Herdsmen-Farmers Crises: Implications for Food Security in Nigeria (1999-2023)

Abstract

The study investigated the persistent Herders-farmers crises and its implications for food security in Nigeria for the period 1999-2023. Descriptive research design was adopted and it was qualitative with focus on the experiences of the victims and the actors. The study sought;to understand the role of climatic changes as a dynamic causal factor of the conflict; to evaluate what must have caused a pastoralist to want to become land owners by displacing the aborigines; to highlight the dynamics of the crisis because it involved people of different faith, different ethnic group and occupation and to ascertain how the conflict, amount to serious threat to food security calculus in Nigeria. Two theoretical framework were utilized, Eco-Violence theory attempted to validate the popular narrative that ‘climate change’ was the major causal factor in the crises while the clash of civilization and the Remaking of the World Order factored into the analysis, the differences in culture, faith and occupation. The study recommended that the Nigerian state should invoke its conflict management system to deal with the situation and ensure that all villages taken over by the herders and renamed should be return to the aborigines. The Federal Government should ensure the operation of ranches only in the northern states. The beef could be frozen, packaged and conveyed to particular markets in the middle-belt states, Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and other locations thereby creating employment along the value chains and above all, the resolution of the crises rest on nation and state building as well as the emergence of effective leadership in Nigeria.