Perceptions of injustices in the struggle for scarce critical lands: farmer-herder conflict and violence escalation in the Benue-Nasarawa borderland

For decades, there have been debates on whether scarcity of natural resources causes the conflict between pastoralists and crop farmers in Africa. This study examines the farmer-herder conflict in Benue-Nasarawa borderland in Nigeria from the perspective of the scarcity thesis. It shows how wetland scarcity and perceived injustices contribute to and escalate the farmer-herder conflict in the Benue-Nasarawa borderland. It integrates social injustice, eco-violence, and political ecology perspectives, highlighting the pivotal role of perceptions of injustice in shaping the conflict's root and intensification and violent actions. The conflict's roots lie in perceived distributive and procedural injustices related to compensation for crop damage and cattle killings in farmer-herder relations amid competition for access to wetlands. Nonetheless, state intervention and the anti-open grazing law's enactment foster procedural and restorative injustice perceptions, triggering violent responses and counter-attacks. Unlike prior studies that attribute conflicts to state policies marginalising pastoralists, this study finds that the anti-open grazing law, while marginalising the pastoralists, did not instigate the conflict. Instead, the law intensifies violence due to the perception of it as procedural and restorative injustices. The paper suggests that integrating the social justice into eco-violence perspective and emphasising social justice more in the political ecology perspective can reduce the theoretical disagreement between eco-violence and political ecology perspective on the conflict. It can provide a platform for a framework the blends the two traditions enhancing the analysis of farmer-herder conflicts.