On the back of bombing and killing scores of Fulani herders in Nasarawa state, the military promised to improve coordination between troops on the ground and in the air. The United States, which sees Nigeria’s military as a key ally in the fight against Islamist extremists, held up a $593 million sale of A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft and weapons to Nigeria, citing this incident and an army attack on the ground that killed hundreds of civilians.

“We recommend you make clear to President Mohammadu Buhari that the sale of these aircraft can proceed only if there is positive and measurable progress on reforming the security institutions,” US senators Rand Paul, a Republican, and Cory Booker, a Democrat, wrote in a June 2017 letter to then-Defence Secretary Rex Tillerson.

The deal proceeded. Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based crisis monitoring group, data show Nigerian Air Force strikes continued to claim the lives of non-combatants, inside and outside the northeast.

They include a December 19, 2022, airstrike in the Mutumji community of north-western Zamfara state, which killed at least 65 people. Residents and officials quoted in local news reports said the strike targeted armed bandits who had attacked nearby communities but also killed civilians.

Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohammed expressed regret for the “unfortunate collateral deaths” at a December 21 news conference, Punch newspaper reported.

As reported in December, the United States and UK have consistently prioritised security in Nigeria – Africa’s biggest economy, its most populous nation and a military powerhouse in the region – over human rights issues.

In April 2022, the US government approved the sale of nearly $1 billion in military hardware, including 12 AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and 2,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems, to the Nigerian military. Again, the deal was cleared after being paused over human rights concerns.

The main justification provided by the US government for the Super Tucano deal was fighting Islamist militants in the northeast.

Earlier this year, three US Congress members, Jacobs and Republicans Jim Risch and Chris Smith, called for reviews or scuttling of the Viper deal, citing media reports in December of army abuses of women and children in the northeast.

“I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s planned response to the serious and abhorrent allegations levelled against a long-standing beneficiary of US security assistance and cooperation,” said Risch, in a December 16 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for a review and possible sanctions.

The Biden administration has not publicly responded to the Congress members’ concerns. No changes in the deal have been announced.

“I still have not received any indication that the administration has fulfilled this request” for a review, Risch says. “This airstrike is one of many examples where there remain more questions than answers.”

Dozens of herders were killed in the airstrike near Akwanaja village shortly after they were accused of illegally grazing their cattle in a neighbouring state and had their livestock impounded. The January 24 massacre came after a commonplace pastoral dispute.

Shortly before the airstrike – witnesses say between five days and two weeks prior – authorities in Benue state impounded 1,254 cows owned by Fulani herders near the border of Benue and Nasarawa states, accusing the herders of violating the anti-open grazing law.

Herders’ representatives claimed to authorities after the airstrike that Benue state livestock guards brazenly “kidnapped” the cows and held them for “ransom.” Benue state officials and livestock guards did not respond to requests for comment on the dispute. It was only the latest episode in a long history of mutual grievance.

Clashes between farmers and semi-nomadic herders have killed more than 3,600 people since 2016 in parts of Nigeria, according to a report published by London-based Amnesty International in December 2018. The violence is often painted as ethnic or religious in nature: chiefly Muslim Fulani herders clashing with mainly Christian farmers. But many experts say climate change and expanding agriculture are creating competition – and conflicts – over access to water and land, regardless of faith or ethnicity.

Farmers complain of herders letting their cows stray onto their land to graze, while herdsmen say their cows are being stolen. Some former herders have turned to crime after losing their cows to cattle rustlers, forming gangs that have been blamed for surging violence in some areas, including armed robberies, mass kidnappings and killings. The conflicts have fuelled what Fulani herders describe as discrimination against their nomadic way of life and violence against them.

Early on January 24, however, the dispute between the Nasarawa herders and the Benue guards appeared to have been settled peacefully. The herders paid fines totalling 29 million Naira ($63,000) to the Benue livestock guards, according to two letters written by a prominent Fulani community organisation, the Fulbe Global Development and Rights Initiative (FGDRI), to Nigerian authorities.

A group of herders went, with hired trucks, to retrieve the cattle from the Benue state capital, Makurdi, and a holding facility in Naka, and transport them back to the Akwanaja area, in Nasarawa state.

“We paid the money the Benue State Livestock Guards asked us to pay,” said Muazu, who returned with the group to Nasarawa state that afternoon to begin the unloading.

The bombing occurred around nightfall. Muazu and another witness told Reuters they did not see who or what attacked them – they only heard an explosive sound from above.

People were scattered, he said. They “were crying. Calling on God to help them.”

Abubakar Bello Rukubi, who had sent his three brothers to collect the family’s cows that day, recalled receiving a torrent of calls at once. After talking to a neighbour, he biked 45 minutes to the scene. He saw smoke, scorched cows, and people “covered in blood, dead bodies.”

“I recognised my brothers,” he said. “They were all dead.”

Nearly 40 people were killed in all, according to the Fulani organisation and Human Rights Watch.

At least 22 bodies wrapped in white shrouds were buried in a mass grave behind a government secondary school on January 25, in accordance with Muslim rites, according to multiple witnesses, photographs and videos verified by Reuters.

Receipts for the payment of fines by Fulani herdsmen to officials in Benue state to retrieve their cattle after a dispute. The herdsmen paid a total of 29 million Naira ($63,000), according to a Fulani community organisation.

In the days following the airstrike, tension spiked and high-level political figures travelled to Nasarawa.

“This is a very terrible and tragic thing indeed,” Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on January 27 during a visit, according to Nigeria’s Daily Trust newspaper. He was in the area in part to pay respects to the Nasarawa governor on the death of his son, which was unrelated to the bombing.

“I pray that the almighty God will comfort this state even as we await the outcome of the investigation going on,” he said. He did not say what investigation he was referring to. Demands have grown for an explanation and for justice.

On January 30, the Fulani community organisation, the FGDRI, wrote to Buhari with details of the bombing and other alleged attacks by the government or military on herders. The group pleaded with the president, himself a Fulani, to take action to stop further violence.

“That this extreme violence will be repeatedly committed by agents of government on its own citizens under your leadership is beyond our comprehension,” said the letter, signed by 76 prominent leaders and residents and accompanied by grisly photos of the dead. Reuters has reviewed a copy of the letter, which was verified by four signatories, including Sanusi, the former central bank governor.

The FGDRI also wrote to Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission on February 24 seeking an inquiry. That letter, copied to the US State Department and other international governments, as well as human rights agencies, complained there had been no official acknowledgement of responsibility by the federal government or military.

It’s as though the herders “never existed,” said the letter, also reviewed by Reuters. In the absence of anyone publicly acknowledging culpability, suspicions abound.

Some victims and relatives of those injured and killed say they believe that Benue state authorities must have called in the strike, as retribution for herders’ allowing their cows to graze in Benue in the past. They provided no evidence to back the claim.

Then-Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom was quoted by Nigeria’s Channels Television at the time as saying neither he nor the state government had the capacity to deploy military assets. Ortom could not be reached for comment.

Muazu, the herder injured in the strike, says he is mystified as to why he and his fellow herders would be targets.

“We didn’t do anything,” Muazu said. “I don’t see why they should do this. Maybe they want to kill us and take our animals.”

His animals are gone. His father had to sell what cattle survived the airstrike to pay his medical bills, Muazu said.

“My life has come to an end, as they have destroyed all the sources of our livelihood,” he said of the bombers. “They have taken us back to zero.”

• A Reuters report