Abdullahi Lawal Dangiwa

Keywords: Ranches, herders, frustration-aggression, violence

Abstract

In Nigeria, conflicts between nomadic pastoralists and farmers have been among the most serious security challenges that have led to major setbacks in the nation’s socio-economic development. This paper provides a sociological assessment of the menace of nomadic pastoralists and farmers conflicts in Nigeria. The paper utilized materials obtained from secondary sources of data including journals, newspapers, magazines and textbooks. The paper used frustrationaggression as its theoretical lens. The paper identified illegal trespass on farmlands for grazing purposes, government failure in enacting and implementing policies that can mitigate farmer-herders conflict, proliferation of small and light weapons, corruption, greed and selfishness, weak security system and porous borders as the major causes of violent clashes between nomadic pastoralists and farmers in Nigeria. The paper recommends that government at all levels; communities and other stakeholders should formulate and implement legislations that prohibit open grazing while also encouraging and supporting herders to establish ranches for their animals. Nigerian government and other security stakeholders should work hard to address the issue of proliferation of small and light weapons into the country because the use of such weapons escalates the level of violence and triggers the need for reprisal attacks between the warring parties.

Author Biography

Abdullahi Lawal DANGIWA

Department of Sociology,

Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State

abdullahi[email protected]

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