Spreading Violence in Nigeria haunts the people as Economy Weakens

Just as Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appeared to be gaining the upper hand against the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency, more rebellions have exploded across Africa’s most populous nation while the government grapples with the worst economic crisis in decades.

They range from renewed attacks in the southern oil-rich Niger River delta that have cut monthly oil shipments to the lowest in about three decades to attempts to revive the secessionist state of Biafra in the east.

A more than 60 percent decline since June 2014 in the price of oil, the source of two-thirds of state revenue, has hamstrung the government’s ability to deal with the crisis. Buhari, 73, took office a year ago pledging to defeat Boko Haram, end corruption and spur growth in Africa’s biggest economy. It hasn’t gone as planned.

“Dealing with multiple challenges of a complex nature has stretched resources of a state already reeling from a once in a generation economic crisis,” said Antony Goldman, head of London-based PM Consulting that specializes in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea countries.

While the government has made some progress in weakening Boko Haram in the northeast, the insurgents are still capable of carrying out bombings and kidnappings. And with attacks on oil facilities intensifying, the government has been forced to deploy troops on two fronts. The presidency announced Tuesday that it’s reducing the military’s presence in the Niger delta while the government works with authorities in the region to end the violence.

The Indigenous People of Biafra separatist group, campaigning for an independent state in the southeast, said more than 40 people were killed in the city of Onitsha when security forces fired on protesting members on May 30. The group was marching to mark the anniversary of the failed declaration of independence in 1967 that led to a civil war in which at least a million people died.

Security forces in Onitsha responded in self-defense to attacks that included the use of small arms and “volatile cocktails such as acid and dynamite,” the army said in an e-mailed statement. Five pro-Biafra protesters were killed, eight were injured and nine arrested, it said, denying the figures claimed by the separatist group.

In March, mainly Muslim herdsmen who’re moving south to escape the advancing Sahara Desert attacked the mainly Christian farming town of Agatu with which they’ve had disputes over grazing land, leaving at least 300 people dead, according to the Benue State Emergency Agency. A raid a month later on the southeastern farming community of Nimbo by the ethnic Fulani cattlemen killed another 20 people. Buhari is an ethnic Fulani.

“The Fulanis may get a sense and feel he is part of them, and will even become more confrontational,” said Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, based in the capital, Abuja. “Those who are attacked will also think the same and have to find means of protecting themselves.”

Buhari ordered troops to pursue the suspected herders, whom government officials have said are mostly from neighboring countries.