Nigeria's Resource Wars

This timely book is like no other. Its pages, organised by themes, are the fruit of a 2019 international gathering supported by the University of Nigeria and the Humboldt Foundation, Germany, harvesting a valuable research which received strong support from all over Africa and beyond. Contributors from all over the federation and beyond, coming from many research fields, consider the various resource wars that plagued Nigeria for nearly a century, seeking to offer a global, balanced and unbiased view of these conflicts. This well- structured and well-researched book presents a long list of conflicts, going back in history and scouring the various States of the federation to gather scores of comprehensive data. Views expressed are supported with convincing and well-explained maps, tables, excerpts from press articles, pictures and statistics. The impact of these wars on all sections of the society – men, women and youth – as well as on agriculture, land management, intercultural relations, social interaction, political choices, religious affiliations, migrations, literature, visual art and cinema, is carefully and convincingly uncovered – no field remains untouched. Particular attention has been paid to rural, land and water issues, focusing particularly on Fulani herdsmen and local farmers, and the Niger Delta and the oil issue. Each chapter adds to a long and useful list of recommendations intended to help empower a radical societal transformation, which, if addressed, will hopefully help bring peace to our troubled land. A courageous book addressed to all stakeholders in Nigeria.

Prof. Françoise Ugochukwu

Open University, UK

With over 800 pages, "Nigeria’s Resource Wars" is impressively a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the challenges of nation-building in Nigeria with a focus on how the contestations over the complex and critical issues of resource management, resource allocation and access have engendered tensions, conflicts and a civil war in the country. With the exception of a few essays, which present historical accounts of resource-related conflicts in Nigeria dating back to the precolonial period, the rest of the chapters focus on three broad themes that have caused tensions and conflicts since the past three decades. These are the farmer-herder conflictive relationships; the oil-rich Niger Delta conflicts; and the Boko Haram insurgency.

Dr Gloria Chuku

Professor and Chair of Africana Studies

University of Maryland, Baltimore County