The Adamawa Example

In the peak of the dry season, pasture-seeking pastoralists move southward with their livestock. This seasonal migration often leads to violent face-offs between pastoralists and sedentary farmers. Owing to climate change that have affected both socio-economic groups; desert encroachment and longer droughts which are pushing pastoralists from the North towards south, growing industrialisation and raging erosions are shrinking farmlands forcing farmers to go farther into the forests to create new farmlands. The ensuing melee has been of struggle over depleting natural resources.

With climate change slowly but steadily impacting on the environment, chances of resource-driven violent clashes are imminent. Since  January 2018, over 300,000 people have been displaced with at least 1,300 people killed nationwide. A report by Amnesty International holds that about 3,641 were killed in 21 states including the Federal Capital Territory Abuja between January 2016 and October 2018. In terms of economic losses, the chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and Ekiti state governor, Kayode Fayemi revealed that the country loses about $14 billion annually to farmers-herders crisis.

In the face of unending violent clashes, government\’s responses have failed to garner public approval. With accusations of unfairness and super-imposition of cultures, the cattle colony programme, Rural Grazing Area initiative (RUGA) and the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) have come short of brokering peace. Largely due to adequate stakeholder engagement, the issue has often been politised and viewed from ethnoreligious lenses. In a community in Adamawa state, the Managing Conflict in Nigeria, which is a British Council programme and the Murmushi Development Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) facilitated peace meetings between cattle herders and farmers. Both socio-economic groups, by engaging in dialogue have signed a peace treaty that seeks to promote peaceful coexistence going forward.

Taking a cue from the Adamawa example, government and civil societies should be at the core of organising platforms that seek to achieve peace between warring groups. It gives room for interest accommodation and for grievances to be aired. Policymakers can draw reliable information from these events in the buildup of policy actions and programmes.  By suing for peace, it will substantially reduce the deepening animosity between farmers and herders. With the dry season rapidly approaching, tendencies of clashes between the groups are inevitable. There should be massive stakeholders\’ engagement that seeks to encourage harmony among the groups pending when government can come up with sustainable policy solutions that will ensure lasting peace. The Adamawa example can be applied to other communities prone to farmers-herders clashes.