The Lamentation of Vershima

 

The Lamentation of Vershima

If you don't flee from the devil

He will do worse evil!

The nomadic beasts of no nation

They trampled on my plantation

They came from across the borders

The mooing herds and their wandering headers

They invaded my farmlands with their animals

Animals with one thousand horns

and two thousand hooves.

They came before the first raindrops

They trampled on my virgin crops.

They broke the maiden head of Dooshima, my beloved daughter

When she went early to the stream to fetch water.

She crawled back home bleeding  in pains and tears.

Her agonies left me with chilling fears.

Her wailing mother Mimidoo,.was rolling on the floor.

I was shaking as I bolted the door.

The arrows have pierced my heart.

The horrors have torn me apart.

I have harrowing agonies that cannot be written.

I have eerie nightmares that you have not seen.

The unseen tears I have shed

As I was writhing in my broken bed.

Aondo! Aondo!! Aondo!!!

Aôndo u Ijirôron!

U ngu hana hegon?

Va tese er u lu Aôndo u ageegh yô!

Are you no longer our defender?

I have abandoned the Kwagh-Hir!

I have torn my A'nger in anger.

There is no one to sound the indyer!

Otapia, the town crier can no longer cry

His booming voice no longer echoes in the sky.

There is no one left to receive his message

Since we have fled from our village.

- - By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

On Saturday,. January 16, 2026.

Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

For my new book of my original poems, "Dance of Locusts".

PS:

The first sentence shows that the herders trespassing on the lands of the Middle Belt of Nigeria actually don't believe in borders of any nation. Majority of them don't have any passport of any national identity.

All the names are in Tiv language.

Aôndo u Ijirôron!

U ngu hana hegon?

Va tese er u lu Aôndo u ageegh yô!

Means

God of Justice!

Where are you now?

Come and show that you are the mighty God!

Background History and Recent Reports

Key Aspects of the Crisis

Victims and Perpetrators:

The violence disproportionately affects indigenous, predominantly Christian, farming communities, with perpetrators often identified by survivors and some reports as Fulani ethnic militias.

Scale and Impact:

The conflict has led to thousands of deaths (some estimates suggest over 60,000 across the region over decades) and the displacement of millions, creating a significant humanitarian crisis and worsening food insecurity. In Benue State alone, over 6,800 people were reportedly murdered between 2023 and May 2025.

Narratives and Terminology:

There is a significant dispute over how to describe the conflict.

"Ethnic Cleansing" / "Genocide": Local leaders, victims, and advocacy groups argue the term "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" is more appropriate than "farmer-herder clashes". They point to patterns of systematic attacks, the burning of churches, and the permanent displacement of communities, followed by new settlement in those areas. The Middle Belt Forum has demanded a UN inquiry into the alleged genocide.

Farmer-Herder Clashes: Successive Nigerian governments and some international agencies have tended to frame the violence as a result of resource competition (land and water) exacerbated by climate change and population growth.

This narrative is criticized by many victims as a form of denial that obscures the ethnic and religious motivations of the attacks and absolves perpetrators of accountability.

Historical Context:

Tensions are rooted in long-standing historical grievances, including the 19th-century Islamic jihad led by Usman dan Fodio and resistance to the subsequent Sokoto Caliphate's influence. These historical narratives shape contemporary perceptions, with some viewing the violence as a continuation of historical aggression.

Government Response:

The Nigerian government has faced severe criticism for its perceived failure to protect victims, ensure accountability, and address the underlying causes of the violence.

There is a widely held belief among affected communities that security forces are either indifferent or complicit.

International Attention: While international bodies have been warned of worsening atrocities in the region, the focus has often remained on other issues like Boko Haram.

The lack of international recognition of the crisis as "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" is a major point of contention for advocacy groups.

The situation remains a complex and devastating crisis, with ongoing violence and an urgent need for nuanced attention and effective intervention to address the intertwined ethnic, religious, and socio-economic dimensions.

Middle Belt - Wikipedia

Ethnoreligious conflicts. ... Surrounded by divergent religious, economic, and cultural histories, the Middle Belt has been the melting pot where small and larg...

The violence in Nigeria's Middle Belt has long historical roots.

11 Aug 2025 —

There is systematic violence taking place in Nigeria's Middle Belt, writes Onyedikachi Madueke. The government calls it local skirmishes, but the reality goes d...

The London School of Economics and Political Science

Conflict and Killings in Nigeria's Middle Belt

17 Dec 2020 — The underlying causes of the conflict in Nigeria's Middle Belt are complex and varied. They include competition for access to land and other resources between p...

