ABSTRACT
The incessant destruction of lives and properties by insurgents no doubt impacts negatively on rural dwellers wellbeing as most dwellers in the areas under attacks hardly go to farms and go about their livelihood activities despite the seriousness of this, there is dearth of empirical and quantitative data of the catastrophic damage conflict has done to the wellbeing of rural dwellers. This study was designed to assess the effect of farmers-herdsmen conflict on the wellbeing of rural dwellers in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu state Nigeria. specifically, the study describe the socio economic characteristics of the rural dwellers, ascertain the nature and frequency of farmers-herdsmen conflict in the study, identify the causes of farmers-herdsmen conflict in the study area, and examine farmers-herdsmen conflict on the wellbeing of the rural dwellers and identify and strategies/measures employed by rural dwellers/farmers to curb farmers-herdsmen conflict in the study area.
A two-stage sampling procedure was used to select one hundred and fifty (150) respondents for the study. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, means, percentages and inferential statistics.
More than half (54%) of the respondents were male and 44.3% were engaged in farming as their major occupation. All most all (97.3%) of respondents’ indicated that sporadic shooting was the most prevalent form of insurgent attacks. With regards to frequency of attacks, the respondents stated that sporadic shooting ( 2.65), kidnapping () were the most severe. Most respondents were in support that dispute over destruction of farm land (), poverty () and unemployment ) were major causes of conflict. 44.3% of the respondents stated that avoidance was a strategy being employed to shield them from conflict and about 73.2% of the respondents indicated that reduced entry in forest and farms was a strategy they employed to cope after attack. Civilian joint task force (78.5%) was the major mitigating strategy used in fighting the insurgents. Findings on the level of effect of conflict on the wellbeing of the respondents showed that emotionally, the effect was high by 50%, socially the effect was high by 85.7%, politically the effect was high by 66.7% and economically the effect was high by 100%.
Significant relationship exist between sex, age (50%), number of years in the community (8.88), sporadic shooting ( 2.65), kidnapping () and rape (2.74) with effects of conflict. Measures reduce the effect of conflict by 12 times while the use of JTF reduces the effect only by a non-significant level of 0.081 time based. The studies conclude that security and inability to perform personal activities especially work were the effects of conflict on wellbeing. Government security agencies should collaborate with the civilian JTF to provide security so that rural dwellers can freely go about their livelihoods without fear or interruptions.
The study therefore concludes that, the rural dwellers in the study area are affected by insurgency on their wellbeing (economically) and livelihood.
