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Pastoralism and Islamic practice in Fulɓe communities of northern Nigeria and Niger
p. 117-148
Texte intégral
Introduction
1There is presently widespread attention being given to the pastoral Fulɓe in West Africa, mainly from a security standpoint, and to their Muslim identity that is also associated with the history of Islamic reform in the region. This study touches on some of these issues but it also aims for ethnographic depth, based on field research within specific pastoralist communities.1In both Nigeria and Niger, Fulɓe pastoralists are facing acute livelihood pressures and, in some areas, insecurity and conflict. The level of violence is particularly high in Nigeria, where over the past decade (since 2010) violent conflicts, often expressed in ethno-religious terms, have increased between pastoralists and farmers.2 In the Nigerian media and popular discourse, ‘herdsmen’ are widely stereotyped and maligned. Issues related to the access of communities to land and water in rural areas of Nigeria, Niger, and other parts of West Africa are necessarily political, but they have become more fraught and divisive as ecological and demographic pressures have increased. Questions of access to and tenure over land and of the mobility of people and livestock are mixed up with national and local identity politics.
2Pastoral and agricultural livelihoods are evidently under considerable strain in Nigeria and Niger, mainly due to uncontrolled population growth in those countries, the expansion of cultivation into what were previously grazing areas, and ecological degradation. Conflicts between pastoralists and farmers, when they arise, often occur along ethnic and religious lines, and can either lead to or be triggered by wider outbreaks of communal violence. These are generally, but not exclusively, conflicts with two or more sides involved, but both in Nigeria and Niger the conflicts have different forms and origins, with variation between locations and in terms of the type of armed groups involved. There are also pastoralist and farming communities in different regions of Nigeria and Niger who continue to live peacefully together.
3The Fulani, or Fulɓe (sg. Pullo) – their self-ascribed name in the Fulfulde language – have a distribution throughout West Africa, from Mauritania to Nigeria and Niger, and across parts of central Africa into Sudan. ‘Fulani’, as they are widely known in Nigeria and Niger, is the Hausa name for the Fulɓe that has been adopted into English (whereas in French, Peul(s) is used, which comes from Wolof). With their wide geographical spread, the pastoral Fulɓe are heterogeneous, with marked dialectical and cultural variations, but taken as a whole – and many do still have an imagined sense of cultural unity – they are the largest pastoralist population in Africa. They mainly raise cattle, but sheep and other animals are also important (and the Uda’en, a Fulɓe sub-group, specialize in sheep). Most pastoral families now also farm crops on a subsistence basis - grains such as maize, sorghum, and millet, and vegetables like sweet potato and cowpea – even while raising livestock is their main activity and is central to their culture. They are the subject of an extensive ethnographic literature, although this is uneven in its geographical coverage and much of it is now dated.3 There are also many Fulɓe who have settled or become urbanized, working in other sectors apart from pastoralism, such as in trade or as educated professionals. Even in more ‘traditional’ pastoral settings, the Fulɓe are internally variegated, with strong identities based on lineage and clan ties (lenyi, sg. lenyol). The pastoral Fulɓe are predominantly Muslim, but there is also a small and significant Fulɓe Christian minority. Among the Muslim majority their internal diversity extends to religious knowledge and practice, part of the focus of this chapter.
Map 6. Geographical distribution of Higazi’s fieldwork

4More evidence-based analysis is needed of the different forms of insecurity affecting pastoral and agricultural communities on both sides of the Nigeria-Niger border. The diversity of pastoralists and the current sociology of pastoral production need to be better understood, taking cognizance of processes of social, economic, and ecological change that they are affected by and responding to.4 This study was undertaken in that spirit of inquiry, with the aim of contributing to our understanding of what is happening within selected Fulɓe groups in northern Nigeria and Niger. The main focus is on religious dynamics and practices, but during fieldwork both in Niger and Nigeria it was clear that social changes in the religious field could not be separated from wider pressures in the political economy of pastoralism and rural life. This chapter also touches on those wider issues and considers Islamic practice among the Fulɓe in the context of changing pastoral livelihoods and of ecological and physical insecurity in the Savanna and Sahel. Conflict and the representation of pastoralists is considered below but the chapter does not aim to give a detailed regional overview. Its focus, ethnographically, is on specific pastoral groups and their social and environmental conditions in selected places in Nigeria and Niger.
5In Nigeria and other parts of the region, the pastoral Fulɓe have become increasingly typecast on an ethnic basis in popular and social media as tending towards ‘militancy’ and ‘terrorism’. The problem is that it is a stereotype, and it is misleading and reductionist if we wish to understand Fulani societies in their complexity and full range, but it is one that has grown with increasing numbers of pastoral conflicts. The Global Terrorism Index feeds into this at an international level and singles out armed groups involving Fulani on an ethnic basis, labelling them ‘Fulani militants’ and ‘Fulani extremists’. In 2015 the index claimed that ‘Fulani militants’ were the fourth-most deadly ‘terrorist group’ in the world – behind Boko Haram, ISIS, and the Taliban, but ahead of Al Shabaab.5 Widespread cases of violent conflict between Fulɓe pastoralists and farmers from different ethnic backgrounds were categorized as ‘terrorism’. The 2017 report refers to ‘Fulani extremists’ and claims they are a ‘subset’ of Fulani herders, but again this is partial because it lists only alleged Fulani attacks, not violence against Fulani communities. Without any serious conflict analysis in the report, the Fulani are only presented as aggressors.6 The use of a single derogatory ethnic label for violence perpetrated by different types of armed groups stereotypes the wider Fulani population but it also means that these wide-ranging conflicts across the region are not disaggregated.
6The 2019 report continues in this way, but states ‘Events… attributed to ‘Fulani Extremists’ reflect the use of terrorism as a tactic in the conflict between pastoralists and farmers, rather than the existence of an organized terrorist group.’7 In fact, ‘the use of terrorism as a tactic’, defined in this way, could apply to most armed groups involved in inter-communal violence in Nigeria, to the different sides involved in conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, to the attacks carried out by militias on different sides of those conflicts, and to the violent actions and attacks by criminal gangs or ‘bandits’. The index attempts to record and characterize acts of violence attributed to ‘Fulani militants’ in West Africa, which undoubtedly do occur, but not the violence of other protagonists in these conflicts or acts of comparable violence against pastoralist communities – of which there have been many. To add a religious connotation, it also made the odd assertion, without citing any evidence, that the majority of farmers in Nigeria are Christian, and suggested that 60,000 people had been killed in clashes between farmers and herders in Nigeria since 2001, on the basis of a completely unreferenced and unverified claim in a newspaper article.8
7There are different types of conflict that Fulɓe communities are affected by and involved in. There is communication in Fulfulde between Fulɓe across the region, but there are also substantial differences between cases and in the social situations of the Fulɓe. There are, for example, violent eruptions, especially in the Nigerian case but sometimes in Niger too, that have an ethno-religious or inter-ethnic expression, but the circumstances are locally defined and contexts vary. These may converge with and be driven by livelihood pressures and competition between pastoralists and farmers over land – often exacerbated by the land-grabbing of political and business elites. In other cases, attacks are perpetuated by criminal gangs or ‘bandits’ (Momale, 2016; Rufa’i, 2017), operating through rural-urban networks and sometimes with political protection. There is also a religious component to some of the conflicts, with different articulations, including jihadism as a mobilizing factor for some of the Fulani in confict zones of Mali, Burkina Faso and western Niger. If we look at the situation at a regional level, or even within Nigeria or Niger, there are different types of armed actors and multiple agrarian and pastoral groups involved across the spectrum of what are labelled as ‘herder-farmer conflicts’.
