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How to stop Nigeria’s worsening farmer-pastoralist violence
A new Ministry of Livestock has been hailed as a key step in addressing worsening farmer-herder conflicts. The reality is more complicated.
President Bola Tinubu has big dreams for Nigeria’s new Federal Ministry of Livestock Development. In a speech announcing the ministry, Tinubu shared his hope that it would “enable Nigeria to finally take advantage of livestock farming” and overcome “this adversity that has plagued us”.
The adversity he is alluding to is farmer-herder conflict: the violent disputes between farmers and pastoralists over land and land access that are estimated to have killed 2,600 people in 2021 alone.
Created last year, the Ministry of Livestock is tasked with mending relations between pastoralists and farmers, as well as with improving agricultural productivity, strengthening value chains, and identifying export opportunities.
But there has also been opposition to the new ministry in certain quarters – opposition that exposes the simmering tensions that divide opinion in Nigeria over the future of pastoralism.
Read more in the new article for The New Humanitarian.
The people of Ta Kuti village, Niger State, Nigeria, are pastoralists and beneficiaries of Nigeria's Fadama II project.
Credit Arne Hoel/World Bank
