The Economist Asia Edition - June 09, 2018

38 Middle East and Africa The EconomistJune 9th 2018

1

2 reform. But Getachew Teklemariam, a con-

sultant and former government adviser, ar-

gues that simply selling minority stakes in

public monopolies is insufficient. “It’s only

the ownership structure which will

change,” he says. “The rules of the game

are the same.” Others fret that hasty priva-

tisations might be marred by corruption.

The question is whether Mr Abiy has a

vision for the economy beyond the part-

sale of public enterprises. Ethiopia still has

no stockmarket. The banking industry,

which will remain off-limits to foreigners,

is overdue a shake-up, for instance by al-

lowing management contracts with for-

eign banks. The foreign-exchange regime,

which allocates currency to industries the

government wants to support, is riddled

with graft. Businesses are hobbled by red

tape. Conglomerates owned by the army

and party dominate much of the economy.

Market reforms, as well as a new ap-

proach to peace with Eritrea, had been un-

der discussion within theruling coalition

for many months before Mr Abiy took of-

fice. But he has brought an urgency to deci-

sion-making that had been lacking ever

since the death of Meles six yearsago.

“These are pretty much the decisions of

the politburo taken five months ago,” says

one Ethiopian analyst. “The difference is

the pace of change.” 7

M

ARIS GIDWELL unwinds the ban-

dage from her forearm and removes

a wooden splint. Two fingers are missing.

Her arm shakes as she tells how, as dawn

broke, she heard shouts warning the resi-

dents of Lawaru, in Adamawa state in

north-east Nigeria, to flee. She ran towards

a neighbouring village with her 25-year-

old son. Tragically, men wielding machetes

caught them. They robbed and wounded

Ms Gidwell, and murdered her son.

The attack on Lawaru and its surround-

ing villages was probably carried out by

nomadic Fulani herdsmen, a group that is

scattered across much of west Africa’s

semi-arid Sahel, from Mali to the Central

African Republic. Many of those killed

were sedentary farmers, mostly from the

Bachama tribe. The incident is part of a

growing wave of violence between no-

mads and farmers that has ebbed and

flowed across Nigeria’s central “Middle

Belt” since at least 2011.

Although strife between herdsmen and

farmers dates back centuries, it has escalat-

ed sharply as climate change pushes herd-

ers south. Clashes are deadlier, too, thanks

to guns looted from the arsenals of Libya’s

former dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, and

smuggledaround the region.

The fighting is stretching a government

that is also trying to contain a jihadist in-

surgency in the north-east and banditry in

the oil-rich Niger Delta. Violence in the

Middle Belt, which is about a third of Nige-

ria’s land mass, is every bit as brutal.

In the past year armed Fulani groups

have surpassed Boko Haram, a jihadist

group, as the deadliest threat to civilians.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data

Project (ACLED), a non-profit organisation,

estimates that armed Fulani men have

killed almost1,000 civilians this year; Boko

Haram have slaughtered 200 or so.

The fighting aggravates religious ten-

sions in a country with a perilous north-

south, Muslim-Christian divide. Most Fu-

lani herders are Muslim; most of the farm-

ers they attack are Christian. In April two

Catholic priests were killed in Benue state,

along with 17 congregants. The massacre

provoked national protests. “One spark

could ignite a flame that no one can extin-

guish,” says an aid worker trying to reduce

intercommunal violence.

That spark may well come from the gov-

ernment. Ms Gidwell says that, after her

village was attacked on December 4th, resi-

dents who tried to help her were fired on

by a Nigerian militaryhelicopter. The chief

of a neighbouring village says his palace

was destroyed in an air strike after the

herdsmen had left. Amnesty International,

a watchdog, says that Nigeria’s air force

killed at least 35 people fleeing Fulani at-

tacks. An air force spokesman initially

claimed that only “warning shots” were

fired. Later he said that a helicopter and

fighter jet had returned fire at “hoodlums”.

That Nigeria is using the air force to sep-

arate warring communities suggests that

the police cannot cope. It would help if

they sorted out their priorities. On paper

Nigeria has about 300,000 police, but per-

haps half of them guard the homes, offices

and convoys of political bigwigs.

The general lack of security also afflicts

Fulanis, who say they have taken up arms

to protect themselves.Indeed,just weeks

before the raid on Lawaru that injured Ms

Gidwell, at least 50 unarmed Fulanis, most

of them children, were killed in an attack

they blamed on farmers.

Nigeria’s government is often bad at

easing tensions. Some states, such as Be-

nue, have passed laws that ban herdsmen

from grazing cattle on open land. Promi-

nent southern Christians such as Wole

Soyinka, an author and Nobel laureate,

think the ban does not go far enough. They

want Fulani herdsmen to be declared ter-

rorists. That would give the police greater

powers to restrict their movement. Many

northerners think such a ban would infuri-

ate herders and fuel further conflict.

A more promising approach is being

tried in states such as Plateau, where offi-

cials are attempting to revive and protect

traditional grazing reserves and routes.

Many of these date back centuries but have

been encroached on by farmers as Nige-

ria’s population has expanded. Plateau

state has also been praised for organising

peace talks and mediating between hostile

groups. Things do not have to fall apart. But

the government needs to urge people to

talk rather than reach for their guns. 7

Conflict in the Middle Belt

Wild fire

LAWARU

Nigeria is failing to contain a bitter

conflict between farmers and herders

Lawaru

ADAMAWA

BENUE

PLATEAU

NIGER

NIGERIA

CHAD

CAMEROON

BENIN

Lagos

NigerAbuja

Gulf of

Guinea

States withsharia

NIGERIA

250 km

Fulani militia attacks

Fatalities, January 1st-

May 31st 2018

Source: ACLED

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40

T

HE sudden, violent death of a man

who had prospered for decades from

oil brokering in Africa is not necessarily

suspicious. Ely Calil was Nigerian-born, of

Lebanese descent, and well known to Afri-

can presidents, European ministers and

Western oil firms. He died on May 28th, re-

portedly from a broken neck after falling

down the stairs of his large London home.

Mr Calil amassed a fortune thanks

largely to his chumminess with two Nigeri-

an dictators of the 1980s and 1990s, Ibra-

him Babangida and the flagrantly corrupt

Sani Abacha. He was one of a breed of “fix-

ers”, or “bagmen”, who flit between Africa

and Europe, cultivating ties with politi-

cians and taking a cut from “facilitation

payments” from investors bidding for li-

cences to drill for oil or dig for gold.

Although softly spoken, he was brazen.

He once let a journalist from Harper’sob-

serve his negotiations over gourmet din-

ners in Paris. Until recently laws in several

European countries—unlike America’s

more stringent Foreign Corrupt Practices

Africa’s shady middlemen

Vulture, departed

Ely Calil, backer of a farcical coup plot,

died on May 28th