8The apparent increase in conflicts involving Fulɓe groups – and the connection of these conflicts in some areas of the Sahel to what has been labelled ‘the new wave of jihadist insurgency’ in West Africa (Ibrahim 2017: 5) – has raised questions about religious trends within the pastoral Fulɓe. In the current political environment, the proliferation of violent conflicts involving and affecting pastoralists in West Africa is being linked to a so-called ‘Fulani question’ (or ‘la question peule’). This hinges on concerns about the recruitment of Fulɓe youths in parts of the region into ‘violent extremist groups’, which is certainly happening in some areas but it does not reflect current patterns of Islamic expression within pastoral Fulɓe groups more generally. The social base of the Katibat Macina of Ansar Dine in central Mali is Fulɓe, but the context of recruitment also needs to be understood, as it has occurred in a situation of war and civil insecurity in Mali – following earlier Fulɓe recruitment into Mujao, to counter the Tuareg-dominated MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), with the outbreak of war in Mali in 2012. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), founded in 2015-2016, also recruits among the Fulɓe (though not exclusively), notably in the Liptako Gourma area where the borders of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso intersect. ISGS attacks have extended into Burkina Faso and western Niger. In Niger, it is particularly the areas of Tillaberi and Tahoua regions bordering Mali (Gao region) that are affected. UNHCR reported that 52,000 Nigérien civilians were displaced by the violence in 2018, in addition to the 53,000 Malians already registered as refugees in Tahoua and Tillaberi regions.9 The impacts of war, banditry, inter-ethnic tensions, the mobile lifestyle of pastoralists, their grievances about diminishing access to pasture and water, their regional networks, and 19th century precedents of Fulɓe-led jihads in West Africa (Last 1987) are all cited as factors in the recruitment of some sections of the Fulɓe in the Sahel into jihadi groups.10
9The insurgencies in the central Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin are of course not the only sites of conflict in the region, but they are also not reflective of wider Islamic practice and cross-border connections (which can also be positive – for example, linked to trade or peaceful transhumance). There are, however, genuine grievances and livelihood pressures among the pastoral Fulɓe in Nigeria and Niger. Across wide areas of Nigeria, especially, there is endemic insecurity and violence, which pastoralists are affected by and in some cases participants in. The recruitment by organized jihad movements of pastoral Fulɓe in Nigeria (as of mid-2020) in current conflicts has been limited, but that does not mean it could not become a more significant trend.11 The main risk is of increased cross-border flows between violent movements operating in Mali, Burkina Faso, and western Niger and armed groups in north-west Nigeria, where civil insecurity caused by rural banditry and state failure is already costing many lives. In north-west Nigeria, armed criminal groups already carry out large-scale attacks in rural areas inflicting mass casualties without the motivation of international jihad, so the latter is clearly not a prerequisite for violence. In the central zone of Nigeria, farmer-pastoralist conflicts often occur along religious lines, and fighters on both sides – Christians and Muslims – mobilize around ethnic and religious identities and ideologies. Militancy and arms proliferation have increased over several decades. There are also internal feuds within the pastoral Fulɓe in Nigeria and violent conflicts between farmers, most destructively between the Tiv and Jukun (this is inter-ethnic, both groups are mainly Christian) in Taraba and Benue States.12 Religion as ideology and as an aspect of group social identity is a feature in many of these conflicts, but clearly not in all of them – other factors are vital too.
10With the understandable focus on violence and insurgency and problems of access to the field for researchers due to insecurity, there is limited empirical data on what is happening more broadly in religious terms within Fulɓe populations across the region. Does religion feature in their own expressions of grievance – for example, in relation to the state or other communities – or in demands for change? Even as some pastoralists in the Sahel have entered militant groups, what are the broader social and religious trends in pastoral communities? This study aims to address these questions in relation to specific cases.
11What follows is based primarily on field research carried out by the author in northern Nigeria and Niger Republic in 2015-2016 and updated with references to more recent fieldwork in 2017-19, among Fulɓe pastoralists and their agriculturalist neighbours, in selected research sites. I do not present this as a general study of the Fulɓe in Niger and Nigeria, but rather of the selected cases, which may nonetheless reflect and shed light on issues that are of wider relevance.
Social and historical context
12Fulɓe groups in Nigeria and Niger can be usefully compared because they are present in both countries and there is cross-border mobility and transhumance. Pastoralists face challenging ecological, demographic, and political conditions in both cases. However, the scale and extent of violent conflict in Nigeria is greater than in Niger. Even allowing for Nigeria’s much larger population, the scale of violence in pastoralist conflicts there is unusually high – often with hundreds of fatalities in a single violent episode. A prominent part of the public, political, and media discourse on these conflicts in Nigeria is that this violence is being imported from neighbouring countries, including from Niger. The allegation is that the attacks are being committed by ‘foreign herdsmen’ who have either migrated to Nigeria for transhumance or been invited by the ‘local Fulɓe’ to fight for them. At times explicit, and at other times implicit, within these dominant representations of what is happening is the assumption of both a ‘Fulani’ and ‘Islamic’ threat to local communities. The regional dimension to Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflicts appears to be grossly exaggerated, possibly driven by the wish of government officials to deny responsibility for the violence by blaming it on external factors that they have less control over. It is also part of a xenophobic discourse that presents the Fulɓe in Nigeria as foreign, when the Fulɓe presence in the far north of what is now Nigeria probably dates back to the 14th century (Nelson 1997: 19, citing the medieval Arab historian Makrizi’s recording of a Fulɓe presence in Borno).
Islam and culture among the pastoral Fulɓe
13The level of religious observance varies among the pastoral Fulɓe, as does their affiliation to specific Islamic groups. The cattle-rearing Fulɓe, who live as nomadic or transhumant pastoralists are variously called, in Fulfulde, Fulɓe rimndooɓe, Fulɓe jogiiɓe na’i, Fulɓe ɓayrugol, or Fulɓe gaccungol. They are traditionally perceived as being ‘lax’ Muslims or only ‘nominally’ Muslim (St Croix 1945). The relaxed attitudes of the nomads in religious matters may be contrasted with the religiosity of settled Fulɓe communities (variously called Fulɓe jooɗiiɓe, Fulɓe taaku’en or huya’en). There is some truth to this, but it is an over-generalization and fails to consider pastoralists’ self-perceptions and their own beliefs. Religious observance may be minimal in some cases; historically due to the demands of nomadic life and cultural practices that are not Islamic in origin and are associated with their raising of livestock. But more widely there has been an increase at least in outward signs of religiosity among the pastoralists.
Photo 8. Mosque and elderly sheikh in Gelohoy, a mainly Fulɓe (Tijaniyya) village, Say Region, south-west Niger

(Photo: Adam Higazi)
14Adherence to Islam and the place of Islamic rituals in pastoral ceremonies (kumte, sg. humto) of Woɗaaɓe patrilineal clans in Borno were already recorded by Derrick Stenning in the 1950s. He showed how Islamic observance depended on the ceremonial context and the practical demands of pastoral life (with only selective observance of the five daily prayers and of fasting during Ramadan). There was usually Islamic content in individual rites of passage, such as naming ceremonies (kumte innde) and in most types of marriage ceremony (Stenning identified five types of Woɗaaɓe marriage) (Stenning, 1966: 395-6). Islamic prayers were given in most public ceremonies performed by the Woɗaaɓe, but the cultural content of the dances (such as daɗɗo) and other public activities, was not religious. The ownership of cattle and the establishment of family herds were also worked out culturally, in ceremonies informed by Woɗaaɓe pastoral practice rather than religion: ‘where changes in the rights over cattle are concerned, no Islamic ceremony is countenanced, even in respect of the individual whose change of status is implicit in the event’ (Stenning 1966: 398). The degree of Islamic observance thus varied depending on the material and ceremonial context.
15This prompts certain questions. How have changes in the pastoral economy and pastoralist societies affected the interaction and balance between religious and cultural values? Are there differences in Islamic practice between sedentary and nomadic populations? How do pastoralists express their religiosity? Is there a ‘scriptural’ Islam that emphasizes ‘orthodoxy’, represented by a literate, urban-based ulama, and a ‘local’ Islam prevalent in rural areas and pastoralist communities that is more oral and perhaps more syncretic and tolerant of folk cultures and traditions?
16Historically among the Fulɓe, distinctions were made between the clerical class of Islamic scholars (moodiɓɓe, sometimes connoted as a clan, torodɓe), on the one hand, and the nomadic pastoralists on the other, with their supposedly more superficial understanding of the religion and their greater adherence to ‘Fulɓe culture’ (notably the precepts of pulaaku, an idealized set of cultural rules). These social divisions were not clear-cut, as there were interactions and sometimes kinship links between religious scholars, political office holders, and pastoralists, and scope for individuals from pastoralist backgrounds to shift vocation, especially in cases of individuals with access to religious education (this also happened in the 19th century, under different circumstances, in the Sokoto Caliphate: see Usman 1981; Burnham & Last 1994: 327). In anthropology, these distinctions in religious and cultural practice were juxtaposed as the ‘great’ and ‘little’ traditions within a culture (Redfield 1956). The idea of an interconnected but distinct ‘great tradition’ and ‘little traditions’ has been applied to religions, to account for the diverse local appropriations and practices within specific religious traditions:
In any civilization, there is a great tradition of the reflective few, and a little tradition of the largely unreflective many. The societal dimensions of these two traditions are the great community and little community. Thus, the great tradition is the culture of the great community of priests, theologians, and literary men who may not even have seen the village. Those two traditions are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent… . (Obeyesekere 1963: 139)
17This model was applied to the study of Islamic societies by Ernest Gellner (1981), writing on Morocco but generalizing the model rather widely. The dichotomy may be less generalizable in a ‘modern’ context where literacy and religious education have increased, including in rural areas, but it may still have applicability in some contexts. In northern Nigeria and Niger, it cannot be argued that the urban-based ulama have not seen a village, nor that rural folk do not have urban connections. Furthermore, there has been a fragmentation of religious authority, among both Muslims and Christians in Nigeria and Niger. There has been a proliferation of different Islamic (and Christian) organizations, preachers, and mosques,13 often with competition between factions or sects for control of mosques (see Gwadabe, this volume). The model, however, does raise questions about variations in Islamic practice between different social and geographic contexts. If there is a ‘great tradition’, it is to the extent that there is a literate, Arabic-speaking ulama with an orientation towards scriptural-based knowledge of the Islamic religion, but the ulama represents different traditions of thought and practice within Sunni Islam.
