Beyond Ethnic Dimensions to Herders-Farmers Conflict Land Governance and Resistance to RUGA Policy in Nigeria

Abstract

Herder-farmer conflicts have been protracted in Nigeria in the last five years, especially in Northwest and North central Nigeria, where over 5 thousand people have been killed and hundreds of others displaced from their ancestral homes. Though, the conflicts between the nomadic herders and sedentary farmers are not new in Nigeria, the recent outbreak of violence in the rural grazing areas has been attributed to multiple factors ranging from climate change, increasing pressure on grazing lands and water resources which have necessitated that the herders moved to the South where their herds would have access to good pastures in order to survive. This study, which utilized a qualitative method of social research and sampled 144 participants across 12 states and 24 LGAs from the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria, found that the recent escalation of conflicts between herders and farmers in Nigeria is caused largely by the issue of land governance that is rooted in Nigeria's abysmal federal structure which recognizes grazing routes in the North and at the same time empowers State Governors to have control over their lands following the constitutional powers granted them by the 1999 Constitution with the recognition of the Land Use Act, 1978. The study suggested that the solution to the challenge of herder-farmers conflict in Nigeria must go beyond improving inter-group relations to the handling of critical land governance issues that have made most Southern people resist the Rural Grazing Areas Policy of the Federal Government.