Climate change, population drift and violent conflict over land resources in northeastern Nigeria

Type Journal Article - Journal of Human Ecology
Title Climate change, population drift and violent conflict over land resources in northeastern Nigeria
Author(s)
Volume 23
Issue 4
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2008
Page numbers 311-324
URL http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JHE/JHE-23-0-000-000-2008-Web/JHE-23-4-000-000-2008-Abst-PD​F/JHE-23-4-311-08-1759-Obioha-E-E/JHE-23-4-311-08-1759-Obioha-E-E-Tt.pdf?q=climate-change-human-secu​rity-and-communal-clashes-in-nigeria
Abstract
In the recent times, due to the increasing rate of global warming, the northeast region of Nigeria has
been experiencing continuous climatic change characterized by drastic reduction in rainfall, increase in the rate of
dryness and heat, which makes it a fast growing arid environment, with depletion in the amount of water, flora and
fauna resources on the land. In response to the pastoral and arable farm occupational needs of the people, there has
been continuous population drift southward where there are more fauna, flora and water resources. Following the
above, an important question that needs to be addressed is how has the pressure over scarce resources consequent
to climatic change led to communal civil violent conflict in the area? And what have been the patterns over the
years? Against this background, this work focuses on investigating the chain of interactions between climate
change, population drift and pressure, and conflict over land resources. Specifically this article addresses the nature
of communal civil violent conflicts in the northeast area of Nigeria, the extent to which continuous climate
change has contributed to the scenario, the patterns of the climatically induced violent conflicts, the major actors
and the policy implications of the conflict in the sub region. Among other theoretical orientations, this discourse
anchors on and utilizes the Toronto School of Environmental Scarcity and Conflicts paradigm in examining what
obtains in the study area. However, it went step further to present a fair critical overview of the weakness and
strength of the theoretical postulation of “ecoviolence” of the Toronto school as amplified by Homer-Dixon, his
associates and other scholars in the field of conflict analysis

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