18The ‘little traditions’ of popular or folk Islam in Nigeria and Niger – representing ‘local’ forms of the religion – have been associated with those outside the reformist currents of mainly urban-based Islamic groups. They are often the targets of those reformists who oppose cultural practices that they allege are un-Islamic or ‘syncretistic’ innovations (bid’ah), but some pastoral traditions are also suppressed by Tijanis (see below). The selective application of what may be called Fulɓe cultural practices and Islamic practices that Stenning (1966) documented can still be seen today, but the configuration between the two has changed. The nature of Islamic practice also depends on the Fulɓe community in question: there is evidently significant variation even within northern Nigeria. This is influenced by the local history and economic situation and the type of cultural and religious socialization within the group. For example, on the Jos Plateau and in parts of Bauchi and Kaduna States, the pastoralists are more oriented towards Salafism,14 but more widely the pastoralists have tended towards the darika (Sufi orders), particularly the Tijaniyya. A third category are the numerous pastoralists who are Muslim but do not follow any specific Islamic group. In so far as there is any influence from Sufis and Salafis on their culture and Islamic practice, it is indirect, through mosques and imams in the villages and the wider Muslim community. This is typical in many Fulɓe communities, but no specific data exist on the overall proportion who would declare themselves to be ‘Sufi’ and those who are ‘neutral’ Muslims.15
Photo 9. Cattle market in Illela, Sokoto State, on the Niger-Nigeria border

(Photo: Adam Higazi)
19In rural areas of northern Nigeria and Niger, the socialization of Fulɓe pastoralists into Islam is largely through a combination of Islamic education – which links them to imams and moodiɓɓe (teachers or clerics; malum’en, the Hausa derived word, is also used; sg. moodibbo) in villages and towns – and their attendance at congregational prayers in mosques. Pilgrimage (hajj) – to Mecca and to the tomb of Seehu Usmaanu ɓii Fooɗuye16 in Sokoto (usually before performing the hajj) – is also significant, probably more so in northern Nigeria than in Niger.17 The counter-current is the retention of Fulɓe cultural ideas and practices, such as around magic and witchcraft and in ceremonial traditions within kin groups and around cattle. However, there is also a consistency and intertwining of many ‘cultural’ and ‘religious’ practices; it is only in some instances, not all, that there is tension between them.
Case study 1: Pastoralism and social change in Dakoro, Maradi Region, Niger Republic
Administration and social composition
20Dakoro is a town and department in central southern Niger in Maradi Region. In 2016 the population of Dakoro Department was estimated at 770,907, of which 87,068 lived in the commune of Dakoro (the town and its adjoining villages). The population of Maradi Region as a whole was 3.8 million, the highest of Niger’s eight regions.18 Dakoro town is situated 125 km north of the city of Maradi, which lies close to the border with Nigeria, being only 95 km from Katsina. Dakoro is semi-arid, with low levels of precipitation interspersed during a rainy season that in some years may last only 1 – 2 months.19 It lies at the interface of the agricultural and pastoral zones in Niger and once marked the northern limit of agriculture, though cultivators have gradually pushed that limit northwards through the adoption of irrigation systems. There is now a tarmac road from Maradi to Dakoro town, but the tarmac stops in Dakoro town, outside of which the transportation is along laterite roads or rougher bush paths and sandy desert terrain. Transport by use of pack animals and on foot is common, in addition to the use of motorcycles, and, for elites, four-wheel-drive Toyota pickups.
21The situation of pastoralists in this region is much influenced by the political and institutional arrangements that govern the rural space. The current institutions developed from those established during the colonial period. As Mohamadou (2009: 3) notes: ‘The French colonial authorities established the present department of Dakoro as an administrative and territorial entity in 1947.’ The colonial administration made a formal distinction between territorial areas for agriculture and pastoralism, with different leadership and administrative structures in each. As Oxby (2011: 57-58) explains:
the French colonial administration… made a fundamental distinction between the type of administrative units in the Zone agricole (Agricultural Zone) and the Zone pastorale (Pastoral Zone): in the former, territorially defined administrative units called cantons (cantons) led by chefs de canton (canton chiefs) and under them the various chefs de village (village chiefs); in the latter, ethnically and tribally defined administrative units called groupements or groupes nomades (nomadic groups) led by chefs de groupe (nomadic group chiefs) and under them the various chefs de tribu (tribal chiefs).
22Oxby (2011: 74, fn 11) also notes:
The dividing line between agricultural and pastoral zones coincided with the northern limit of cultivation at the time. The distinction between zones was reconfirmed in a 1961 law (Rép. du Niger 2010: 1) that linked it with the 15th parallel North, which transects the national territory of Niger from east to west.
23What is now the department of Dakoro contains both pastoral and agricultural zones within it, but there are still differences in their administration, stemming from colonial practice:
When the cantons were created in 1947, the colonial administration divided the Dakoro subdivision into two zones that were divided by the Tarka valley. The cantons in the south were recognised as territories, while the so-called ‘residual’ area in the north was occupied by nomads, who merely had rights of use over the area. (Mohamadou 2009: 7, fn 4)
24The problem is that the delineation of a ‘pastoral zone’ and ‘agricultural zone’ tends to be out of sync with the reality of an unstable boundary. The boundary shifts depending on patterns of rainfall and changes in the practice of both pastoralism and agriculture. Farmers and pastoralists are mobile, and what is termed the ‘agricultural zone’ is really an agro-pastoral zone, with pastoralists and farmers cohabiting, either on a permanent basis or when pastoralists pass through on seasonal transhumance (southwards during the dry season, some of them then crossing the border into northern Nigeria, and northwards when the rains start). In agro-pastoral areas it is also common for households to both farm and rear livestock, although there are also large numbers who exclusively do one or the other. Crucially, farmers have pushed the limit of agriculture northwards into the pastoral zone, and as the area of Niger under cultivation has increased, the area of available grazing land has decreased (this is also the general trend in northern Nigeria). Pastoralists have ‘user rights’ but do not own land in the pastoral zone, and the state has not much protected the land there from agricultural expansion and the cutting of pasture by urban-based traders and farmers. At the same time, the density of cultivation in agro-pastoral areas has increased with demographic growth. Stock routes used by herders to move their animals around for day-to-day grazing and on transhumance are often blocked, while good grazing land is in short supply. This situation has generated competition for land and pasture between pastoralist groupings and between pastoralists and farmers.
25The decentralization policy from 2004 was marked by the creation of municipal councils, replacing cantons. The policy was designed to give more power to elected officials at the local level. This had the potential to reduce the power of ‘traditional chiefs’, but the reality in Dakoro was that the chiefs retained political influence, as they were interconnected with the officials who emerged in the municipalities (Mohamadou 2009). The population of Dakoro commune is cosmopolitan, with a social composition reflecting the diversity of the department as a whole, ‘from the Gobirawa and Aderawa Hausa to the Kel Gress and Roumboukawa Tuareg, the Fulani and other groups’ (Mohamadou 2009: 12). The groupings with an officially recognized chief in Dakoro town include the Sarkin Peulh, two Tuareg leaders, and the Sarkin Gobir.20 The chiefs are the leaders of those communities and they meet regularly to resolve disputes in the commune. There are, however, 12 communes in Dakoro Department in total,21 and the administration of the rest of the department rests with the local authorities there, including the chiefs of recognized Fulɓe and Tuareg nomadic groupings.
26At the time of fieldwork in Dakoro in early 2016, the Fulɓe chief, the Serkin Rafi, Alhaji Ahmadu, said he was 87 years old. His family moved from Maradi to Dakoro during the colonial period – probably in the 1930s/40s – and his father was made the first Fulɓe chief in Dakoro town.22 They came with their cattle – they have boɗeeji (red cows) – and according to another source, at that time in Dakoro there were just some Woɗaaɓe and Tuareg nomads and some Europeans.23 The town developed after it was established as an administrative centre by the French colonial state. The Hausa population are now thought to form a majority in the town, but it remains ethnically mixed. After the death of their father, Alhaji Adamu’s elder brother became chief, to represent the Fulɓe community in Dakoro, inheriting the title Serkin Rafi.24 Alhaji Ahmadu, a retired tax officer, then inherited the position after his brother’s death (in 2012 or 2013, three years prior to our meeting). The family claims a Torodɓe lineage, descended from the same line as Shehu Usman dan Fodio.
