Nigeria Keeps Arresting the Herders’ Chief But Can’t Convict Him 

By Mike Odeh James

(Abuja) The vans had waited outside the gate for hours before Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, Nigeria’s best-known herders’ leader, walked out of one jail and into another.

On August 28, he met the conditions of a bail bond worth about $745,000 and was released by Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency. Officers of the State Security Service, the agency Nigerians call the secret police, waited at the gate. His wife, Hauwa Bodejo, told the Daily Trust newspaper that three vans took him away. Days later, the agency had still not said what the charges were.

Bodejo has been arrested and detained repeatedly since January 2024. He has faced terrorism-related allegations and, more recently, money-laundering allegations. No court has convicted him.

Bodejo leads Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, one of Nigeria’s largest associations of Fulani herders. In the Middle Belt, where the Muslim north meets the Christian south, residents of farming villages say Fulani gunmen raid them at night and take their land. The association denies this and says herders are the ones being killed.

On the night of August 17 this year, gunmen struck three farming villages in Plateau state at the same hour and killed 27 people. Similar raids have emptied hamlets across Benue and Nasarawa, while those who carry them out are often not arrested.

One trail leads to officials in the opposition-controlled Bauchi government. The other leads to an allegation against Nasarawa Governor Abdullahi Sule, a member of President Bola Tinubu’s ruling APC — but hasn’t produced any charge against him.

Four arrests, no verdict

On January 23, 2024, military intelligence arrested Bodejo near the capital and accused him of setting up an ethnic militia. The government later dropped the case, and a judge freed him.

In December 2024, the same agency held him for 60 days over terrorism allegations, and no charges followed. In May 2026, officers arrested him in Taraba after he began campaigning for a Senate seat. He was later transferred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which charged him with money laundering.

Every arrest made headlines. None has resulted in a conviction.

The governor he allegedly accused

In April 2024, the Punch newspaper published what it said was Bodejo’s statement to investigators. In it, he allegedly said that Sule telephoned him that January and asked him to raise a Fulani vigilante force from men who had worked at a campaign rally. Bodejo allegedly said he was told to price uniforms for 1,000 men.

Sule denied the allegation. When the force was launched, he said his government had no involvement and did not recognize the group, and that creating one would have required a bill before the state assembly.

Sule, a member of the president’s party, has never been charged over the allegation.

Why nobody moves

Soldiers and senior police officers attended the launch, where the state police chief was a guest of honour. Their presence does not establish that they authorised or funded the group, but it raises questions about what state authorities knew about it. Six days later, military intelligence arrested the man who organized it.

“On paper it is community policing. In the Middle Belt, an armed Fulani force has one purpose, and that is to drive the native peoples off their land,” said Adakole Adam, a security consultant in Takum, Taraba state.

“Sule belongs to the president’s party, and this is an election season,” Adam said. “Acting on the accusation would mean moving against one of the president’s own men and losing millions of northern votes.”

The trail they did follow

The money is not a mystery. Investigators allege that Bodejo received cash linked to officials in the Bauchi state government: $100,000 in December 2023, $980,000 in February 2024, $750,000 in March 2024 and another $500,000 later that month, totaling $2.33 million.

Investigators have separately alleged that Bauchi officials released the money and have brought terrorism-financing and money-laundering charges against state officials. The allegations remain to be proved in court.

“Proving the alleged terrorism-financing and money-laundering scheme in court, against him and everyone named, is a long and uncertain job,” said Friday Agbo, who runs the consultancy Alterkonsult in Kaduna.

“So they take the easier road. Arrest him, hold him, keep him out of the way until the elections are over.”

Why Fulani Militia Violence Remains Difficult to Prosecute

Analysts told TruthNigeria that political and security calculations may help explain why allegations involving armed Fulani groups in the Middle Belt often produce little accountability.

“Look at who advises the president on security. Nuhu Ribadu at national security. Muhammad Bello Matawalle at defense. Alhaji Idi Mukhtar Maiha at livestock. All Fulani,” said David Onyilokwu Idah of the International Human Rights Commission in Abuja.

“They do not see land being taken from Middle Belters. They see farmers and herders quarreling, and they think the answer is more room for the herders,” Idah said.

But the central question remains: If Bodejo has repeatedly been arrested over allegations involving militia activity and, separately, alleged financial crimes, why have politically connected figures allegedly linked to some of those activities not faced comparable charges?

Political Context

“The Presidency is also weighing the political cost of arresting a large number of influential northerners, because it could backfire on the president,” Idah said.

“We may see tougher action, arrests, trials and convictions, if Tinubu wins next year’s election.”

Mike Odeh James is a conflict reporter and he writes for truthNigeria.

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