You’re Not Welcome! Violence and Support for a Grazing Ban Policy in Kaduna, Nigeria

This study examined the effect of victimization – i.e., the concrete experience of violence – on support for a policy banning the opening grazing of livestock in the state of Kaduna in Northern Nigeria. This policy, which aims to reduce the incidence of conflicts between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers, has been implemented to various degrees in some states across Nigeria. Kaduna is a suitable case study for investigating this relationship because despite having the third highest incidence of farmer-herder conflicts among Nigeria’s 36 states, the state government has not implemented a grazing ban policy there. The regression results showed that the effect of victimization on support for a grazing ban policy depends on who is perpetrating the violence. General victimization (i.e., irrespective of the perpetrator) had no statistically significant effect on support for a grazing ban policy, but victimization by herders did have a significant positive effect. The positive effect was particularly strong among Christians. 78 percent of the respondents who had been victimized by herders were Christians