27It was apparent that the traditional authorities in the departmental headquarters of Dakoro town have limited influence in the more rural communes of the department. The Serkin Rafi said that the arɗo’en (sg. arɗo) (the Fulfulde term for nomadic Fulɓe group leaders) in Dakoro Department respect his authority, but he had no direct control over them, and there were different communes in which the population paid its taxes. He would hear about some of the legal cases or if there were disputes he could mediate in, and in instances of drought he had contacted the political authorities – including the regional governor in Maradi. He gave an example of a drought in which the authorities provided assistance to some of the pastoralists. But in general, it is the arɗo’en in the rural areas who have direct knowledge of the conditions of the population there. However, it became clear that the ardo’en have little or no influence within the administration and therefore little power to improve the adverse conditions in which they and their people find themselves.
Religious and cultural continuity and change
28The overwhelming concern of Fulɓe pastoralist leaders in Dakoro was the huge difficulty in sustaining their livelihoods (see also Oxby 2014). If there had been perceptible changes in religious and cultural practice, these were viewed as secondary issues, not the main problem of their communities. A perception was that the nomadic or pastoral Fulɓe – and pastoralists in Niger generally – were not much affected by the reformist Islam that had gained a following in urban centres such as Maradi and Niamey.25 At the time of fieldwork in 2015-2016, nor did the pastoralists and state officials interviewed in central Niger report any influence from jihadist groups that have been recruiting along the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso and in the Diffa Region. However, there were some variations in the responses of different pastoralist leaders on the issue of wider religious trends, probably reflecting varying social conditions in different communities.
29An arɗo representing a Woɗaaɓe group in Sayrou, which he described not as a village but rather a cluster of camps, stated that in his experience there had been no change in Islamic practice among his people. He estimated that he was about 70 years old. They were Muslim but they were not into any of the reformist movements or Sufi brotherhoods seen in towns. Religious knowledge was transmitted via a minority who pursued Arabic studies, reportedly for 2-3 years in Dakoro.26 Among the Woɗaaɓe in Bermo, performative aspects of their cultural traditions were stated to have greatly reduced due to the dire economic condition of the pastoralist population there.27 There were cultural rites and traditions that were still known, but if the people were unable to sustain their wealth – particularly in cattle – there was no way or perhaps no mood to perform them (including gerewol, the rite the Woɗaaɓe are famed for in tourist brochures and films). They reportedly send their children for Islamic education with Tuareg teachers in Bermo and to malams in Maradi and Dakoro. The arɗo claimed this had led to increased religious observance (a contrasting view to the ardo in Sayrou).28
30There was a comparable perspective from another elder, Alhaji Abeyo Be’oji – an arɗo representing Uda’en pastoralists – another Fulɓe group (lenyol) specialized in raising sheep – from a clan known as Ferooɓe, around Bunde Abeyo village (Dakoro Department).29 He argued the environmental and economic pressures had not led to large changes in the culture. The youths are as they were when he was a youth; young men want to inherit the pastoral lifestyle of their fathers and sustain the family wealth. Some of the cultural traditions remain; they still perform soro, for example (soro had been performed in an area to the north of Dakoro a few months before we met).30 The problem was that if conditions continue as they are now, it will be difficult for many of the younger generation to continue in pastoralism. They will be compelled to go out and find alternative work, because the wealth is reducing, which will accelerate socio-cultural change.31
31The arɗo described some religious changes among the Uda’en. Until recently they did not follow any specific Islamic organization, but now some of the youths are going into Izala. He cited more than ten in his community, most of whom went to Arabic school in Madawa town (Tahoua Region) and came back with the Salafi-influenced reformist ideas of Izala. At the time of fieldwork this was not reported to have affected the relationship between youths and elders, but it would need further investigation. In the Jos Plateau case, for example, the spread of Izala among the Fulɓe did affect inter-generational relations and the position and role of women in the community and family (Higazi, 2018). The Tijaniyya reportedly had no presence among this group of Uda’en Ferooɓe. However, those who attend Arabic school may shun certain aspects of Fulɓe culture; anyone who goes to Arabic school does not go to soro. Their main concern was not religion or culture, however – it was the lack of rainfall and scarcity of pasture.
32There were some variations in religious practice, partly influenced by the type of religious education in different communities. Arɗo Abdullahi from Olli, a village north-east of Dakoro town, said pastoral Fulɓe children from the Ja’oɓe or Tukuranko’en undertake their Quranic education in the village; they have Arabic teachers there and none of that community had gone into Izala. The arɗo said they had three primary schools and one secondary school in Olli.32 Those who finished school tended to leave the village and work outside, while those who did not attend school or did not complete their schooling became pastoralists. In general, where ideas of religious reform have spread into rural areas, it was usually through people who left the villages or camps to pursue Islamic education in towns and then returned with reformist ideas. However, in Dakoro Department it is only a few individuals from pastoralist communities who studied with Quranic teachers linked to Izala or who were influenced by reformist ideas. The more common scenario was for pastoralists in Dakoro to pursue more traditional forms of Islamic knowledge through established networks.
33A perceived loss of discipline among the Fulɓe was another aspect of social change that elders lamented. A Fulɓe leader in Dakoro town claimed their children – Fulɓe youths – were responsible for a perceived increase in criminality. He linked this to cultural changes in which discipline and behaviour defined by the idealized norms of pulaaku had been eroded. This had nothing to do with religious reform but was rather linked to wider societal changes and pressures on pastoral livelihoods. There are many Islamic organizations in Dakoro town, including Izala and Tijaniyya, but most Fulɓe children in Dakoro town go to government schools, not Islamic ones (even if they take Quranic lessons). In this context, greater cultural and religious observance would have been perceived positively, at least by community elders.
Livelihood pressures
34Religious and cultural practices within Fulɓe pastoral groups are inevitably affected by the political economy of pastoralism. Changes in pastoral production and the loss of herds lead to changes in the culture and could make young people, particularly, amenable to new religious ideas and influences as they seek alternative work or new places to live. Pastoralists in Niger face serious social and economic challenges, due to what they report as increasingly hostile climatic and environmental conditions, with rainfall perceived to be at a consistently lower level in central Niger now than at any time since the prolonged droughts of the early 1970s and mid-1980s, and vulnerability to these risks due to population pressure and the reduction in pasture land (Oxby 2011, 2014; author fieldwork 2016). Pastoralist leaders in the field described longer dry seasons and shorter rainy seasons now in the area around Dakoro.33 A similar finding was made by Clare Oxby (2011: 54) when comparing the situation in central Niger between her first fieldwork in 1973-1974 and a return visit in 2010: ‘The big difference is that, whereas a severe drought-linked crisis was exceptional in the 1970s, today it has become recurrent.’
35The impacts of low rainfall are compounded by rapid population growth and agricultural expansion, which together have much reduced the availability of pasture and water.34 The vulnerability of pastoralists is reinforced by their relative political marginalization. Although some of the leaders of pastoralist groupings are politically engaged and can be influential, most pastoralists are not. They circulate primarily in rural areas at the state’s political margins, where their sufferings often go unnoticed, or are ignored. There are also competing interests, between different pastoralist groups, and between pastoralists and farmers, political elites, and in some places agricultural or mining corporations, each laying claim to land and rural resources. These grievances are comparable in Nigeria and Niger, and more widely in the region.
36The problem of low rainfall and scarcity of pasture was emphasized by all the respondents interviewed in Dakoro for this study. An arɗo representing a Woɗaaɓe group in Sayrou, a cluster of nomadic camps some two days’ walk from Dakoro town, recalled the enduring impacts of the severe Sahelian drought of 1972-1973. He observed that the nomadic population never recovered from that drought. But the main challenge now is the climatic shift they have observed with longer dry seasons; he said the environment was not favourable and did not support pastoralism as strongly as before.35 Similarly, an arɗo from Olli, to the north-east of Dakoro town, a Pullo from the Ja’oɓe (or Tukuranko’en) lenyol, explained that in 2015 the rains started in September and ended before the end of October (i.e. it rained for less than two months in the year), and they were not heavy rains.36 Pastoralists emphasized that the climatic stress was compounded by other problems, notably lack of access to animal feed (or high market prices), diminishing their resilience.
37Alhaji Abeyo Be’oji of the Uda’en Ferooɓe viewed the number of pastoralists and livestock as being in decline, because it was very difficult for them to survive without artificial feeding during the dry season.37 Conditions had become especially bad in the three years prior to our meeting in 2016, for successive dry seasons. The Uda’en are nomadic, renowned for their rearing of sheep and red cattle (boɗeeji) and for their transhumance within Niger and between Niger and northern Nigeria. This particular Udaajo leader, however, said that his own people did not migrate into Nigeria. They stayed in the Dakoro area during the dry season when there is no farming – thus, they likely have transitory rather than customary rights over land and water there. When the rains start, they move to Tamayo, near the border between Maradi and Tahoua regions. He said he spends 50,000 CFA per week to feed his herds during the dry season. This significant expense has increased owing to the recurrent droughts and low rainfall. They sell animals to buy feed, reducing the size of their herds. Everyone is at risk of losing livestock, but pastoralists with larger herds are more likely to be able to absorb the losses and sustain a pastoral lifestyle than those with smaller herds, who can easily be pushed out of pastoralism and into poverty.
