Fulani herdsmen's incessant attacks may lead to civil war, say church leaders and human rights groups

Fulani herdsmen allegedly supported by Boko Haram have once again attacked Christian villages on April 25, killing at least 27 indigents. The series of death and destruction which previously took place in the central region of Nigeria have started to spill over the southern states. Human rights groups as well as church leaders fear that these regular attacks and the government's inability to thwart the killings may set the federal country off into a state of civil war.

The three Christian villages of Odozi-Obodo, Onu-Eke, and Nimbo that were most recently raided are in the south-eastern state of Enugu. Enugu state policeman Ebere Amaraizu spoke with Morning Star News to confirm the report. He said on the phone interview with the publication that they have already recovered 21 bodies and that the death toll may increase once the missing bodies are found.

Church leaders also spoke to Morning Star News and said that rape, murder, and destruction of farmlands in Christian villages in the same communities by the militiamen are rampant and yet authorities have not taken any significant action to prevent them. The clergy and the secessionist group Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) both lament the government security's inability to prevent militant attacks despite having sufficient information beforehand. This prompted the MASSOB secessionist group to stir Enugu indigents to take up arms for their defense.

Human rights groups, Christians worldwide, and church leaders have expressed their fear that the ongoing Fulani attacks may trigger civil war. "What happened in Agatu is again being spread to other areas, and this is breeding serious civil war that is very much in breach of peace in this country," the archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion Rt. Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Olisa Chukwuma said in a press conference on April 26. "We don't want war, but the way things are happening, if care is not taken, there is going to be another war which nobody can avert. It is either Nigeria must be one, or we disintegrate and go our ways," he added.