saturday, said that they were surrounded by the gunmen who threatened that none of them would leave alive once the security agents attempt to rescue them by force. Emmanuel, who sat on the ground together with the other abductees, both males and females, said they needed urgent...

The persecution of the Igbos didn't end with the Biafran conflict. Until the nation faces up to this, its mediocrity will continue Almost 30 years before Rwanda, before Darfur, more than 2 million people – mothers, children, babies, civilians – lost their lives as a result of the blatantly callous and unnecessary policies enacted by the leaders of the federal government of Nigeria.As a writer I believe that it is fundamentally important, indeed essential to our humanity, to ask the hard questions, in order to better understand ourselves and our neighbours. Where there is justification for further investigation, justice should...