Withering Peace

Ongoing violent conflicts and resource scarcity in Nigeria are harbingers of polarisation. Across Nigeria, perceptions of poor governance, unequal resource allocation, violent conflicts, climate change and humanitarian crisis deepen an \’us-versus-them\’ orientation among Nigeria\’s different demographics. Moreover, the perception of the government\’s mismanagement of public funds and marginalisation breeds grievance and instability, as portrayed in the Niger Delta militancy and the ongoing secession agitations in Southeast Nigeria. Beyond this, the government\’s responses also appear to fuel the embers of polarisation. For instance, security responses in Southeast Nigeria are viewed by some residents as oppressive to self-rule struggles in the region, especially with the nation\’s President coming from the northern part of the country.

Furthermore, group identities have been amplified and weaponised due to the rise of violent conflicts, humanitarian crises and climate change impacts. Violent incidents and climate change have birthed and increased sub-populations such as internally displaced persons, host communities, indigenes, settlers, repentant terrorists and militants. Socio-economic struggles are along old identities and new ones. Resources are either not evenly distributed or sufficient for the growing population and new needs. As a result, there is a rise in communal clashes among the different groups over limited and shrinking resources. Clear examples are the tensions between displaced populations and host communities, pastoralists fleeing violent conflicts and climate change in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) and moving southward to be engrossed in violent conflict with sedentary farming communities, whose livelihoods are also affected by insecurity, low yield and rapid industrialisation.

The Nextier Violent Conflict Database show a steady rise in group violence across Nigeria. Tracked data for 2021 show the nation recorded 174 incidents resulting in 654 deaths. About 406 deaths from 122 violent cases have been reported in the first half of 2022. Recurrent crisis types include inter-communal clashes over access to land, farmer-herder clashes, cultism, and mob violence. The exponential rise in group violence hinders more people from accessing livelihood opportunities and increases the struggle over access to land resources and public goods. Stability and social cohesion are weakened by the array of violent actors, limited livelihoods, food insecurity and climatic pressures.

The 2022 analysis of the Fragile States Index by the Funds for Peace holds that although Nigeria and her Lake Chad Basin (LCB) neighbours are not in the top-five most worsened list, they rank poorly in refugees, internally displaced persons and security apparatus. Due to the ongoing insurgency, armed banditry and communal crisis, about 2.9 million people are displaced in Northern Nigeria. Moreover, new displacements and humanitarian needs may worsen, given the protracted conflicts across the board.

Managing Nigeria\’s fragile peace means engaging in several evidence-driven interventions. The responses to numerous violent conflicts in Nigeria should be tailored to the specific realities of the conflict and the environment. This should include a conflict sensitivity component to ensure interventions do not worsen the realities of impacted communities. It should also capture the sensitivities of the different demographics in the conflict location. For example, interventions to mitigate the farmer-herder crisis in Nigeria should adequately accommodate the major conflict groups\’ specific concerns. Also, the security interventions in Southeast Nigeria should be tactical and not support the propaganda of federal government-sanctioned repression against agitators and people in the region. Lack of conflict sensitivity considerations can undermine interventions and worsen the realities of communities facing instability.

Given rising violent conflict hotspots across Nigeria that require state attention and resource, the Nigerian government must increase early warning and early response (EWER) mechanisms to forestall terror spread. Also, non-conflict interventions (NCIs) are ideal for capturing the buy-in of aggrieved groups and affected communities. Nextier SPD Policy Weekly argues that government needs to increase NCIs to win people\’s support and attract conflict actors to the negotiation table for sustainable peacebuilding. The Nigerian government must rethink and evaluate its responses to Nigeria\’s myriad of violent conflict hotbeds.