Nigeria has continued to experience multidimensional escalating violent conflict and security challenges resulting in records of daily deaths, injuries, displacements and loss of properties, with the government finding it challenging to deal with the conflicts. According to the report of Nextier SPD from October 2020 to September 2021, the North-West zone of Nigeria has become the most violent part of the country with 274 incidents (31%) of the incidents in the period. While violent incidents relating to banditry is the most reported peace and security challenge, farmer-herder conflict and violent extremism are the second and third most reported conflict. The mix of the three is evident in the North West zone of Nigeria, especially in Kaduna and Katsina states. The North West zone encompasses seven states – namely, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna. Despite its high population, expansive land mass and economic potential, the North West has some of the worst development indicators in Nigeria[2]. This includes the highest poverty and illiteracy rates of any geopolitical region, a higher unemployment rate than the national average, the highest fertility rate, and some of the most alarming statistics on gender inequality. As of 2020, all the seven states in the zone had poverty levels above the national average of 40.1 per cent, led by Sokoto (87.7 per cent), Jigawa (87 per cent) and Zamfara (74 per cent)[3]. Land and natural resource management issues, compounded by climate change risks are also key to understanding current peace and stability dynamics in the North West, particularly as they have evolved over the last decade. Rapid population growth has combined with an expanding desert, climate change, unchecked resource exploitation and ‘land grabbing’ to increase competition for farm and grazing land and heightened tensions between farmers and herders. The lack of, or unimplemented, policy frameworks – like the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) on land access, integrated grazing reserve projects; resource use and dispute resolution as well as a broader absence of social protection; has created a vacuum contributing to lawlessness and conflict. The subsequent mobilization of vigilante groups along ethnic and community lines, impunity, coupled with increased access to small arms and light weapons through the porous borders especially with Niger Republic has contributed to repeated and lethal cycles of communal violence, cattle rustling, banditry, abductions, and wider human rights violations and abuses especially against women and girls. Worryingly, climate trends have aggravated contemporary conflict drivers in the region through increasing desertification and drought – limiting traditional means of livelihoods for both herders and farmers. This, compounded with rapid growth in population, has impacted both the nomadic pastoral communities and farmers as they now have to compete over shrinking natural resources. The nomadic pastoralists have also had to shift their migratory routes in search of animal fodder and better grazing, creating new tensions in new routes adding to the conflictious situation in the region. Integrated natural resource governance through grazing reserves, fostering livestock value chain development and initiating programmes to foster mutually beneficial economic relationships between herding and family has been a common policy feature – at Federal and State level. Across the Sahel including northern Nigeria, women in pastoral communities play an essential role in economic activities and are key stakeholders in influencing community affairs in their community. Women play key roles in pastoral value chains, including milk processing, local commerce, and managing small ruminants. Yet, women are sparsely represented among governing bodies, trade associations, and customary institutions that handle disputes and manage natural resources. Women in pastoral communities often have fewer opportunities to serve as formal authority figures and are overlooked in development and conflict transformation initiatives. Despite their leadership in community affairs, women’s voices often go unheard when interveners prioritize traditional or public forms of leadership. Pastoralist women are also more likely to stay behind in communities to manage the household and economic affairs while their relatives take the livestock on migration. This allows them to engage in sedentary trades (farming, taking animal products to market etc), and maintain social and economic bonds with neighboring farmers, a critical point to building or rebuilding the adversarial relationships between farmers and herders. The lives and livelihoods of youth have been negatively impacted upon by continued violent conflict. On one hand, the security vacuum caused by rising insecurity and the inability of the security agencies to respond to high levels of insecurity has forced young people – mostly men to assume ‘informal’ security responsibilities as community watch-guards[4]. While some of these mechanisms have proven useful, others have been accused of perpetrating violence and violation of rights. As the conflict has gone on and which is the case in most conflict contexts, legitimate means of livelihoods has continued to be curtailed, largely affecting young people, with dwindling livelihood prospects in the region – including in Kaduna and Katsina. The emergence of the ‘economy around banditry’ – including those serving as paid informants, commodity suppliers and other types of auxiliary supports to bandit groups risk being a pull factor for unemployed or unengaged youth. With minimal legitimate livelihood opportunities to serve as a disruptor of the bandit economy, this has served both as a driver and a symptom of the conflict. Increasing their access to sustainable livelihoods; positive income generation activities and providing platforms for their participation in peace processes is key in reversing this trend. - ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
The “Strengthening Local And State Level Peace Architectures For Peacebuilding and Prevention in Katsina and Kaduna States of North West Nigeria Project” with funding from the Secretary General’s Peacebuilding Fund Project aims to reinforce non-military responses to conflict and insecurity in Kaduna and Katsina States by strengthening existing infrastructures for peace, providing safe spaces for inclusive (inter-and-intra)-community dialogue, enhancing the resilience of communities directly affected by conflict through the provision of psychosocial support and increasing access to sustainable livelihoods. The inter-agency project is implemented jointly by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women and International Organisation for Migration (IOM), with UNDP being the coordinating agency. Additionally, UNDP has entered into a UN-to-UN agreement with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR). In this context, the livelihoods assessment will inform and feed into the project component aiming to contribute to affected communities in sampled Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Kaduna and Katsina states having increased access to sustainable livelihoods opportunities, particularly in ensuring that this engagement is based on data and evidence. Stemming the Tear- A Pragmatic Approach to Solving Nigeria’s Security Challenges. Background Paper for the 27th Nigeria Economic Summit October 2021 Violence in Nigeria’s North West: Rolling Back the Mayhem (2020) – International Crisis Group Violence in Nigeria’s North West: Rolling Back the Mayhem (2020) – International Crisis Group https://gsdrc.org/document-library/the-politics-of-protection-perspectives-on-vigilantism-in-nigeria/
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