Changing Patterns of Herders/Farmers Conflict and the Implications for Nation Building in Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue VII, July 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Changing Patterns of Herders/Farmers Conflict and the Implications for Nation Building in Nigeria

Kenneth T. Azaigba, PhD & Henry T. Ahom, PhD
Department of History & Strategic Studies,
Federal University, Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State.

Abstract
Herders/Farmers conflict in Nigeria is a vexed national question that is threatening nation building. Though the conflict is historically an old one spanning pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial epochs; the Nigerian State is yet to find a remedy to the crisis. The patterns of the conflict have also changed. The conflict has metamorphosed from a local community conflict to a large scale conflict using sophisticated weapons and involving the sacking of settled communities on their ancestral homes. This development has ignited debates as to the real motives for the persistence of the conflict. Indeed, the lethality of the contemporary pattern has left damnable implications for nation building and begs for thoughtful policy interventions. This paper historicizes the patterns of herders/farmers conflict in Nigeria since 1914 and highlights the implications on nation building. It contends that herders/farmers conflict is escalating the bound of a local resource conflict to a politicized ethnic and religious one. The implications of this development on nation building and human security are damning and capable of degenerating into a wide scale civil war just as the experiences of Somalia and Rwanda depicts. Thus, the paper proposes thoughtful policy prescriptions to tame the gradual slide to State failure. The analysis in the paper is laced in a historical methodology using primary and secondary sources.

Introduction

Herding and farming have long co-existed side by side as productive systems not only in Nigeria but the entire African region. Herding and farming communities have therefore had mutually reinforcing interdependent relations courted through reciprocity, exchanges and support (Moritz, 2010). But there is also a long historical record of oscillating conflicts and competition. What has changed in contemporary times is the lethality and scale of violent confrontations not the forms of relations. Herder-farmer conflicts in recent times get mixed with identity issues thereby blurring underlying causes. The lethality of violent engagements even complicates and compounds the triggers. For example, in 2004, Plateau State went in flames in a “near mutual genocide style” compelling President Obasanjo to declare a State of emergency. The January 2016 massacre of over 300 people

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