Ethnic faultline in the farmer–pastoralist conflict (FPC) – when does ethnicity matter to the FPCs? A case study of Adani-Nimbo area in South-Eastern Nigeria

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.9.1.0044
• Pages: 44-56
• Published date: 30 March 2022
• Date: 30 March 2022
• Author: Cletus Famous Nwankwo,Uchenna Paulinus Okafor
• Subject Matter: farmer–pastoralist conflict,ethnicity,land struggles,Nigeria,ethnic faultline,identity

Journal of Global Faultlines, 2022

Vol. 9, No. 1, 44–56.

44

Ethnic faultline in the farmer–pastoralist conflict (FPC) –

when does ethnicity matter to the FPCs? A case study of

Adani-Nimbo area in South-Eastern Nigeria

Cletus Famous Nwankwo and Uchenna Paulinus Okafor1

Abstract

The farmer–pastoralist conflict (FPC) has been discussed and given ethnic and religious

appellations in some countries of West Africa, such as Ghana and Nigeria. In Nigeria,

such a reading of the conflict is rampant in the media and dominant in national political

discourse. However, these ethno-religious insinuations have not received serious scholarly

treatment in Nigeria or been downplayed. In this paper, I examine the context in which

ethnicity becomes vital to the FPCs, based on fieldwork in the Nimbo-Adani area of Uzo-

Uwani municipal council of Enugu State affected most by the conflict in South-Eastern

Nigeria. This area is an essential hot spot of the FPCs that has not been explored in analyzing

the FPCs in Nigeria. The study is based on field observations and semi-structured in-

depth interviews. The paper draws on the FPCs literature regarding the influence of ethnic

identities on the conflict. It shows that the difference in ethnicity between pastoralists

and farming communities is not the primary root of the conflict. At the first outbreak of

violence, the difference in ethnicity was not the cause of the conflict. Ethnic identity only

gets cited after the first brutal fighting between the nomads and the farming community.

Non-violent conflicts often occur because of cattle destruction of farm crops and pollution

of water sources. Although the herders are accused of various atrocities, such as rape and

kidnapping, the first outbreak of violence was caused by retaliation for killing a herder in

one of the villages. Heightening ethnic identity amplifies the construction of the herders’

identity and social status as non-indigenous and non-belonging in the villages. Thus, the

villages seek the eviction of the herders based on their social status as non-indigenes. The

paper argues that ethnic faultlines matter to the FPCs but only after other factors have

initiated the conflict. Therefore, we should pay attention to the primary root of conflicts

and how they get the basis for social exclusion activated.

Keywords: farmer–pastoralist conflict; ethnicity; land struggles; Nigeria; ethnic faultline;

identity

Introduction

Across West Africa, the conflict between pastoralist and farming groups has intensified in the

last decade and has had economic, social and political implications in the region. In Nigeria,

the fighting had become recurrent in Central and Southern Regions compared with the

1970s–1990s when the conflict was prevalent in the Northern Region and has claimed the

lives of more than 2,500 people from 2012 to 2015 (IEP, 2016). The FPC has often been explained

as the product of the struggle for scarce environmental resources such as land and waterholes

(Homer-Dixon, 1999; Herrero, 2006; Obioha 2008; Cabot 2017). Environmental security the-

ory contends that the conflict is a result of the struggles between farmers and herders because

of the scarcity of ecological resources such as grazing lands and waterholes due to population

growth, environmental degradation, and climate change (e.g., Onuoha, 2008; Tamou et al.,

DOI:10.13169/jglobfaul.9.1.0044