Perceptions of injustices in the struggle for scarce critical lands: Farmer-herder conflict and violence escalation in the Benue-Nasarawa borderland

Abstract

Studies on farmer-herder conflicts in Africa have concentrated on how scarcity of resources, marginalization, ethno-religious and political factors and institutional and governance failures have engendered the conflicts. Little attention is paid to how perceptions of injustices contribute to the escalation of the conflicts and violence. Thus, this paper examines the escalation of farmer-herder conflict and violence in the Benue-Nasarawa borderland in Nigeria from the perspective of natural resource scarcity and perceptions of injustices. The study uses interviews and field observations for data collection. It uses a political ecology approach to clarify the material interests underlying the conflict stemming from grievances regarding crop damage and cattle killings. The political ecology approach helps to analyze how the acquisition and privatization of wetlands by agro-industrial projects increased the resource competition between pastoralists and farmers, resulting in more crop damage by herders’ cattle and cattle theft/killings by farmers. Then, it uses relative deprivation theory and social injustice perspectives to explore how the perceptions of injustices about managing the disagreement concerning crop damage by herders’ cattle and cattle theft/killings by farmers following increased resource competition escalate the conflict. It argues that state intervention, notably the anti-open grazing law, amplifies the perceptions of procedural and restorative injustices, prompting violent responses from pastoralists and counter-attacks from farmers. Contrary to the political ecology perspective that often attributes the conflict to state policies marginalizing pastoralists, I argue that material interests are at the heart of the conflict, with perceptions of injustices escalating it into violence. The paper suggests that the analysis of the conflicts can be improved by incorporating political ecology, social justice and relative deprivation perspectives, which arguably improves the understanding of how resource scarcity leads to conflict intensification and escalation of violence.