38Those who lose their animals and their family herds may become hired herders (Fulfulde: woynaaɓe, sg. gaynaako) who tend others’ livestock, or labourers in urban areas. The arɗo requested that animal feed be sold to them directly, at the government rate, rather than through middlemen who inflate the price. Presently, the middlemen who sell the feed have stores in the towns, and prices are lower there than in the villages. In Niger, the government rate for animal feed was 4,000-5,000 CFA per 100 kg in 2016, but government officials allegedly connive with middlemen and sell it in the market for 10,000-11,000 CFA. For people and not just livestock, getting enough food to eat is a problem; but of course, as pastoralists, their well-being depends on the well-being of their animals.
39Nigeria was important both as a source of animal feed and as a market for livestock.38 Pastoralists in Niger were affected by the economic crisis in Nigeria that followed the collapse of the oil price in 2015 and by the naira devaluation (the naira had fallen by about half in US dollar terms on the parallel exchange rate market by 2016). In CFA terms, it was not just the naira but also the price of cattle that dropped by close to half. This had knock-on effects even for rural markets in Niger, because so much of the livestock sold by pastoralists there would ordinarily be transported onwards by traders to the large markets in northern Nigeria.39 Pastoralists in Dakoro Department sell animals in the Dakoro livestock market, for example, but the marketers then sell a substantial proportion of the animals on in Nigeria.40 Much of the population in Dakoro is linked to pastoralism and the livestock trade, so the productivity and profitability of the sector affect the whole department.41 This includes people in town who own cattle that are looked after by relatives or by hired herders in the bush.
40Pasture has also diminished in the Dakoro area owing to factors other than the climate: first, the extension of agriculture northwards into more traditional grazing areas; second, the phenomenon of farmers and urban-based traders cutting grasses in the bush and then loading them into vehicles to store and sell as animal feed to pastoralists during the dry season. Clare Oxby (2011: 70) also found the cutting of pasture for storage and sale was a major problem for pastoralists in Dakoro and Abalak, noting that there is a law against this but it is not enforced. Niger’s Pastoral Code makes it illegal for pastoralists to cut grass for their own animals; therefore some are demanding a change in the law, to permit them to cut grass during the dry season for personal use, and to prevent farmers and traders from cutting the pasture on a commercial basis (Oxby 2011).
Photo 10. Herds in Maradi Region, south Niger

(Photo: Adam Higazi)
Case study 2: Pastoralism and conflict in Karim Lamido, Taraba State, Nigeria
41Karim Lamido local government area (LGA) is situated in northern Taraba State, north-east Nigeria, and borders Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, and Plateau States. It is a productive zone for pastoralism and farming, with the River Benue running parallel with the southern boundary of the LGA and tributaries watering other areas. There is a history of migration of both farmers and pastoralists into the area, in the past three decades and over the centuries. Karim Lamido has high ethno-linguistic diversity and a mixed population of Muslims and Christians. The great majority of pastoralists there are Fulɓe, belonging to different clans, several of which are in competition with each other (such as the Jaafun and Katsinanko’en). Reference to point of origin, migration histories, and lineage defined the structure of authority between Fulɓe groups in Karim Lamido and influenced access to pasture and water. There are tensions between pastoralists, between pastoralists and farmers, and between some of the farmers. Only occasionally did these erupt into physical violence. There were instances both of conflict and cooperation, and the relationship between Fulɓe pastoralists and farmers varied significantly, as they had better relations with some ethnic groups (e.g. Wurkum) than with others (notably Karimjo). Managing the relationship between the two rural activities of livestock production and crop farming is a major issue in Karim Lamido. An equally important aspect of insecurity in the LGA is kidnapping and banditry. This was most acute in the areas bordering Plateau State, as a spillover from conflicts there, but it has since spread. This criminality comes mostly from within the Fulɓe, and it elicited the mobilization of vigilantes linked to the organization Tabital Pulaaku, also Fulɓe, to fight it.
Islamic practice and education
42The pastoralists among whom I have carried out fieldwork in Karim Lamido and at their rainy-season camps in neighbouring states (especially Gombe and Bauchi)42 generally agree that the level of Islamic knowledge in their communities has increased. In the nomadic camps, the five daily Muslim prayers tend to be observed, and they fast during Ramadan and celebrate the two Muslim feast days. Most Fulɓe children, boys and girls, in Karim Lamido receive a rudimentary Islamic education through the practice of almajirci (Hausa: discipleship, where students live away from their parents for a period of Quranic study – see Hoechner, 2018). Nomadic families send their children to ‘traditional’ Quranic schools (Fulfulde: janngirɗe Arabiyya or janngirɗe allooje; sg. janngirde allowal) where students learn to read and recite the Quran using allo boards (rectangular wooden boards the students carry and write on), learning under trees, around fires at night, or in the teacher’s house.43 Children from the nomadic families studied here usually undertake their Quranic studies in rural areas, generally in villages or small towns, not in cities – but elsewhere some Fulɓe families send children to study in cities or large towns (like Gombe, Bauchi, Yola and Ganye). They become almajirai (Fulfulde: pukara’en; sg. pukaraajo) – Quranic students who live away from their parents during their studies – with imams or Quranic teachers (Fulfulde: moodiɓɓe; Hausa: malamai, sg. malam) known to their parents.44 Usually the families send their children to villages in a neighbouring state from their main base, or far enough away to deter the children from returning to camp when they are meant to be studying.
43Some of the teachers are Fulfulde-speaking, while others instruct the children in Hausa. The Jaafun Fulɓe in Karim Lamido send their children for Quranic instruction in a variety of villages. The choice of where to send the children is made by individual families and depends on their social links and relationships in different areas. One destination is the village of Futuk, in Alkaleri LGA of Bauchi State, where the children study in a Fulfulde-speaking environment. Futuk is situated within their general migration orbit and has been a destination for their Quranic studies for some three generations. Other families within the same pastoral group send their children to other villages. Some of these connections are made during migration, when they camp on grazing land outside villages and forge social connections there – participating in prayers at the mosque, going to markets, establishing ties with traditional leaders. Other links to imams or clerics may be kinship-based. The reliance on known Quranic teachers, in specific villages, suggests the acquisition of Islamic knowledge is carefully managed, not arbitrary.
44Within the same Jaafun community45 there is another part of the family that sends its children not to Bauchi State but to a Quranic teacher in the village of Kudini in Lau LGA of Taraba State, bordering Karim Lamido. They go to this malam because they say he is a good scholar.46 Children (girls and boys) go to him for Quranic schooling from the ages of about 13-15, usually for two to three years, but it can be more. They knew the malam was darika (Tijaniyya), but they did not know much about the specific details of his Tijani practices. They pay the malam for the children’s education and upkeep. They give an annual payment of 20,000 naira (about USD 55) per child.47 Apart from that, each child, through the malam, is given 7,000 naira (USD 20) per year for clothing. As the malam is given money by the parents, the children are not expected to beg for money, but they may beg for food (as alms), going from house to house in the village. In the villages where these pastoral Fulɓe almajirai study they must usually do some farm work or domestic labour in return for being fed. (Begging for money tends to be more the practice of almajirai in urban areas.)
45During their studies the children learn some of the basics of reading and writing in Arabic, working their way through the Quran by copying the suras onto their allo boards and reciting it (in Arabic) under the malam’s instruction. They also study Islamic practice, including how to pray, and more learned Quranic teachers may teach advanced students aspects of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). It is rare for them to acquire functional literacy in the Arabic language, and only some can write Fulfulde in Arabic script (ajami). It is mainly those who continue with their studies to a higher level who may achieve this. After they complete their Quranic studies, they return to their families and continue rearing cattle, if they are boys, or prepare for marriage if they are girls. When children are in janngirde (Quranic school), their families may hire herders to replace their labour – if there are not enough other boys within the household to help. Most families with large herds need hired labour to assist them in any case. The hired herders (woynaaɓe; sg. gaynaako) may be non-Fulɓe, from predominantly farming communities (in one camp I visited, two Wurkun48 boys were employed as herders), or from Fulɓe families with fewer cattle and available labour.
