Nigeria: Nigeria's Conflict Zones - Why People Stay Even When They Can Leave

What the report says

AllAfrica republished a 27 July 2026 analysis from The Conversation Africa by Ezenwa E. Olumba, a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Aston University, examining why some residents of Nigeria’s north-central Middle Belt remain in communities exposed to repeated attacks. Olumba writes that public debate and humanitarian responses often concentrate on displacement, but his research found cases in which people with the ability to leave chose to stay despite insecurity and limited state protection.

The article focuses on farming communities affected by violence involving armed nomadic herders in Benue, Nasarawa and the wider Middle Belt. Olumba says he has studied conflict, migration and decisions to stay since 2018, and in 2022 interviewed 54 people in Benue and Nasarawa, including residents, displaced people in nearby communities, and returnees who had regained control of a village. He links the violence to competition over land and water, discrimination and governance failures, using prior research that describes such disputes as “eco-violence” across the Sahel.

According to the analysis, two major reasons emerged for staying: attachment to ancestral land and the wish to preserve a familiar social and cultural life. Farms, homes, burial places, sacred sites, rituals and inherited land were described as central to identity and survival. The report also cites Amnesty International as saying more than 6,896 people were killed in Benue State between May 2023 and May 2025.

The piece argues that remaining in a conflict zone should not be read as acceptance of violence. Instead, it says policymakers, researchers, journalists and aid groups should consider that for some communities, leaving may mean losing land, livelihood, status and a way of life they believe cannot be rebuilt elsewhere.