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AN APPRAISAL OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF FARMERS-HERDERS CRISIS IN NIGERIA UP TO 2018.

ABSTRACT

The worsening violence between Farmers and Nomadic herdsmen in Nigeria hasremained an issue of concern on the laundry list of the Nigerian State, policy makers,security agencies, International bodies as well as Social science scholars. Whileconflict is considered a normal and inevitable outcome of human relationships, theconcern here is the devastating socio-economic, political and environmentalimplications of the conflict between these two livelihood groups as well as its impacton national development. Whereas a number of factors have been adduced for thisgrowing violence ranging from climatic transformations, deteriorating environmentalconditions, desertification, soil degradation; political and ethnic strife; breakdown intraditional conflict resolution mechanisms; proliferation of arms in the country and adysfunctional legal regime that neglects justice; this paper, relying on the demographictheory of conflict, demonstrates how population overshoot in Nigeria explicate the newviolent and widespread dimensions of the Farmers-Herders conflict. This paper,relying on the Demographic theory of conflict, argues that among the various causes ofthe Farmers-Herders conflict, the exponential growth of Nigeria’s population and theinability of the Nigerian State to meet the needs of the populace, contributes to theendless contest for space and property in the country, referred to in this paper as‘population induced warfare’. In line with this thesis, this paper recommends thatNigeria as a country should begin to pay serious attention to the costs and impacts ofpopulation growth and create accordingly, rights-based population policies thatadapts Nigeria’s population strength to a positive force for sustainable development

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The history of Nigeria is replete with conflict of various dimensions, rangingfrom religious to sectional violence, and to the currently escalating clashesbetween livelihood groups, particularly between sedentary farmers anditinerant herdsmen across the country. As noted by Dalhatu (2012), Muzan(2014) and Peace Direct (2017) amid the very many complex socio-politicalproblems facing Nigeria, conflict and issues of national disunity remainprevalent. In 1967 the Nigerian state was confronted with a civil war withBiafran separatists resulting in the death of millions of people and massivedestruction of property. Grievances in the Igbo community were againreignited in 2015 in protests by Igbo youths and the Indigenous People ofBiafra (IPOB) group who still feel that the Nigerian state is yet to resolve theissues that culminated into the civil war. Between 2006 and 2009, followingseries of agitations for good and inclusive governance by various groupsincluding the Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro led movement of 1966, a militantgroup named MEND alongside many other armed militias of the Niger Deltaregion protested against the increasing environmental degradation and povertyin the region in spite of the wealth generated from the region. The activities ofthese groups also impacted significantly on the social, economic and politicalgrowth of the country resulting in loss of lives and property. Prominent also inthe history of conflict in Nigeria is the ongoing terror campaign andhumanitarian crisis in the Northern part of Nigeria which has claimed the livesof over 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million persons (PeaceDirect, 2017). The current concern on the front burner of Nigeria’s security anddevelopment today is the intensified violence between Cattle Herdsmen andRural Farmers in the country.As noted by International Crisis Group (ICG) (2017) and Erondu &Nwakanma (2018) the violent conflicts between nomadic cattle herders, whoare largely Fulani’s and sedentary agrarian communities in the central andsouthern zones of Nigeria have escalated in recent years and have assumedvarious dangerous dimensions threatening the country’s security and stability.The ICG (2017) and Sahara Reporters (2018) opine that with an estimateddeath toll of approximately 2,500 people in 2016 and over 300 in the firstquarter of 2018, these clashes are becoming as potentially dangerous as theBoko Haram insurgency in the North East, Nigeria. While conflicts and violentclashes between farmers and nomadic cattle herders have been a commonfeature of economic livelihood in West Africa since time immemorial, therecent increase in the violence and the application of dangerous weapons aswell as the systematization of the attacks have revealed a worrisome dimensionto this seemingly recalcitrant social problem in Nigeria. The concern now is theimmediate and impending implications of this feud, especially as it directlyimpacts on peace, stability, human development, economic growth andsustainable development (Erondu & Nwakanma, 2018). This paper concernsitself with the various issues contributing to population overshoot in Nigeriaand the demographic dimensions of the Farmers–Herdsmen crisis in Nigeria.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The perennial nature of the clashes between itinerant cattle Herders andpastoralist Farmers in Nigeria informs the growing concern for viable andlasting methods to improve on the relationship between these coexistinglivelihood groups. Conflict between these two groups over space andownership of natural resources has a long history throughout sub-SaharanAfrica. As noted by Moritz (2010) conflict between farmers and pastoralist

