The conflict between settled farming communities and nomadic herding communities across Nigeria's Middle Belt and northern states has been one of the country's most persistent and deadly sources of violence. Climate change โ reducing grazing land and disrupting seasonal patterns โ has intensified pressure on both groups. Cattle routes that once crossed farmland without incident now pass through fields, with consequences that escalate from argument to assault to reprisal killing with terrifying speed. In some years, the death toll from farmer-herder violence has exceeded that from Boko Haram.
The conflict
Kano State, in north-west Nigeria, sits at a junction point of these pressures. A predominantly Muslim state with a long tradition of Islamic scholarship โ the Kano Emirate's scholars have been influential across West Africa for centuries โ Kano has nonetheless seen its share of farmer-herder violence, with flash points in the state's rural districts claiming dozens of lives in some years. In 2020, a coalition of Islamic scholars from Kano's major religious institutions decided that the tradition of Islamic scholarship they inhabited had the tools to address the crisis โ and that they had an obligation to use them.
The scholars
The Kano Ulema Peace Council โ established formally in 2020, though its member scholars had been involved in informal mediation for years โ brings together graduates of the Kano School of Islamic Legal Studies, scholars from the major mosques of the old city, and Sufi sheikhs whose networks cross the boundaries of the formal religious establishment. Their authority comes not from government appointment but from religious legitimacy โ in a society where the Islamic scholar's word carries weight that no politician or civil servant can match.
Their method is grounded in classical Islamic jurisprudence. They travel to affected communities โ sometimes at personal risk, in areas where violence is still live โ and invoke the Quranic prohibition on killing a fellow Muslim, the hadith on the sanctity of blood, and the Islamic legal tradition's sophisticated mechanisms for mediation, compensation, and the restoration of peace. They are not neutral โ they take the position that the killing is wrong and must stop โ but they are impartial in the sense that they insist on hearing both sides before prescribing any resolution.
The process
A typical mediation involves multiple visits over weeks or months. The scholars first meet separately with the leaders of each community, listening without judgement, establishing the specific grievances that underlie the violence. They then identify areas of agreed fact โ both sides usually agree that the killing has produced no benefit to either and that their communities were living in greater peace and prosperity before the escalation. From this foundation of shared recognition, the scholars work toward a formal agreement: compensation for livestock damage, agreed corridors for cattle movement, joint community watch committees, and a dispute resolution mechanism for future incidents that routes conflict toward the scholars rather than toward violence.
Shall I not tell you something better than the rank of fasting, prayer and charity? Making peace between people, for corrupting peace between people is the destroyer.
The results
By 2025, the Kano Ulema Peace Council had successfully mediated 23 active farmer-herder conflicts across Kano and neighbouring states. Independent monitoring by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Abuja found that communities where the council had mediated showed a sustained reduction in violence โ with no community reverting to active conflict after a successful mediation. The council's model has been studied by conflict resolution practitioners from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Mali, and has been adopted in adapted forms by Islamic scholar networks in three other Nigerian states.