TRANSHUMANCE, INSECURITY AND NATION BUILDING, 1900 -2019: AN AQUATIC SAGA

Abstract

Transhumance is ancient but pastoral activities have recently degenerated into spates of insecurity in the Nigerian polity. This, however, has been exacerbated by the persistence of climate change and the concomitant scarcity of fodder for livestock. To sustain their pastoral economy, presently (between 2008 and 2019), the herders acquired the services, so to say, of armed mercenary protectors or wielded the guns themselves along the routes of transhumance? That mayhem has been perpetrated is unarguable. The methodology used is comparative as it tends to compare, ab nitio, the movement of populations which has over the years been underpinned by the availability of lands and water: Therefore, the aquatic saga. The paper concludes that herdsmen activities and the associated insecurity have been occasioned by the continuing climate change which has caused the alteration of pre-colonial routes of transhumance and occasioned indiscriminate grazing, and of obvious government inactions.