Beyond the Rhetoric of Farmer-Herder Conflict in Northcentral Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Prospects

A hardest truth that has characterized human existence is the reality that conflict is inevitable in every social relation. Put differently, conflict occurs whenever disagreements exist in a social situation over material conditions thereby creating antagonisms or frictions between individuals or groups. Disagreement over the use of essential resources such as farmland, grazing areas and water between herders and local farmers remains the major source of the conflicts in those communities. In Nigeria, clashes between nomadic Fulani herdsmen and farmers used to be confined to the Northern-most region of the country but have spread to the North Central zone such that these disputes pose a grave threat to life and livelihood. Succinctly, the crux of this study was interrogating the Great Green Wall Initiative as Environmental Peacebuilding Approach to farmer/herder Conflict in North-central Nigeria. The theoretical foundation was laid on the group conflict theory while relying on exegesis of relevant secondary sources in its methodology. This paper posits that despite the recurring attacks by criminal herdsmen on farmers and their host communities across the North Central region, the Nigerian government particularly at the federal level has failed on its own part to consciously evolve relevant laws and regulations to check the menace. Furthermore, in addressing these anomalies, this study contends that the government (federal and state) must create the Department of Drought and Desertification Amelioration in the Federal Ministry of Environment to strengthen the institutional arrangement for more effective coordination of activities towards the implementation of the UNCCD in the country.