I have a small farm in the deep Southwest—far beyond the last paved road, past a long stretch of untarred road, and beyond where cars dare to go. From there you mount a bike and ride another thirty minutes into a place where the city feels like another planet entirely.
But something strange has been happening there for decades, more rampant now.
When you finally arrive, you discover that the people farming the land are not the sons of the soil.
The locals are not in the fields.
They are not planting.
They are not building.
They are not claiming their inheritance.
The few of them present are reselling sold land
Instead, the farmlands are dominated by:
• migrants from Benin Republic
• migrants from Togo
• mobile pastoralists who have lived in these forests for decades
And behind this peaceful agricultural routine sits a far deeper story—one about territory, economics, demographics and quiet displacement, unfolding in slow motion yet with precision.
THE CRAFT: A CALCULATED TERRITORIAL STRATEGY
If you spend time in these forests, you start to notice patterns so consistent that they can no longer be dismissed as coincidence.
1. Grazing into your farm, never theirs
This is not random movement of cattle.
It is directional grazing.
Your maize?
Your cassava?
Your yam mounds?
It’s cruel competition.
But their own farms—yes, they now have farms deeper inside the forest—are protected. Their cattle never wander there. Their crops grow undisturbed.
This is not chaos.
It is choreography.
2. Farming deeper into the bush, building an invisible economy
Far inside the forests, they cultivate:
• tomatoes
• onions
• peppers
• vegetables
• yam
• ginger
Then supply local markets through trusted women in the host communities.
Over time, the local economy flips:
• Locals become buyers.
• Migrant farmers become suppliers.
• Territorial influence quietly shifts.
Soon they are big enough to position their own leaders.
3. Wealth accumulation & mobility
A successful harvest means money.
Money becomes motorcycles.
Motorcycles become mobility.
Mobility becomes dominance.
The motorcycle is the most powerful tool in rural West Africa.
It is:
• a transport network
• a communication link
• a logistics tool
• and a rapid-response system in conflict moments
This is not about farming.
It is about territorial infrastructure.
4. Social roots: marrying local girls
Every long-term strategy has a social angle.
After years of farming, selling, supplying and settling, many marry into local communities.
This brings:
• legitimacy
• cover
• language integration
• generational presence
• inheritance rights
At this point, the “outsider” is no longer a visitor.
He is family.
And his children will inherit the land even local youths abandoned.
5. Population density becomes territorial claim
The population grows.
The networks deepen.
The territory becomes theirs, socially and economically.
No guns.
No battles.
Just gradual occupation through presence and productivity.
This pattern is not unique to your village.
It is happening across:
• Oyo
• Ogun
• Osun
• Ekiti
• Ondo
• Kwara
• Edo
• Plateau
• Southern Kaduna
• Benue
• Taraba
Quiet.
Gradual.
Consistent.
A long game.
THE REAL TICKING TIME BOMB
Most people in the Southwest don’t realise how much forest territory is already inhabited by non-citizen populations, many of them undocumented, and some connected to pastoral networks extending across Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and the Sahel.
Not all are violent.
Not all are criminal.
Many are simply seeking livelihood.
But among them are:
• sleeper criminal networks
• pastoral militias
• smuggling routes
• arms traffickers
• kidnapping cells
• men who can mobilise 50 reinforcements from the bush in one phone call
This is why locals fear confronting them.
Not because they are superhuman, but because they are never alone.
A farmer in Oyo fights alone.
A herder calls ten cousins from the forest.
That is asymmetry.
And asymmetry produces dominance.
THE GOVERNANCE FAILURE BEHIND THE CRISIS
Let us be brutally honest:
• State governments have abandoned rural territories. Security votes are simply pocketed.
• Local governments are functionally dead.
• Border control is non-existent.
• Forest surveillance is zero.
• Police do not enter these forests except after crimes.
• Traditional rulers have lost territorial authority.
• Young people have fled farms for city life.
A vacuum has been created.
And nature—especially human nature—never leaves a vacuum empty.
Someone always steps in.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DYNAMIC
In past dispensations, a dangerous trend emerged:
Whenever local clashes occurred,
• locals were arrested
• cases escalated to Abuja
• migrant or pastoral actors were released within 24 hours
• no investigation
• no balance
• no justice
This created a dangerous perception:
“The state is on one side.”
Whether true or not, perception fuels tension.
This structural bias emboldened certain actors and disempowered others.
COMPARATIVE CASE STUDIES
This is not a Nigerian phenomenon alone.
Similar slow-motion territorial shifts have happened in:
• Northern Ghana (Fulani–Dagomba conflict areas)
• Ivory Coast (immigration-led land replacement)
• Burkina Faso (Sahel pastoral penetration)
• Mali (ethnic militias capturing abandoned villages)
• DRC (foreign groups settling in ungoverned terrains)
Everywhere the pattern is the same:
Where governance retreats, a new group advances.
Where locals abandon land, another community fills the space.
Where states fail to secure forests, armed actors build kingdoms.
THE SOUTHWEST WARNING
Southwest Nigeria is sitting on a quiet threat:
Large populations of unintegrated, unregulated, unmonitored migrants living inside forests, economically empowered, mobility-equipped, socially networked, and territorially entrenched.
Not all are criminals.
But criminal networks hide within them.
The absence of proactive security architecture means kidnapping can spike anytime, as it has in Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti and Ogun forests in recent years.
This is a ticking time bomb.
And it is still ticking.
WHAT MUST BE DONE — URGENTLY
1. Forest Mapping & Registration
Identify who lives in the forests.
Document them.
Know numbers, farms, settlements.
2. Community Policing With Intelligence
Local hunters + Amotekun + technology
—not random force, but structured intelligence.
3. Youth Return-to-Farming Programs
If locals don’t occupy the land, others will.
4. Border Control
Nigeria must stop being a free entry zone.
5. Pastoralist Reform
Ranching.
Trackable cattle.
Registered herds.
Zero open grazing.
6. Political and Military Neutrality
No federal protection for any group.
Conflict must be resolved by justice by state governments, not favoritism.
THE TAKEOVER STARTS, NOT BY FORCE — BUT BY ABANDONMENT
Territory is never lost overnight.
It is lost when:
• locals abandon farms
• youth chase the city
• governments ignore rural security
• outsiders fill the vacuum
• and time seals the arrangement
What is happening in Southwest Nigeria is not accidental.
It is structured, consistent, and decades old.
The danger is not the presence of Fulani, Beninese, Togolese or anyone.
The danger is ungoverned spaces, economic displacement, quiet demographic takeover, and political blindness.
If the Southwest does not wake up,
the forests will wake her up
