Political Economy of Pastoral Transhumance and Rural Insecurity in Benue State, North Central, Nigeria, 2010-2022

Abstract

There is an ongoing grass root war between pastoral community and host community over land for grazing and farming in Benue State. Existing works focused on how climate change, desertification, resource scarcity and population explosion as factors aggravating rural insecurity in Benue State. However, there is knowledge gap on how activities of Fulani pastoralists lead to insecurity in the State. This conflict occur when herdsmen migrate into farm lands for grazing, usually farmers becomes apprehensive any time herdsman decided to move their cattle for grazing. This is because the process of grazing has often been preceded by crop destruction, when crops are destroyed farmers become aggressive and decide to attack cattle in retaliation for their destroyed farms because herdsmen has often refused to take responsibility for crop destruction and most often, Fulani herdsmen embark on reprisal attacks for their cattle and this lead to violent killings and displacement. We appropriated the basic propositions emanating from the blended theories of relative deprivation and frustration aggression and argued that Fulani herdsmen inability to access grazing field due to farming activities lead to frustration and aggression because they lay claim to land as natural resource whereas no one should retrain them from accessing it thereby forced cattle into people’s farms. We collected data through primary and secondary sources we employed questionnaire and interview for primary data collection and review of documents such as books, newspapers, official government documents for secondary data collection, primary data were analyzed using tables and graph while secondary data were analyzed using content analysis. We recommended that laws that encourages modern methods of livestock rearing that emphasized on confinement of livestock be formulated to reduce regular contact and conflict between herdsmen and farmers.