The Nigerian Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 17 no. 230have remained a constant occurrence in West Africa. While they havecoexisted in symbiotic relationships, there have been pockets of violencebetween these two groups in many West African communities. Fights overcattle have claimed thousands of lives in South Sudan and the Central AfricanRepublic, worsening the humanitarian crises in two states devastated by civilwar. Militias raised by armed cattle herders have brought anarchy to parts ofnorthern Kenya, killing farmers white and black (The Telegraph, 2018). ANigerian Environmental Study Team (NEST) report of 1991 revealed that longbefore these recent clashes in Nigeria, Fulani cattle herders and farmers havealways contended, at times violently, with each other for space and naturalresources in places Bornu, Benue, the then Gongola and Plateau States.Davidheiser and Luna (2008) noted that the clashes between these two groupsare usually provoked conflict between these groups emerge as a result severalhistorical, social and environmental factors such as climate changes, drought,famine, international development projects, demographic changes,environmental degradation, ownership and utilization of available land, waterresources and vegetal resources. However, today, this perennial crisis hasassumed worrisome dimensions that pose serious threat to national cohesionand growth. As noted by Nwosu (2017), while an accurate account of the deathtoll resulting from herdsmen-farmer violence in Nigeria is difficult to come bydue to the lack of a dedicated database, newspaper reports of various incidentsinvolving the herdsmen and farmers in settled communities reveal that theconflicts have resulted in the loss of over 60,000 lives since 2001, making itdeadlier than the notorious Boko Haram uprising. A BBC report also claimsthat over 50,000 persons have been killed in the crisis between 2001 and 2004and over 62, 000 person displaced in the Middle belt states of Benue, Kaduna,Nassarawa and Plateau alone. Sadly, women and children accounted for almost35,000 of these deaths (Nwosu, 2017; Kwaja & Ademola-Adelehin, 2018).Another study provided an estimate of the economic cost of the Herdsmen-Farmer conflicts in four states of Benue, Kaduna, Nassarawa and Plateau,positing that about $14 billion is lost annually to destruction of property,agricultural product, and the management of the Herdsmen-Farmers crisis(Nwosu, 2017).The frequency and intensity of these clashes has increased in recent timesspreading even to communities beyond the Middle Belt States. One of the mostprominent recent clashes allegedly perpetrated by cattle herders was the AgatuMassacre in Benue State where about 300 Agatu indigenes in fourcommunities were massacred in cold blood, and more than 7,000 personsdisplaced from their homes. As noted by Davidheiser & Luna (2008); Nwosu(2017); Ajibefun (2018) these killings were accompanied by the destruction ofhouses and other property, rape, as well as illegitimate occupation of victimcommunities. Further South, on 25 April 2016, suspected armed herdersinvaded Ukpabi Nimbo, an agrarian community in Enugu State, in a reprisalattack, killing about 40 indigenes. Similar cases of herder-farmer conflicts havebeen reported in Zamfara and Katsina States in the North, as well as Abia andOsun States in the South-East and South-West respectively (Channels, 2017;Nwosu, 2017; Odunsi, 2017).According to the ICG (2017) the spread of this conflict into Southern statesin Nigeria is aggravating already fragile relations among the country’s majorregional, ethnic and religious groups. Many have argued that the attacks largelycarried out by the Herders on perceived hostile communities is a systematicethnic cleansing; while the South’s majority Christian communities resent theinflux of predominantly Fulani–Muslim herders, portrayed in some narrativesas an “Islamization” programme of the North (Onwuka, 2017; Telegraph,2018). The implications of these are enormous as they tend to provoke ethnic,religious and political crisis in the country.

