For the past few months, Benue State in the North-Central part of Nigeria has been largely restive with attacks on villages by persons said to be marauding herdsmen; the most affected of these areas has been Agatu Local Government where over 300 persons were killed and thousands displaced.

There have also been sporadic clashes involving nomadic herdsmen in other places of Nigeria with an increasing roll call of states being affected: Enugu, Delta, Taraba, Ondo (where former presidential candidate Olu Falae was abducted for some days), and Rivers States amongst others.

It also does not help matters that the herdsmen are mostly Fulani by ethnicity, and the communities they wreak havoc on are of various ethnicities – the end result being an increasing animosity against the Fulani ethnic group and the growing risk of reprisals in areas under attack.

However, what is most curious is that the response of the Federal Government has been silence at worst and tepid at best.

It took weeks of outrage across traditional and social media for the Federal Government to issue a response following the massive attacks on Agatu and for the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase to visit the area; sadly his utterances showed him as one being more concerned with setting right the number of people killed by the attacks.

Admittedly, these attacks or clashes between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities predates the Buhari administration, which came into power on the back of promises to fight the Boko Haram terrorism in the North-East as the core of its security agenda.

While it has found time to articulate a response to the issue of pipeline vandalism which threatens our already inadequate power supply and militancy in the Niger-Delta that is threatening to rear its head again, it is yet to recognize the urgency of the attacks by herdsmen despite the fact it has potential for farther-reaching effects than the other current security challenges.

No person has been arrested for involvement in the murder of Nigerian citizens even in cases where the head of the herdsmen’s association offered justification for these attacks; in one particular incident where 92 herdsmen were arrested while in transit with dangerous weapons, 56 of them seem to have disappeared into thin air somewhere in-between being in the custody of the police and the army.

This refusal of the Nigerian government to enforce law and order over seemingly vast ungoverned areas will only end up forcing the people to arm themselves for protection rather than be sitting ducks; at worst, they will try to exact justice outside the legal system by launching reprisal attacks, which will likely be against those whose only crime will be ethnic affiliations with the suspected attackers.

Such a reprisal will end up setting off more reprisals across the country and starting a huge conflagration of bloodshed.

The Federal Government must as a matter of urgency mandate the security agencies to properly investigate these attacks, and apprehend and prosecute any persons they have evidence that is involved in these attacks, no matter how highly placed.

It must also go to lengths to protect people in rural areas in crisis-prone states, act promptly on intelligence reports of impending attacks, and do all it can to secure our borders – with elected persons in government alleging that these attackers are non-Nigerians who come across our borders seeking pasture for their cattle.

The government must also go beyond that to address the root cause of these attacks – which is competition over land and water between farmers and herdsmen.

Currently, there are two bills in the House of Representatives proposing the establishment of grazing reserves and ranches – it is important that the executive takes a keen interest in these bills to see how it can be used to solve this root problem.

Lastly, while the Minister for Agriculture Audu Ogbeh has announced the intention of the Federal Government to import high-quality grass from Brazil for cattle, the government can go a step further to provide cheap loans for cattle rearers who want to convert from nomadic pastoralism to ranching through the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bank of Agriculture.

Such a policy will be an incentive for many cattle rearers to want to settle and own ranches, especially when other incentives such as access to better agricultural extension and veterinary services are added.

With every passing attack, Nigeria keeps getting pushed to the precipice. We cannot afford to keep sitting on our hands until she is completely tipped over.