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Herding in Nigeria is associated often with invasions. This study investigates how herding and its associated invasions are metaphorically conceptualized in Nigerian newspapers as natural disasters, removal of dirt and hunting exercise. Based on instances of the use of figurative expressions in Nigerian national newspaper reports on the herdsmen-farmers dispute, the study reveals that herding is represented as invasions, and the invasions are expressed through three salient metaphors: 1) invasion is overrunning water, 2) invasion is cleansing, and 3) invasion is hunting. Analysis of the metaphoric expressions shows that herding is constructed as natural disasters through water metaphors such as ‘flood’, ‘storm’, ‘surge’ and (heavy) ‘rain’ that wash debris (farmers) into running water while ‘cleanse’, ‘sweep’ and ‘wipe out’ conceptualize herdsmen as cleaning agents that eliminate ‘unharmful’ objects. Farmers, on …