**4.2 Findings from Ukum-based investors**

As follow-ups, questionnaires were floated among investors, traders, and other business people within and around Zaki-Biam market of Ukum LGA. The aim was to pool data to be compared with findings from Ukum indigenous farmers. The same respondents who participated in this section were also engaged in follow-up interviews. As with Section 4.1, the overall aim was to have a better understanding of how conflict affects agricultural production and general community development in Nigeria and Africa at large (**Tables 3** and **4**, **Figure 4**).


#### **Table 3.**

*Impact of conflict on agricultural investment in Ukum, Nigeria.*

*Regional Development in Africa*

**152**

**Figure 3.**

**Table 2.**

*Impact of conflict on Ukum-Nigerian farmers.*

*Impact of conflict on agriculture and development in Ukum, Nigeria.*

laid out in **Table 2** and **Figure 3**.

their chiefs and elite whose prebendalist3

collect data working with randomly selected 20 participants who were also engaged in follow-up one-on-one interviews. The data thus gathered from respondents are

**Questions Yes No Declined** A/1 20 0 0 B/2 19 0 1 C/3 18 2 0 D/4 18 1 1 E/5 20 0 0 F/6 18 2 0 G/7 15 2 3 H/8 20 0 0 I/9 17 1 2 J/10 20 0 0

First, study data make it overwhelmingly clear that there is a direct correlation between the occurrence of conflict and outmigration among Ukum, Nigerian rural farmers; this is the stance of all respondents. With 19 out of 20 farmer-interviewees admitting that conflicts bring about high date tolls upon their communities, it is immediately and directly understandable why migration especially among young adults is usually very high in areas hard hit by conflict. Follow-up accounts of some informants indicate that some of these conflicts are socially engineered by

<sup>3</sup> *Prebendalism* refers to political systems where elected officials and government workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and use them to benefit their supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic group, and whom they, ipso facto, zombify and instrumentalize, but only to boost their purely utilitarian, materialist agenda. The term is commonly used to describe the patterns of corruption in Nigeria, and to point out why its democracy is not working. Though used in other or similar nomenclatural epithets all of which critique and caricature the flawed practice of democracy in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, it was Joseph's (2014) contribution that made it gain higher and

projected currency in literature especially on corruption in Nigeria and its African likes.

agenda is often hidden under the guise


#### **Table 4.**

*Impact of conflict on agricultural investment incentives in Ukum, Nigeria.*

#### **Figure 4.**

*Impact of conflict on agricultural investment incentives in Ukum, Nigeria.*

First, our study found that majority of investors (16 out of 20) who operate businesses around conflict-prone areas of had at one point or the other in the past been directly negatively impacted by conflict. While all 20 respondents admitted that conflicts very negatively affect their investments, 16 out 20 investors expressed feeling insecure around the conflict-ridden areas of Zaki-Biam market in particular and Ukum LGA in general. On the other hand, whereas 15 out of 20 investors stated that they had experienced the occurrence of conflict in the area, which they said impacted their businesses and lives very negatively, 16 of them indicated that, in the heat of conflicts, their business assets were looted especially by indigenes; as a case in point, they referenced the 20014 experience of near genocide in Ukum-Tivland.

**155**

**Figure 5.**

*Agricultural Production Amid Conflict: Implications for Africa's Regional Development*

institutions of conflict management to guarantee security in the area.

**4.3 Findings from direct and participant observation**

In like manner, 18 out of 20 respondents admitted having seen people killed during seasons of conflict; on the other hand, 17 investor-respondents indicated being discouraged from investment while 15 admitted knowing that conflicts discourage other fellow investors as well. It is not surprising, therefore, that all 20 business investors stated that prices of food crops and all commodities skyrocket when conflicts strike. Finally, all 20 participants also indicated that, as of the time of this study, not much had been done by the government to install reliable and sustainable

The harrowing experience of conflict and its many-sided impact on agriculture and community development in Nigeria is incomplete and falls short of speaking personally and directly without a firsthand experience by a researcher who is onsite to track this delicate subject. This general lesson was the first among many we learnt in the field when we gained some close encounters with would-be study participants. Many farmers in the hinterland communities of Ukum were too reserved and withdrawn each time attempts were made to involve them in this social study. We think this is attributable to either of two related facts or both: first, they were too easily agitated to discuss it and recount their personal experiences especially when the study probes more deeply to provoke the ever-haunting traumatizing memories of the carnage many families suffered during the horrors of past conflicts. Many easily referenced the history of 2001 conflict earlier referenced on page 8. On the other hand, some individuals were too afraid to discuss the topic as they mistook the researcher for government agent who had come to gather some sensitive pieces of information from them. These two points, we think, created feelings of palpable fear, suspicion, and heart-searing pain for those who had witnessed past intra- or inter-ethnic conflicts in the area. Those two social inhibitions unfortunately partly account for why we were unable to document some statistical nitty-gritty details on the human and social costs of conflict, which we target and hope will happen as this

While the above ambition looms, we personally observed some other facts worth representing here. First, moving around Zaki-Biam huge market and other smaller markets in Ukum LGA, we found that prices of locally produced agricultural (and non-agricultural) goods were high as of the time of this study. Our study found that this was due to fears of impending conflict and the political instability associated with it, which made farmers to cultivate less farmlands. A stringent warning from a

*A cross section of a displaced group of farmers taking refuge in an Ukum primary school (the twin pictures* 

*above are original to the researcher and were taken on September 4, 2014).*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86613*

study progresses in the future.

<sup>4</sup> This reference is (frequently) made to the occurrence of the violence of October 22, 2001, when, in response to the ongoing, decade-long Tiv-Jukun conflict, "[…] the Nigerian army killed more than two hundred unarmed Tiv and destroyed their homes, shops, public buildings and other property in more than seven towns and villages in Benue State, Nigeria" (See Amnesty International, 2002; Ciboh, 2014; Vanguard Newspaper, November 19, 2001).

*Agricultural Production Amid Conflict: Implications for Africa's Regional Development DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86613*

In like manner, 18 out of 20 respondents admitted having seen people killed during seasons of conflict; on the other hand, 17 investor-respondents indicated being discouraged from investment while 15 admitted knowing that conflicts discourage other fellow investors as well. It is not surprising, therefore, that all 20 business investors stated that prices of food crops and all commodities skyrocket when conflicts strike. Finally, all 20 participants also indicated that, as of the time of this study, not much had been done by the government to install reliable and sustainable institutions of conflict management to guarantee security in the area.
