Herdsmen/Farmers Clashes: Implications for National Security in Nigeria

Abstract

Herdsmen-farmers clashes have grown, spread, and intensified over the past decades and today pose a threat to national cohesion. Thousands of Nigerian citizens have been massacred, communities have been destroyed and so many pastoralists and farmers have lost their lives and properties in an ugly situation of killings and destruction's that are not only destroying livelihood but also affecting national security. There is hardly any community, region, or slate in Nigeria which has not witnessed herdsmen-farmers clashes in the past decades. The ripple effect of the herdsmen/farmers clashes in Nigeria today cannot be overemphasized. These clashes have been an issue that one can conclusively say, from a microcosm of the general way of living in the country - that is, living in a state of combustibility underpinned by differences such as religion, political affiliation, gender, culture, tribe, and even wealth. The average Nigerian today lives with a sense of suspicion towards other Nigerians who are dissimilar to him in the aforementioned features. Suffice it to say that the herdsmen/farmers clashes currently witnessed across the country are considered by many to have developed from the factors of religion and culture, where, albeit misconstrued, the herdsmen are believed to be predominantly Muslims of Fulani origin and the farmers, primarily Christians with ties to other cultures.