Middle-belt communal instability thwarting robust agric output

Decades of long violent conflict in the middle belt region of the country, between farmers and herdsmen is thwarting the country’s agric growth and development, according to MercyCorps, a leading global organization which is based in Portland, Oregon.

While Boko Haram violence in the North-East and violence in the Niger Delta region garners majority of media attention, the study shows that ongoing, low-level conflict is thwarting the country’s economic development to an enormous extent.

Nigeria’s conflict regions have impeded market development and economic growth by destroying productive assets, preventing trade, deterring investment, and eroding trust between market actors.

“Nigeria stands to gain up to US $13.7 billion annually in total macroeconomic progress in a scenario of peace between farmers and pastoralists in Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Plateau alone,” the report states.

“States affected by farmer-pastoralist conflicts lost an average of 47 percent of taxes internally generated revenue (IGR) due to these conflicts,” said the report.

The disputes between farmers and herdsmen have erupted into violence in which scores of houses have been burned, cattle slaughtered, farms destroyed and people killed.

Dozens have died in recent months in Plateau and Taraba — the two states that form the east end of Nigeria’s Middle Belt, which divides Nigeria’s predominately Muslim north from its Christian south.

According to the report, the conflicts have also taken an enormous toll on the economic health of families and households, in addition to the obvious and incalculable loss of human lives.

“The average household affected by farmer-pastoralist conflict would experience at least a 64 percent increase in income, and potentially 210 percent or higher increase in income, if these conflicts were reduced to near zero” the report states.

About 6,500 people have died in the past five years due to the inter-communal violence in four Middle Belt states alone, according to the study.

Over the years, the federal government has spent billions of dollars on national security to fight Boko Haram insurgent.

President Buhari named Boko Haram insurgency and corruption as top priorities for his administration. But the report suggested that Buhari should also put the farmer-pastoralist conflict as priority in his agenda.

The study found that bringing peace between the Nigerian farmers and herders would raise household incomes as well as national and state revenues.

Most of the states in the middle belt region were among states that could not pay salaries before the president’s bailout program to relieve a backlog of government salaries and hundreds of thousands of unpaid workers.

“An ongoing, low-level conflict between local farmers and herders has been costing the country billions each year and devastating to the Nigerian economy.”

Josephine Okojie