Eighteen killed in Nigerian church by suspected herdsmen

The conflict is now more deadly than the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency that has ravaged Nigeria’s northeast and is becoming a key issue in the upcoming 2019 presidential polls.

Benue state lies in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt that separates the predominantly Muslim north from the largely Christian south.

The area has long been a hotbed of ethnic, sectarian and religious tensions between indigenous farming communities, who are mainly Christian and the nomadic cattle herders, who are Muslim.

The clashes over land have escalated into a rift that has deepened along nominally religious lines.

Buhari, who is seeking a second term, has been under pressure to end the violence and ordered in military reinforcements, but the killings continue in the absence of a strong police force and efficient judicial system.

“People are being killed regularly and nothing is being done in terms of bringing perpetrators to book,” Idayat Hassan, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development West Africa, told AFP.

“There is this belief that there is a conspiracy against the people,” Hassan said, speaking from Abuja.

“It is getting worse and it’s getting messier,” Hassan said, warning “we must quickly address this, before we get into a free-for-all war.”