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission | (.gov)

Middle Belt Civic Leaders Decry Ethnic Cleansing and Unchecked ...

16 May 2025 — Civic Coalition Warns of National Implications. The Civic Coalition's May 14th statement echoes this distress. Describing the violence as a “region-wide campaig...

Truth Nigeria

Climate Cover, Ethnic Crime: The Story Behind Nigeria's Middle Belt ...

10 Nov 2025 — A TruthNigeria Analysis: Nigerian Government Denial Gets Propped up by False Narratives. ... (Abuja) For more than a decade, Christian communities across Nigeri...

Truth Nigeria

Long Read: Violence in Nigeria's 'Middle Belt' States

19 Mar 2021 — So what can we do about these Challenges? * Religious persecution: While the underlying causes of violence are complex, attacks in the Middle Belt by Islamist F...

Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART)

The Politics of Eco-Violence: Why Is Conflict Escalating in ...

19 Oct 2022 — 20 According to a 2021 study, 309,231 individuals were displaced in the Middle Belt, with 204,193 displaced due to communal violence in Benue State alone, makin...

Taylor & Francis Online

Ethnic cleansing in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria

Conclusion: Ethnic cleansing. ... There have been continuous attacks against Christians in the Middle Belt to force them to leave their ancestral land. As a res...

Open Doors Analytical

Silent Emergency: The Unending Cycle of Ethnic ...

1 Feb 2025 — HumAngle explores the ethnic, religious, and environmental roots of the farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria's Middle Belt, its devastating toll on communities, an...

HumAngle

UN warned of worsening atrocities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt

1 Dec 2025 — UN warned of worsening Atrocities in Nigeria's Middle Belt

International Bar Association | IBA

In Nigeria's diverse Middle Belt, a drying landscape deepens violent ...

8 Mar 2018 — Violent clashes between semi-nomadic cattle herders like the Fulani and farming communities have increased in recent years – particularly in Nigeria's Middle Be...

The Christian Science Monitor

Fulani Herdsmen On A Deadly Mission - Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust

4 Oct 2017 — Similarly, the international community remains silent in relation to the violence in the Middle Belt region, while only focusing on Boko Haram in Northern Niger...

Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART)

M’Belt Forum Demands UN Inquiry Over Alleged Genocide

Plateau killing: m'belt Forum demands un inquiry over alleged genocide

The Whistler Newspaper

Ombatse: Disenfranchisement and Violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt

21 Aug 2013 — Our forefathers had their own way of worship... Now, what led to us to bring back this traditional worship is the complaints we receive from our people about th...

Photo Credit: Humangleedia
https://humanglemedia.com/more-pictures-from-nigerias-middle-belt-crisis-have-surfaced-some-are-misleading/

Empowering Female Farmers in Nigeria

Women in Agriculture in Nigeria

Empowering Female Farmers in Nigeria

The largest labour force in Africa

This is the first time there will be a national community mobilization and sensitization of female farmers in Nigeria for the realization and utilization of their full potential for the sustainable development of agriculture and food security in the country.

Female farmers are the largest labour force in Nigeria.

More than 70 percent of the working population of Nigeria are farmers in the rural areas of the most populous country in Africa .

An estimated 70 percent of them are female farmers working on farms in different villages in the 774 local government areas of Nigeria.

Majority of them are poor and without complete formal education.

They need empowerment for the sustainable development of agriculture for food security and economic stability for the eradication of extreme poverty in Nigeria.

Food security is important to national security, because without food security there will be no national security.

A hungry man is an angry man.

No hungry man can defend his family, community and country.

Only a well fed man can have the strength to fight for his survival and welfare.

An army of hungry soldiers will not have the strength to defend their country in the battlefield.

No food, no power.

Starvation can cause the collapse and destruction of a nation.

Scarcity of food has caused widespread riots and looting on the streets that caused the downfall of a government administration.

Africa has 65 percent of the uncultivated arable land left in the world, to feed 9.5 billion people by 2050. Therefore, what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world. “Essentially, food is money. The size of the food and agriculture market in Africa will reach $1 trillion by 2030.

USD $106bn finance gap in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia agricultural business - CABI.org

The Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) programme has published ‘The state of the agri-SME sector – Bridging the finance gap.’

A recent report estimates demand for financing, from around 220,000 agri-business SMEs in sub Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia at USD $160bn with banks, impact investors and other financial intermediaries providing only USD $54bn. Furthermore, almost all climate funding is targeted at mitigation measures, rather than supporting ways to for agriculture to adapt to the climate crisis with less than 2% of global climate finance – or USD $10bn – being channelled to small-scale agriculture.

