‘Peace is a gradual thing’: How land, cattle and identity fuel a deadly Nigerian conflict

“Around midnight, I heard the first gunshots,” recalls Joseph Ize Zino, a youth leader in central Nigeria. He was at home when gunmen attacked the village of Zike inhabited by the Christian Irigwe ethnic group. “All of us in the house, we ran.

That was how we survived.” As he hid in the fields, the young man listened as the attackers swept down through the village in the hills of Plateau state. “I was just hearing them chanting Allahu Akbar [God is the greatest], saying: ‘We will finish them today.’ A total of 52 men, women and children were killed that night in April 2025. It is not clear exactly who was responsible.

But everyone in Zike is convinced that those who attacked them were ethnic Fulani, traditionally cattle herders, who are predominantly Muslim. “This is not a clash. It’s nothing but a pure genocide.

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I call it the pure genocide of Christians. They want to wipe us off and then grab the land.” Such incidents have fuelled controversialclaims that Christians face persecution, even genocide in Nigeria, which have been used to justify recent US military intervention in the country.

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