Reflections on the Nexus between Climate Change, Food Security and Violent Conflicts: A Tour through the Nigeria Experience

Abstract

Climate change has been adjudged as the most treacherous threat to global sustainability having its deteriorating effects on the ecosystems in the form of increase in temperature, haphazard changes in the pattern of rainfall, rising of the sea level etc. We believe the consequential impacts of climate change on food, biodiversity, health, and the overall economy have been of grave concern in Nigeria and to Africa as a whole. Hence, in this present study we demonstrate the intricate relationship between climate change, food security and violent conflicts in Nigeria, especially the root causes of famers-Fulani herdsmen clashes in Nigeria with the goal of providing sustainable conflict management strategies to the crisis. A mixed method research design (basically a mix of research papers’ syntheses, causal loop diagram, interviews/focus group discussions and the social progress index data) was analysed and adopted to achieve the study’s specific objectives.The causal loop diagram help us to demonstrate the interconnectivity of climate change, food security and violent conflicts. Interestingly, the majority of respondents (70%) ranked “resource scarcity due to increased desertification” as the top-rated cause for farmers-Fulani’s herdsmen clashes while less than one-quarter (21%) emphasised that urbanisation and social vices propelled the conflict. In light of these findings, we reasoned that there is a critical need to build the capacity of local communities to take on key governance roles around resource management while remediation and appropriate management measures of affected and vulnerable regions must commence without further delay. Government should strengthen police capacity to curb rustling and banditry, improving livestock tracking.