TRENDS AND DRIVERS OF HERDERS–FARMERS CONFLICT IN NIGERIA

Over the last decade violent clashes between Cattle Herders and Rural farmersacross communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, have increasedexponentially with a lot of factors adduced as its causes. Kwaja & Ademola-Adelehin (2018) noted that from Mali to South Sudan, Democratic Republic ofCongo to Nigeria, climate variability, environmental degradation, and socio-political upheaval have shifted pastoralist migratory patterns and increasedtensions between farmers and herders. These changes have increasedconfrontations between this two livelihood groups leading to violent conflict,deaths, forced displacement and migration, erosion of inter-communalrelationships, as well as the destruction of agricultural and livestock outputs(Mercy Corps, 2015).Sinclair & Fryxell (1985) posit that the introduction of new irrigationtechnology and modern farming techniques into Africa through developmentprojects allowed for the expansion of agriculture into relatively arid regionswhich caused many farmers in the Sahel to expand into semi-arid regionstraditionally used by cattle Herders as grazing lands. For Van den Brink,Bromley and Chavas (1995) cited in Davidheiser & Luna (2008), exclusiveproperty regimes’ in colonial and postcolonial Africa have also contributed tothe overuse of the resource base, amplification of negative effects of droughtperiods, and increased conflicts between nomads and farmers. The UnitedStates Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1996 explained howpoor pastures conditions in Niger and Mali have caused herders there to bringtheir animals to Burkina Faso, straining Burkina’s pasture resources. Areaswhere water is available are particularly subject to overgrazing. The increasinguse of traditional pasturelands for crop production – particularly along theborder with Mali – has aggravated the situation and has led to increasingconflict between agriculturalists and pastoralists (USAID, 1996).Within Nigeria, industrialization, urbanization, climate changes, expansionof farms as well as the advancement of the Sahara Desert has blocked manytraditional grazing routes used by herders moving south as the Sahara Desertadvances in northern Nigeria. Environmental change in neighbouring countries,such as the shrinkage of Lake Chad, have also caused a migration of foreign

The Nigerian Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 17 no. 232herders whose lack of familiarity with Nigerian populations often escalateviolent misunderstandings. ICG (2017) and Kwaja & Ademola-Adelehin (2018)further noted that frequent droughts and desertification; loss of northerngrazing lands to the expansion of human settlements; new livestock andfarming practices; rural banditry and cattle rustling, etc, further exacerbateeveryday conflict between these two groups. As a matter of fact, much of theclashes recorded between these groups are largely reprisals on perceivedhostility and unwarranted harassments by members of both livelihood groups.As noted by Nwosu (2017) allegations of cattle rustling are at the heart of someof the clashes as Herdsmen frequently justify their attacks on settledcommunities with allegations that affected communities steal their cattle andmurder their colleagues and children. According to Mr. Mohammed Abdullahi,the Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBA), inPlateau State, this act has necessitated their bearing arms for defence since thegovernment has failed to protect them from rustlers and bandits (Nwosu, 2017).Another worrisome issue in the Herders–Farmers crisis is the free flow ofcriminals and bandits from neighbouring countries into Nigeria’s porousborders. As noted by Nwosu (2017) most of the attacks allegedly perpetratedby herdsmen can be traced to foreign transhumant Fulani’s and many otherarmed groups especially from Libya, who move around unregulated offeringservices as war mercenaries, bandits, and armed robbers. Though Nigeria hasno direct boundary with Libya, some quarters have linked escaping rebelstrained by Muammar Gaddafi to the spate of killings across Nigeria. These newtrends have further expanded the concern on how best to tackle this challengeand create a safe environment for Nigerians in the face of the various factorscapable of escalating violence in Nigeria including the problem of population overshoot.

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