46There are also gifts at different stages of an almajiri’s studies. A hen is given to the child after the first stage; then, at the halfway point, when the child has written and recited half of the Quran, the child receives a ram to slaughter as sadaka (voluntary offering or charity). None of these gifts are for the malam. However, at the completion of studies, once the child has recited the whole Quran and has written it down, the malam is given a bull of 2-3 years as a gift, or payment. The families also organize a completion ceremony (Fulfulde: do’a (prayer) or humto jippingo; Hausa: sauka) for the children when they return home at the end of their Quranic studies. This may include the slaughter of a bull to be consumed in the celebration and the giving of gifts to completing students – cattle and/or sheep. That, at least, was the situation of payments and gifts in one nomadic family.
47Only a small minority of nomadic children go to government schools. Their formal education is at a low level, partly because of a cultural scepticism towards modern education, but also because the nomadic education system has largely collapsed in Nigeria.49 The opportunities for the pastoral Fulɓe to send their children to school are limited, even when they really want to educate them. Rural northern Nigeria is generally not well served educationally, with schools or teachers being either absent or of poor quality in most villages. Some of the scepticism towards ‘modern’ education comes from the experience of pupils spending years at low-quality primary and even secondary schools, finishing with poor literacy and no job prospects, while at the same time being no longer useful as pastoralists or reluctant to return to pastoralism. Better to send children for Islamic studies, they reason, which teaches them how to practise the religion and gives them a moral framework and some status. They complete their elementary Quranic studies more quickly than pupils complete primary school. The logic is that boys can then return to pastoralism and become adept at livestock rearing, while girls can return to help in the household or marry.
48Some of the pastoral Fulɓe I have stayed with think Western education is deceitful and makes people dishonest (typified by politicians and Nigerian elites), but others were not opposed to it in principle. Some saw its importance but the practicalities were a hindrance, especially the length of time it takes to go through school and the likelihood that at the end the child would not return to pastoralism and could become dependent rather than independent (due to the dire job market in Nigeria). In some areas children would have to be sent to town to attend a government school, where the parents may not have a trustworthy person to look after them. In neighbouring Wase LGA of Plateau State, the family heads in a pastoral Fulɓe community called Yaja Lawol wanted their children to be educated in the local nomadic school, which the Fulɓe community (not the government) reportedly built in 2001. The teachers were employed by the education authority but they stopped going to work because the Plateau State government was not paying their salaries (this was in the second term of the Jang administration, 2011-2015, and it is also possible that some teachers were sacked by the government – in some cases as they were unqualified – and not replaced). The community then paid the teachers’ salaries, but despite this the school closed and fell into disrepair. The Fulɓe elders there kept the books and teaching materials and still hoped to restart the school.50 These and other examples show that the pastoralists are not entirely resistant to education, Islamic and secular, and many recognize the need to diversify livelihoods in their families.
Tijaniyya influence
49There have been some changes in Islamic practice within Jaafun groups in Karim Lamido. These have been incremental rather than radical, but the effects even over the past five years are observable. The main change is the growing popularity among the Jaafun there of the Tijaniyya – the largest Sufi order in Nigeria. Tijani influence has been propagated by just a few malams from prominent families in the community. The performance of zikiri (Arabic: dhikr, ‘mentioning’; rememberence of Allah) is now a frequent nightly routine in some pastoralist camps, with adolescents, especially girls, at the forefront. It involves chanting and recitation (La ilaha illa Ilah – there is no god but Allah), accompanied by improvised percussive instruments such as drums and shakers. The cultural significance is that where the Tijaniyya performance of dhikr is practised it has replaced the Fulɓe tradition of hirde, where children and young adults (male and female) would pass the evening together around the camp, playing games and music and socializing. Fulfulde songs and folktales are hardly heard either. Another point of view was that it was not only dhikr that has reduced the prominence of hirde and folk arts, but also the stressful and conflict-ridden environment the pastoral Fulɓe now find themselves in. There is no celebratory mood; even where families are still camping together with their animals, the mood is more subdued. Among the Jaafun in Karim Lamido, Salafi Islam has made virtually no impact. Izala have virtually no following among the Fulɓe in this area.
The impacts of Boko Haram and inter-ethnic / religious conflicts
50There was widespread scepticism and opposition towards Boko Haram, which calls itself Jama’at Ahl al-Sunnah li’l Da’wa wa’l Jihad (JASDJ) (The Sunni Community for Proselytisation and Armed Struggle), the Abubakar Shekau-led terrorist group operating in Borno State and contiguous areas of north-east Nigeria. In 2016, the group split in two with the emergence of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Neither of these jihadi groups appears to have followers in Karim Lamido, but the insurgency affected the transhumance patterns of some of the pastoral Fulɓe there. As Boko Haram had been raiding and killing Fulɓe pastoralists in parts of Borno State, those in Karim Lamido who would previously go to southern Borno for their rainy-season transhumance were compelled to find new rainy-season pastures. A leader of the vigilante group Tabital Pulaaku Jode Jam, whose camp I stayed in for a night in August 2015 outside the village of Jen, Karim Lamido LGA, recalled that he used to spend three months a year in Biu LGA, Borno State during the rainy season. In the rainy season of 2017, he returned to Biu, but prior to that he was prevented from doing so by the insurgency. Shekau’s men (JASDJ) would steal the motorcycles of villagers and of the nomadic Fulɓe. They would also threaten them and demand money, and if they refused to pay, would return and attack, killing people, including, in some cases, pastoralist leaders. Many villages and pastoralist camps were attacked, and for that reason the pastoralists left Biu for a time (and many other areas affected by the insurgency).
51When Boko Haram captured most of northern Adamawa in 2014, pastoralists fled from areas around Mubi, Maiha, Madagali, and elsewhere. Some went to southern parts of Adamawa, including Ganye, Jada, and Toungo; others moved across the border into Cameroon. Many of them lost cattle in the process of escaping, partly because it was dry season and the cattle were not strong enough for the journey. In Borno, the nomadic Fulɓe were badly hit by Boko Haram and many lost their wealth. They sustained heavy losses and fatalities, but this was hardly reported because these attacks happened in the rural areas away from the security forces and urban-based media. Those who escaped without their livestock became internally displaced populations (IDPs) in Maiduguri, Gombe, Taraba, Adamawa, and elsewhere, or refugees in neighbouring countries.51
52There is no clear evidence of a causal link between the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State and the wider Lake Chad Basin, and the sharp increase in violence between pastoralist and farming communities elsewhere in Nigeria. More data are still needed to evaluate what happened to pastoralists who fled the conflict zone in the north-east. It cannot be assumed without evidence that they became involved in conflicts in central Nigeria. Certainly, many were displaced – those who lost their livestock are now in IDP camps or host communities in rural and urban areas of the north-east. Nigeria’s security forces, especially the military, have been over-stretched due to the demands of fighting the insurgency in Borno and Yobe. This has further weakened security provision in other parts of the country. At the same time, the police presence is light in rural areas, and state authorities tend to be ineffectual or partial in their responses to disputes. Since the 1976 local government reforms, traditional leaders have lost much of their former power, and they struggle to mediate in serious conflicts. The chiefs do still tend to have a local legitimacy and status that political office holders lack, and some actively engage in dialogue between individuals and groups to resolve conflicts. However, while pressures and tensions have increased, the state’s presence and capacity in the rural areas has remained weak or has weakened. In Taraba State, political office holders have instigated violence in many areas of the state, by seizing land and stirring up ethnic and religious tensions (generally with a strong anti-Fulani component), and by arming and mobilizing ethnic constituencies.
Conclusions
53Fieldwork for this study points to the serious difficulties pastoralists currently face in northern Nigeria and Niger. At the root of their problems are increased ecological and demographic pressures combined with political marginalization, and, in Nigeria, a high level of stigmatization and popular and political opposition. Whereas the mobility of pastoral groups historically increased their ability to cope with fluctuations in rainfall and pasture, this lifestyle is now under real pressure. Yet, it does still continue and transhumant pastoralism is well adapted to semi-arid conditions and to some of the climatic and ecological changes currently being witnessed. Demographic pressure and reduced access to land, water and pasture have made pastoral production more difficult, but the mode of production (extensive livestock rearing) has also been undermined by the weakening of rural institutions and the loss of much of the infrastructure to support pastoral livelihoods. This has led to social problems within pastoralist communities, particularly among young men, and pushed some into criminality, violence, and drug abuse. This is not however the whole story, as many others seek to find peaceful solutions to their challenges.
54There has been an increase in violent conflicts between pastoralists and farmers, especially in Nigeria where mass violence has become common, but conflicts also frequently occur in the agro-pastoral zone of Niger. This study cannot generalize about the situation throughout Nigeria and Niger, but on the conditions of nomadic and semi-nomadic Fulɓ in around Dakoro (central Niger) and Karim Lamido (north-east Nigeria) based on fieldwork in those areas. Insecurity in those areas was not driven by a ‘radicalization’ of pastoralists into terrorist groups or militant interpretations of Islam. From the point of view of pastoralists, their main insecurity was in accessing sufficient pasture and water for their livestock, and by extension uncertainties in sustaining and reproducing their herds and flocks for the next generation. Social values and the reproduction of the household were intertwined with the sustenance of the livestock. The political economy of pastoralism has substantial influence on the religious and cultural practices of the pastoral Fulɓe in different settings. Islamic values and norms are integrated into their production system, which itself needs to be understood as part of a social system, not only as a ‘business’. Cattle for the pastoral Fulɓe have social meaning and a cultural, emotional value; they are not viewed only as meat. For state livestock policies to succeed and integrate pastoral populations, these basic facts should be kept in mind.