Nigeria has the largest arable land in Africa.
Women make up about 70% of the agricultural workforce in Nigeria. 
They contribute to about 70% of the country's food production.

In Nigeria, according to the World Bank, closing the gender productivity gap could increase GDP by US$2.3 billion and decrease global food insecurity by two percentage points, thereby putting nutritious food on the tables of another 45 million people.

https://www.thecable.ng/nigerian-women-in-agriculture-a-catalyst-for-food-security-economic-growth-and-family-well-being/

Eliciting the Gender Income Influences on Household’s Food Security in West Africa: 

Heliyon

https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(23)04616-9?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2405844023046169%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Women in Agriculture in Nigeria is a public forum for the empowerment and upliftment of female farmers in Nigeria for the sustainable development of agriculture to increase the cultivation and production of both food crops and cash crops for local consumption and export to other countries.

We are going to launch a national directory and website for all the female farmers in Nigeria who estimated to be over 30 million working on farmlands in the rural areas.

Majority of the farmers in Nigeria are women

Nigerian female farmers are among the most underpaid low income workers in Nigeria, because majority of them are not privileged to own farmlands.

Majority of them are farming on the farmlands of their husbands, brothers or uncles, because daughters are not entitled to any inheritance of lands from their fathers by custom and tradition of majority of the tribes.

Only sons are entitled to be shareholders in the inheritance of lands

Women in Agriculture in Nigeria will empower underprivileged female farmers to unite and form cooperatives for the join-ownership of farmlands and to become joint-venture partners in agroallied ventures such as having silos and factories for processing of crops for the production of flours, cereals and drinks for local consumption and export to other countries.

We are going to introduce Nano drones for farming in Nigeria as female farmers are doing in India.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FnG3TE2qM/

The productions of flours from cassava,maizes, tiger nuts, oranges, mangoes, coconuts, groundnuts, dates, etc have become very profitable agroallied ventures in many developing countries.

We will help in increasing the economic growth of Nigerian women in agriculture with significant contribution to the GDP of Nigeria.

Africa Food Trade & Resilience Initiative
Food Security Monitor - AGRA
https://agra.org/publications/food-security-monitor-3/


- by Mrs. Stella Unah,
National Coordinator,
Women in Agriculture in Nigeria (WAN)

About Female Farmers in Nigeria

"Women play a crucial role in Nigerian agriculture, accounting for a significant portion of the farming population and contributing heavily to food production. They are involved in various aspects of the agricultural value chain, from planting and harvesting to processing and marketing. Despite their vital contributions, women often face challenges like limited access to land, finance, and technology, which hinder their ability to fully realize their potential.

Key Roles of Women in Nigerian Agriculture:

Farm Management and Labor:
Women are actively involved in managing farms and providing labor, often performing tasks like planting, weeding, harvesting, and processing crops.

Food Crop Production:
Nigerian women are primarily involved in the production of food crops such as maize, cowpea, melon, pepper, cassava, and vegetables.
Livestock Production:
In some cases, women also participate in small-scale animal production, including small ruminants, poultry, and aquaculture.
Processing and Marketing:
Women are heavily involved in processing and marketing farm produce, contributing to the food value chain.

Challenges Faced by Women in Nigerian Agriculture:

Limited Access to Land:
Traditional land tenure systems and cultural norms often limit women's access to land ownership and control, hindering their ability to participate in agriculture.
Financial Constraints:
Women often lack access to finance, making it difficult for them to purchase inputs, hire labor, or scale up production.

Gender Inequality:
Social norms and gender-based divisions of labor can restrict women's decision-making power and limit their ability to manage farms independently.
Knowledge and Training Gaps:
Limited access to information and training can affect women's ability to adopt modern farming techniques and best practices.

Efforts to Empower Women Farmers:
Government Initiatives:
The Nigerian government and various organizations are implementing programs to empower women farmers, such as the National Women in Agriculture Programme (NWAP) according to Rural 21.

Capacity Building:
Training and capacity-building programs are being offered to equip women farmers with the skills and knowledge they need to improve their productivity and income according to Rural 21.

Financial Inclusion:
Efforts are being made to improve women's access to finance through microfinance institutions and other financial services.
Advocacy and Awareness:
Advocacy groups and NGOs are working to raise awareness about the contributions of women in agriculture and to advocate for policies that support their empowerment. "