International Development Committee

Response to Inquiry: The UK’s development partnership with Nigeria

About us

Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) is an international development charity. Since 2004, we've partnered with local communities in Nigeria to bring life-saving assistance and lasting change.

Founder & President Emeritus: Baroness Cox  Patrons: Lord Alton of Liverpool; Lord Singh of Wimbledon; Fiona Bruce, former MP; Sir Geoffrey Nice KC; Dr Rowan Williams

More information: www.hart-uk.org

Summary

The Middle Belt is suffering a crisis of displacement at least as intense as that in the northeast and northwest, yet central states receive little to no UK assistance.

A more holistic development strategy is required for the whole of Nigeria to strengthen national security systems and empower local communities to build resilience and respond to future crises.

If the goal is “partnerships not paternalism”, then partnerships must begin at the grassroots. Top-down and externally-driven initiatives cause harm and fail to address the root causes of challenges. We urge genuine collaboration with established humanitarian networks in rural and hard-to-reach areas.

Key lessons from recent development engagement, and ongoing development challenges

1. Rural communities are excluded

Many Nigerians have grown weary with the notion of development, which is associated with years of hollow promises and variable outcomes. Goals set by state and federal leaders, or by outside powers including the UK, often fail to align with grassroots needs and aspirations.

Rural communities – approximately half of the population – are frequently left to navigate challenges on their own, creating their own solutions for security, local infrastructure and daily survival. Their ingenuity and resilience exist in a vacuum, without the support that a Nigerian-UK partnership should provide.

Rural voices are often misunderstood or ignored, partly because of lingering paternalism, but also due to physical and digital barriers to genuine engagement. Many of their political leaders are co-opted by urban-based political movements who fail to advocate effectively for constituents.

Development efforts should prioritise direct and long-term engagement with rural communities, upholding their dignity to choose their own solutions, with an understanding that any UK grant compliance requirements should not be too burdensome for smaller, grassroots organisations to meet.

2. The Middle Belt is side-lined

When UK aid reaches Nigeria, most of it is diverted to the north of the country to assist victims of terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin. Conflict-affected communities in the Middle Belt do not receive the same level of support. They are forced to rely on aid from local churches, their extended families, or charities like HART – or they receive almost no aid at all.

Officials at the British High Commission tell us this is a strategic decision: to focus efforts in the north, rather than spreading limited funds too thinly.

We acknowledge the rationale of frugal resource management, but a comprehensive humanitarian response must encompass a plan for the whole of Nigeria. This includes severely suffering populations in central states. A strategy to address their needs, even if with different resources or partners, is a necessary component of a truly effective development programme.

3. Aid cuts make things much worse

We share widespread concerns about aid cuts. At a time of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the UK is withdrawing vital support to millions of people in need. While some programmes in northern Nigeria may be protected or even see an increase in funding, we anticipate central states will be further side-lined due to “budget constraints”.

4. Problematic herder-farmer narrative

Inter-communal violence in the Middle Belt is often mischaracterised as a herder-farmer conflict between two warring parties: the Fulani, who are Muslims and traditionally herd cattle; and Christians of the region, who typically farm crops.

In your final report, we urge the Committee to refrain from a ‘herder-farmer’ narrative.

• It implies the conflict is tit-for-tat. Yet the overwhelming majority of verified victims are ‘farmers’. More than 700 villages have been attacked across the states of Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger and Taraba. More than 20,000 people have been killed.
• It implies that violence only occurs following disputes over land access, whereas attacks often take place outside the grazing season and outside of regular grazing routes.
• It implies that violence only occurs between local actors, when indigenous Fulani herders are not always involved in the attacks. Perpetrators of atrocities are often unknown to their victims and sometimes speak in accents their victims do not recognise. Many are presumed to be drawn from armed groups in north-western states or the wider Lake Chad Basin.

We use the term Fulani militia to describe armed and violent men who organise themselves around a collective identity. They are distinct from so-called Fulani bandits in the northwest, who mainly attack Hausa Muslim communities, and Fulani in the northeast, many of whom are victims of attacks by Boko Haram. Fulani militia comprise only a tiny portion of the Fulani ethnic group – a diverse group of more than 20 million people with hundreds of clans spread across several countries.

5. Lack of trust in civil society and local NGOs

We first received reports of Fulani militia attacks in 2009. The rate of killings increased significantly in 2014, by which time Fulani militia were named as the fourth deadliest terror group in the world.[1]

Nigerian journalists, civil society and local NGOs quickly identified multiple drivers of violence:

• Religious and ethnic tensions, with growing mistrust between communities in cities like Jos and in the countryside;
• Extremist rhetoric, which is used to inspire or justify attacks;
• Competition for land, exacerbated by creeping desertification in the north;
• Economic incentives, such as corruption and trading hostages for ransom;
• The rapid flow of illicit weapons.

We raised local concerns numerous times with senior UK officials, including previous Foreign Secretaries and Ministers for Africa. Yet it was not until May 2019 – ten years after attacks began – that the UK Government acknowledged for the first time that “religion is [indeed] a factor” in inter-communal violence and that “the situation of Christians in Nigeria is dire”.

We agree the situation is dire. Millions are displaced. It is no longer tenable for the UK to hold the position that there is no need for humanitarian assistance in the Middle Belt.

6. Upside-down analysis

Despite acknowledgement that religion is a driver of inter-communal violence, we continue to observe push-back on this point from the FCDO.

