Agrarian violence, Neopatrimonialism, and State-building in Nigeria

This conceptual review establishes a nexus between agrarian violence, neopatrimonialism, and state-building in Nigeria. Grounded on Political Ecology, it purports that the state’s apparent frailty in quelling the persisting agrarian violence derives from the national leadership’s proclivity towards ascriptive and particularistic values. Pointedly, the state’s tolerance for impunity by powerful ethnic networks that publicly threaten, mastermind killings, and accept responsibility for same without reprimand underpins the ‘economy of affection’ while the remedial options by the state reverberate the ‘political instrumentalisation of disorder’ by key political actors enmeshed in neopatrimonial proclivity which adds force to the origin and continuity of agrarian violence and failed state-building in Nigeria. What can be rationalised from the above trend is that the Nigerian state has a major state-building challenge that may only be overcome by a systematic reconsideration of the meeting points of the socio-political undercurrents that condition agrarian violence in Nigeria which is congruent with the theoretical tenets of the political ecology approach.