The Dangers of Disconnection: Oscillations in Political Violence on Lake Chad

Abstract

Narrations on fragility and resilience in the Sahel paint a picture about the region's inherent ungovernability that lead to consider an endless state-and peace-building process as the most feasible governance solution. Everyday practices of violent entrepreneurship, coalescing with inter-community and land-tenure conflicts, now inform social relations and are transforming moral economies around Lake Chad. While competition over territory suitable for farming, grazing and fishing has intensified, dispute-settlement practices organised by community-level authorities have proven ineffective and lacking the necessary means to respond to the encroachment of a wide range of interests claimed by increasingly powerful actors. Meanwhile, communities organised in self-defence militias are undergoing a process of progressive militarisation that tends to normalise violence and legitimise extrajudicial vigilante justice, further empowering capitalendowed arms suppliers gravitating in the jihadi galaxy, such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

Water and Food Sustainability in the Riparian Countries of Lake Chad in Africa

“…There are many unfavorable conditions in the LCB, such as violent extremism, food shortages, population expansion, sickness, poverty, weak statehood, and corruption in LCB [111]. Cattle herders and farmers were also killing one another over access to shrinking pastures, and the number of deaths has now surpassed 15,000, rivaling BH's toll [20,112].…”

“…Those in the south are primarily farmers of maize or other row crops. Herders invade such farms with their cattle and turn them into animal feed [54,112].…”