Survivors, journalists, civil society and NGOs in the Middle Belt persist in reporting local religious grievances and the plight of predominantly Christian villages. Yet they are frequently dismissed as espousing a “single-faith perspective” or a partisan pro-Christian agenda.

We understand religion is a sensitive and complex subject, and it would be unhelpful to view sectarianism as the only driver of inter-communal violence. But it should not be ignored. Downplaying the religious dimension does not make it disappear; it just makes the conflict harder to understand and resolve.

Herein lies a fundamental flaw of UK analysis to date. Policymakers wrongly assume that describing the conflict as a clash of faiths will cause all sides to see it that way. They worry that identifying religious motivations behind the violence “will become a self-fulfilling prophesy”.[2]

It is a tangled and upside-down logic, which:

• Creates a dangerous disconnect between the UK’s official narrative and the local people’s lived reality.
• Alienates the very communities it aims to protect, eroding trust and legitimacy.
• Overlooks the deep-rooted ideologies that must be understood and addressed in order to resolve the violence.
• Forecloses the opportunity to engage with moderate religious leaders who could serve as powerful counterbalance to radical beliefs.

The UK’s perceived disregard of local insights contributes to a sense of injustice among neglected communities. It reinforces accusations of bias, which deepens existing divisions. Ignoring or downplaying religious grievances has led, and will lead, to a waste of resources on solutions that have limited impact on the violence.

7. Diminishing accountability

The Nigerian Government has been unable to stop inter-communal violence in the Middle Belt. It has failed to ensure justice or recompense for victims, including villagers who attempt to return to their farms; we receive frequent reports that people who try to reclaim their land cannot withstand the gunfire from Fulani militia.

Fulani militia enclaves are widely known. Many of their foot soldiers use TikTok or Facebook to publicise gains following an attack. Yet perpetrators are rarely, if ever, brought to justice by Nigerian authorities.

The State’s failure to protect its citizens is not necessarily due to a lack of intelligence, nor a lack of resources in the Middle Belt, but a lack of willingness to engage. The army presence is visible among the attack sites we have visited across Plateau and Kaduna.[3] Yet according to survivors, despite urgent calls for assistance, soldiers arrive only after the attacks have taken place.

Accountability is a central tenet of democracy, especially in the context of widespread human rights violations. Yet justice authorities at both state and federal levels have acted vigorously to suppress criticism of the authorities’ inaction. Journalists and whistleblowers must be able to do their jobs freely and safely, without fear of reprisal, censorship or arrest.

Christian vigilantes conclude there is no political route to resolving the crisis, and that they can no longer rely on the authorities for protection or justice. They create counter-insurgency groups or ‘local armies’, in which young men are mobilised to protect their communities.

We have received reports of vigilantes undertaking violent reprisals against Muslims, killing perceived enemies indiscriminately, even when their target has no association with a Fulani militia attack. It is ‘mob justice’ outside the rule of law.

The longer that domestic law enforcement authorities fail to act, the worse the ethnic and religious polarisation will become. There is a critical need to hold perpetrators to account, and to ensure adequate protection and recompense for affected communities.

It is right the UK uses its diplomatic influence to raise concerns about human rights violations. We support initiatives to strengthen accountability mechanisms and civilian oversight of the military and police – not only in northern states, but also the Middle Belt.

Opportunities within civil society to promote peace and development

The UK supports a handful of worthwhile but small projects in the Middle Belt, such as the Para-Mallam Peace Foundation. Such a minimal response does not reflect the urgency of the crisis.

We urge further collaboration with established humanitarian networks in rural and hard-to-reach areas. Programmes must be community-led from beginning to end, placing trust in local people to drive their own development.

Two examples of HART’s local partners:

• Women for Peace in the flashpoint city of Jos, led and attended by women who coordinate educational activities and skills workshops: “We have brought Muslims and Christians together in an unprecedented way. We eat together and visit one another in the community. It has eroded most of the animosity between us.”

• Roads to Hope (R2H) in Plateau State and Southern Kaduna, providing support to conflict-affected communities who do not receive assistance from the Nigerian Government, UK or major aid organisations. R2H mobile units eliminate travel barriers for displaced families, bringing education to children who cannot travel to school, and medicine to patients who cannot travel to hospital. The programme is community-led and scalable.

Recommendations

Support in the north is essential, but a truly effective development programme must include a dedicated strategy for the Middle Belt. This requires strategic reallocation of resources and a diversification of partnerships.

Development

• It is no longer tenable for the UK to hold the position that there is no need for humanitarian assistance in the Middle Belt.

• We urge genuine collaboration with established networks in rural and hard-to-reach areas, e.g. Roads to Hope.

• Programmes must be community-led from beginning to end, placing trust in local people to drive their own development.

• Grant compliance requirements should not be too burdensome for small grassroots organisations to meet.

Policy

• The UK’s perceived disregard of local insights contributes to a sense of injustice among neglected communities in the Middle Belt.

• Ignoring or downplaying religious grievances will lead to a waste of resources on solutions that have limited impact on the violence.

• The Committee should refrain from a ‘herder-farmer’ narrative when describing inter-communal violence in central states.

Accountability

• A key non-financial resource: the UK has significant diplomatic influence to raise concerns about human rights violations in the Middle Belt.

• We support initiatives to strengthen accountability mechanisms and civilian oversight of the military and police. This must include central states, as well as the northeast and northwest.