Title: ‘Farmers-Herders Conflicts, the Shadow Economy, and Nigeria's National Question’

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Abstract: The major life-altering issues arising from the competition between two socio-economic groups, farmers and herders, in Nigeria highlight the inadequate management of intergroup relations in a plural society. Over the years, these disagreements accumulated, becoming increasingly complex and divisive. Scholars and analysts have spent decades trying to understand the contours and complexity of this conflict. These disputes have long shaped Nigeria’s intense human security concerns, food security, politics, and intergroup relations. While one school of thought holds that the crisis emanated from conflict over grazing land, others attribute it to the fallout from Nigeria’s national question and geopolitical considerations. In recent years, the cross-border criminality dimension has been added to the mix and has intensified significantly. It has been suggested that, while rural communities across the country became defenceless against the massive infiltration of farmlands by
local herders, the influx of foreign cattle herders has transformed what initially began as a clash between two socio-economic interest groups into extraterritorial criminality and a shadow economy. The competing narratives, the spread of assumptions, and conspiracy theories surrounding the farmers-herders’ conflicts will form the focus of this work, which seeks to understand Nigeria’s crisis of self-immolation.