An under-the-radar ethnic conflict is eclipsing the infamous terror group as the biggest security threat facing Africa’s largest economy. Haruna Usman’s biggest worry for many years was the pests that feasted on his harvest of millet, corn and groundnut in the small farming village of Maha-awo in Nigeria’s northwest state of Zamfara. Life was peaceful for the 50-year-old with three wives and 25 children. Then, in April, his life tipped into tragedy. Bandits killed his 22-year-old son Sulaiman and, days later, forced his family to flee Maha-awo. They fell victim to the escalating violence that’s ravaging northwest Nigeria and eclipsing Boko Haram as the biggest security threat to President Muhammadu Buhari’s recently reelected regime. The crisis started as tit-for-tats between rural farmers and herders over cattle destroying crops in 2011. But it has now exploded into a full-fledged ethnic conflict between two of Nigeria’s most prominent communities: the Fulani, traditional herders with a population of seven million, and the Hausa, farmers with an estimated population of 25 million in Africa’s largest nation. The violence has claimed more than 300 lives since the start of 2019, security experts say, threatening to exceed the 411 civilians who died in clashes with Boko Haram in all of 2018. |