55There has been a breakdown of governance in rural Nigeria, from local administration to the police and judiciary, but this was less directly apparent in Niger. Competition over rural space has driven some communities into conflict and contributed to unregulated herding practices, the cultivation of grazing land and stock routes, and increased criminality, including banditry and cattle rustling. In Nigeria, there is violence being perpetrated by herders who are now insufficiently supervised or controlled by the social structures and authority systems that would previously have kept them in check. But there have also been many violent attacks against pastoral Fulɓe groups in Nigeria, often targeting whole communities. This has led to serious reprisal attacks and cycles of violence. By contrast, local administration in central Niger, while imperfect, was stronger than in the Nigerian case and better able to mediate and resolve disputes before they escalated into large-scale conflicts. The main complaints of pastoralist leaders in Dakoro were the hostile climatic and ecological conditions. They also emphasized insufficient support from government, including the need for regulations to be enforced to protect their pastures, such as against urban-based traders who cut grasses for commercial purposes.
56In Islamic practice, there have been some significant changes both in Nigeria and Niger, with possibly greater religious observance among Fulɓe pastoralists than a generation ago. However, some elders in Niger reported that there had not been major changes in Islamic practice in their communities. The Tijaniyya had substantially more influence in Karim Lamido, but in general the differences in Islamic practice among the pastoral Fulɓe in the two cases were not very wide. A more important difference was in the political and social conditions, as in rural Nigeria the federal structure gives considerable power to Nigerian states and makes it more difficult to limit local identity-based politics. The governance of rural areas has been left to ineffective and weak local government councils. The collapse of security in large parts of rural Nigeria is linked to weak government and maladministration, which makes demographic pressures and competition for land and rural resources harder to manage. These issues are particularly acute in northern Nigeria but they also affect southern Nigeria with the increased movement of herders and livestock southwards. In Niger, the state presence in rural areas was more marked, and in Dakoro there appeared to be less overt discrimination by the state on grounds of ethnicity compared with the Taraba situation.
57Assertions that insecurity in rural areas of Nigeria is being driven by the cross-border movements of pastoralists from Niger and other countries may stand up to scrutiny in some areas – for example, border areas of rural Sokoto – but as a general explanation these claims are misleading. They are often political statements that are made without any data. There is cross-border transhumance, but the effects of this on security in Nigeria appear to be much exaggerated. That discourse may be an attempt to detract responsibility from the Nigerian state for the rampant insecurity in the country. It could also be to portray pastoralists as ‘strangers’ without rights, especially in relation to ‘indigenous’ farmers. While there is mobility in each direction across the Nigeria-Niger border, most of the Fulɓe in Nigeria have been there for generations and are full citizens of the country.
58In both Niger and Nigeria, religious beliefs and solidarity possibly increased personal resilience in the face of livelihood pressures and perceived risks from prevailing insecurity. Karim Lamido has had conflicts along ethnic and religious lines, but at a lower level to many other parts of Taraba State. In Dakoro, that was hardly the case, because of more religious homogeneity (there was a Christian minority but the population was predominantly Muslim), but still the pastoral Fulɓe complained of deteriorating relations with farmers in some areas. The key to resolving such conflicts is likely to be in policies that strive against ethnic and religious discrimination, which intensify production where feasible, support pastoral and farming activities in an integrated way, desist from land seizures, and invest in rural education, economic diversification, and family planning. Presently this does not look realistic, due to limited state capacity in rural areas, and what may be a different set of priorities of political and business elites in relation to land and capital.
Acknowledgements
59I am grateful to Élodie Apard and IFRA for supporting this research and for incisive comments on the paper. I also received very well informed comments and input from Yusuf Habu Na’ango in Jos, Clare Oxby (University of Bern), Hannah Hoechner (University of East Anglia), and Emilie Guitard (CNRS). Abdullahi Umar Eggi was an ideal companion and assistant in the field. Many thanks to all. I am responsible for the final content of the text.
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Notes de bas de page
1 Pastoralism here refers to the raising of livestock on an extensive basis, which in our case studies involves transhumance between dry and rainy season pastures and the movement of herds for daily grazing. The pastoralists studied here raise mainly cattle and sheep; some also have goats and in more arid areas there are also camels. Pastoral communities are made up of domestic units with gendered divisions of labour, and while men and women tend to be experts in animal husbandry and herding, pastoral production also includes a wider range of activities linked to herding, such as the selling of milk and dairy, the trading of livestock in markets, and in many cases subsistence farming. Some families are nomadic, some are settled, with gradations in between that involve different transhumance practices.
2 See for example Roger Blench (2018) and the MISEREOR website for field reports on farmer-herder issues from different Nigerian states – https://www.misereor.org/publications/food-security-and-agriculture/#c15694. The violent conflicts in rural areas of the Jos Plateau from 17 January 2010 and the spread of post-election violence in 2011 to southern Kaduna were key moments in the escalation of rural conflicts and insecurity in central Nigeria. See Higazi (2018) and Human Rights Watch (2013).
3 Field-based research on pastoralists in Nigeria, which has the largest Fulani population, is limited. With a few exceptions, even much of the wider regional literature is now dated. But there are some seminal studies which provide important ethnographic insights and baseline data. These include, but are not limited to, pioneering monographs on the Woɗaaɓe: Stenning (1959), Dupire (1962), and Bonfiglioli (1988).
4 A very good study investigating such issues in north-west Nigeria is by Saleh B. Momale (2016), but the levels of violence in the region have dramatically increased since that study was carried out.
5 Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index 2015: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism. In general, the data and interpretation is weak: http://economicsandpeace.org.
6 Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index 2017: Measuring and Understanding the Impact of Terrorism. Online.
7 Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index 2019: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, Sydney, November 2019, P. 92.
8 Ibid.
9 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘Violence displaces more than 50,000 in western Niger this year’. 13 December 2018.
https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2018/12/5c122b944/violence-displaces-50000-western-niger-
year.html. Accessed on 11 July 2019.
10 For a comparative regional study on the various forms of insecurity facing and involving pastoralists in the region, see A. Higazi & S. Ali (2018), Pastoralism and Security in West Africa and the Sahel: Towards Peaceful Coexistence. Dakar: United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel. Online.
11 There are some individual Fulɓe who have taken up arms with the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) in northern Borno, but the numbers are unclear. It appears to be a small number. In Abadam five families (households) had reportedly joined, splitting from their ethnic kin. The general trend in Borno and Yobe within the Fulɓe to date has been either neutrality or opposition towards the jihadist groups, but with attempts to negotiate access to pasture where possible and in some cases trade. JASDJ and ISWAP being Kanuri-led is likely to be a factor in the low level of Fulɓe recruitment. There has been much armed opposition from Fulɓe herders against the Shekau faction around the Sambisa forest but more of an accommodation in the ISWAP controlled areas. (Author fieldwork within pastoral Fulɓe in Maiduguri and Yobe State, August-November 2019).
12 The Daily Trust, ‘Taraba – why Tiv-Jukun crisis refuses to end’, 1 September 2019: https://allafrica.com/stories/201909020456.html
13 See Mustapha & Bunza (2014) and Ostien (2018) for detailed overviews of this fragmentation and competition between Islamic movements in northern Nigeria, and of their varied religious practices.
14 Jama’at Izalat al-Bid’ah wa-Iqamat al-Sunnah (The Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Establishment of the Sunnah) – officially called JIBWIS, but popularly referred to as Izala – was founded in Jos in 1978 and gained a strong local following within Fulɓe communities on the Plateau. Some influential Izala leaders were or are Fulɓe from Plateau and Bauchi. This is explained in some detail in Higazi (2018).
15 The relative size and beliefs of different Muslim groups in northern Nigeria more widely are well analysed by Philip Ostien (2018).
16 This is the Fulfulde rendering of the more common Hausa name of the 19th-century Fulani reformer, Shehu Usman dan Fodio. My Fulɓe informants referred to ‘Seehu Usmaanu’. The etymology is explained by Nelson (1997: 19).
17 Author fieldwork within nomadic Fulɓe in Pindiga emirate, Akko LGA, Gombe State, wet season, 2018. Some of my interlocutors there had visited the Shehu’s tomb in Sokoto prior to going to Mecca.
18 Le Niger en Chiffres 2016. République du Niger, Ministère du Plan, Institut National de la Statistique. Niamey, November 2016:
http://www.stat-niger.org/statistique/file/Affiches_Depliants/NigerEnChiffres2016.pdf. Accessed 16 April 2018.
19 This was a cause for concern among pastoralists in January 2016, as the past few years had seen short rainy seasons and therefore drought. In subsequent years, such as in 2019, the rains improved.
20 Author interview with Alhaji Ahmadu, the Sarkin Peulh, who is head of the Fulɓe Serkin Rafi grouping. Dakoro, 29 January 2016.
21 Le Niger en Chiffres 2016. République du Niger, Ministère du Plan, Institut National de la Statistique. Niamey, November 2016:
http://www.stat-niger.org/statistique/file/Affiches_Depliants/NigerEnChiffres2016.pdf Accessed 16 April 2018.
22 Author interview with Alhaji Ahmadu, the Sarkin Peulh, op.cit.
23 This was narrated by Alhaji Marafa, aged 75 and a brother to the Serkin Rafi. Interviewed by the author in Dakoro, 28 January 2016.
24 This is confirmed by Abdoulaye Mohamadou (2009: 4): ‘The first chief of the Fulɓe grouping was appointed in 1956; he died in 1984 and was succeeded by his son.’
25 This was a widely held view and expressed by community leaders in Dakoro town as well—for example, by Alhaji Marafa, from the family of the Serkin Rafi. He qualified his statement that the reformist group Izala had not penetrated into the nomadic Fulɓe by saying that they had not penetrated into the Woɗaaɓe, but that a few individuals from other clans (lenyi) may have joined Izala.
26 This would need further evaluation before being taken as a fact, but his overriding concern in conversation was with livelihood pressures and economic issues. Interview with Arɗo Koyeri, a Woɗaaɓe leader from Sayrou. Dakoro, 28 January 2016.
27 Clare Oxby notes that ‘Bermo in 1973-4 was a little mission outpost distributing powdered milk to Woɗaaɓe victims of the great drought of 1972-3. There were no other buildings at all. Also Gadabeji did not exist as a town or market, it was only a nomadic school with a teacher living nearby. This huge increase in population density in the region and the corresponding huge reduction in pasture land in favour of farming and agropastoralism have together rendered the incidence of “drought-linked crisis” so much more frequent.’ Email communication with Dr. Clare Oxby, 20 July 2018.
28 Conversation with Arɗo Maudé, from Bermo. Dakoro, January 2016.
29 The Ferooɓe (sg. Feroowo) are an Uda clan mainly in Niger though some are in Nigeria. Ferooɓe means ‘emigrants’ and they got the name after a permanent migration (perol), dividing the original group. The other part of the clan they split from are called Kofayanko’en. Source: an Udaajo elder in Babban Gida, Tarmuwa LGA, Yobe State (Nigeria), via phone, 18 April 2020.
30 Soro is a ritual practised by young men or adolescents in some Fulɓe clans – it is said to have originated with the Jaafun (de St Croix 1945) – in which those participating are beaten across the chest with a stick (such as tamarind). They are not allowed to flinch or show emotion; thus, it is a test of qualities the Fulɓe associate with pulaaku, such as fortitude and courage.
31 Author interview with Arɗo Alhaji Abeyo Be’oji, Dakoro town, 28 January 2016.
32 Author interview with Arɗo Abdullahi, Dakoro, 29 January 2016. For more on nomadic education in Olli, see the detailed account in the PhD thesis by Martha Populin (2015).
33 Climate change is reportedly increasing inter-annual variability in rainfall in the eastern Sahel. The current risks and impacts of low rainfall need to be understood by looking at rainfall patterns over recent years and preceding decades. People’s resilience and their ability to adapt and respond depends heavily on their socio-economic circumstances, access to land, wells, and animal feed, and mobility.
34 In 2016 the estimated population of Niger was 20.6 million, but the country has the highest population growth rate in the world. According to the United Nations Population Division, Niger’s fertility rate (i.e. the average number of live births per woman at childbearing age) in 2010-2015 was 7.40. In 2016 more than half of Niger’s population was under the age of 15. See United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017), World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision.
35 Interview with Arɗo Koyeri. Dakoro, 28 January 2016.
36 Interview with Arɗo Abdullahi. Dakoro, 29 January 2016.
37 Interview with Alhaji Abeyo Be’oji. Dakoro, 28 January 2016.
38 Author field visits to the large Illela livestock market, northern Sokoto State (Nigeria), in 2016 and 2019 indicated that the majority of cattle, camels, and sheep brought there for sale came from Niger and other Sahelian countries through Niger. Pastoralists in the Sahel make a substantial contribution to the supply of livestock in Nigerian markets, though the exact percentage would be difficult to specify without quantitative research across a larger sample of markets.
39 This was reported not just in Dakoro in January 2016 but also in Torodi market in Tillabéri region in April 2017. Prior to naira devaluation, the main buyers in Torodi market were Nigerian traders. At any one time there would be seven or eight large trucks from Nigeria parked along the perimeter of the market, and they would all be filled with livestock which would then be transported via Niamey to Nigeria. Naira devaluation had spoiled the trade, and from that time (2015) at least until 2017 trucks had stopped coming from Nigeria to Torodi market. Author fieldwork in Torodi livestock market, 28 April 2017.
40 Interview with Arɗo Abdullahi, from Olli (Dakoro Department), 29 January 2016. This information was corroborated by visits to several livestock markets in Niger and northern Nigeria (as well as Dakoro, these included Say and Torodi in Tillaberi region, Niger, and Illela in Sokoto State, Nigeria, on the border with Birni N’Konni). The cross-border livestock trade between Niger and Nigeria is discussed further by Leena Hoffman and Paul Melly (2015), citing some interesting case study material from livestock markets on the border.
41 Interview with Alhaji Marafa, brother of the Sarkin Peuhl (Serkin Rafi). Dakoro, 28 January 2016.
42 I have visited the same Fulɓe families most years since 2012, which was the first year I camped with them, in one of their rainy season camps near Alkaleri in Bauchi State. I carried out most of my fieldwork in the wet season camps of the Jaafun, some years for just a few days, some years for several weeks of camping. In 2015 I did part of the rainy season transhumance with the pastoralists, trekking across part of Karim Lamido. I have also carried out research in several other pastoral Fulɓe groups, and among farmers, in other states of central and northern Nigeria and in neighbouring countries. This section is based mainly on fieldwork carried out from 2015-2018.
43 In Hausa these schools are referred to as makarantun allo (sg. makarantar allo) - the traditional system of Quranic study in northern Nigeria and other Sahelian countries. In Fulfulde usage in the nomadic groups studied here, a Quranic school is usually referred to simply as janngirde (pl. janngirɗe) (‘school(s)’), whereas Hausa usage is adopted for any Western type of school – makaranta or makarantar boko (pl. makarantun boko). A school, in other words, means a Quranic school, unless otherwise indicated.
44 A key study of Quranic education in northern Nigeria is Hannah Hoechner’s (2018) monograph, based on fieldwork in Kano State, particularly Kano city and the small town of Albasu. There are some clear similarities but also apparent differences compared to the situation of almajirai from nomadic families in rural north-eastern Nigeria. Begging for money is more common among almajirai in urban areas, who some perceive as ‘street children’, compared with the rural areas, where begging for food is often more common. The prevalence of begging among children from nomadic backgrounds in the villages may depend on the wealth and material support given by their families, and in general on the practices of particular Quranic teachers.
45 There are a multitude of clans (lenyi) within the Jaafun — there is a cultural unity, but they are socially heterogeneous. The main ones in the family I studied were Awyaakanko’en and Majanko’en.
46 I recorded this account from a member of the family I stay with, Alh. Mukuru Ajiya Ori, at their wet season camp near Maimadi (a Kanuri village) in Alkaleri LGA, Bauchi State, 4 September 2017.
47 This would not be enough to feed and look after a child for a year. It is a token amount and the rest of the cost would be borne by the community’s giving of food (as alms) and farm work and domestic work carried out by the almajirai for the malam or other people in the village.
48 The term ‘Wurkun’ is still commonly used in Karim Lamido by the Fulɓe, but this simplifies a more complex ethno-linguistic reality, as explained by Adelberger (1992) - ‘it is a generic term comprising linguistically diverse groups’ (principally Kulung, Piya, Kwonci and Kode) (p. 8).
49 A national policy on nomadic education was first launched in 1987. The conception and early implementation is described by Catherine VerEecke (1989). The headquarters of the National Commission for Nomadic Education still exists in Kaduna and there are hundreds of nomadic schools on paper, but in reality only a minority are functional.
50 Author fieldwork in Yaja Lawol, near Kampany, Wase LGA, Plateau State, 3 December 2016.
51 I have interviewed many such IDPs from Fulɓe and Shuwa Arab pastoralist communities, recording some of their experiences and confirming that Boko Haram have carried out attacks and raids on them.
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