On 15 March 2021, three teachers were seized by gunmen from a primary school in Kaduna state, Nigeria. Just four days before, 39 students were abducted from a college in the same state. Mass-kidnappings are becoming a routine occurrence in northern Nigeria, with around 800 secondary school students abducted since December. There are concerns of a deteriorating security situation in the region.

Abductions have been a familiar feature of Nigeria’s security setting ever since Boko Haram’s 2014 infamous mass kidnapping of over 200 girls in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, which sparked the global social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls. Despite the good intentions of the media campaign, it has been argued that it raised publicity for Boko Haram and enabled the group to develop a “global brand” for itself. This ‘branding’ in turn set the stage for copycat crimes. The response of international media and the national government to the abduction of children signalled to criminal organisations that the method was effective for attracting attention from the authorities, opening up the possibility of receiving a ransom in return for freeing the captives. 

The global media, replicating western Global War on Terror rhetoric, has tended to focus on these incidents as examples of ideologically-driven terrorist attacks jeopardising girls’ rights to education. Boko Haram, labelled a terrorist organisation by the US, UK and Nigerian governments, has claimed responsibility for a number of abductions in the past. The organisation emerged in the early 2000s as an Islamic reform movement in Borno state in the Lake Chad region, led by the Salafi preacher Muhammad Yusuf who condemned Western-style secular governance and education. The Nigerian state’s response to Boko Haram was highly militarised, mirroring the Western security template on Islamic terrorism and failing to consider the significance of localised underlying causes. The fact that when 70 Boko Haram foot soldiers were arrested the majority of them could not recite basic verses in the Qur’an suggests that many recruits were motivated by something other than Islamic fundamentalism.

Religious extremism also does not account for Nigeria’s other security threats, such as the proliferation of criminal activity including kidnappings outside of Boko Haram’s territory. Observers have called for a multidimensional response that tackles corrupt governance, poor service delivery, and environmental degradation. The latter has received increasing attention by academics and policymakers who recognise a causation between the adverse effects of climate change and rising levels of crime. 

To most of us, climate change poses a long-term threat that appears too far removed to merit immediate political energy. In some parts of the world, however, climate change is already a huge problem. Situated in a tropical belt between the 4°N and 14°N, 3°E and 15°E parallels, Nigeria is facing extreme weather conditions that threaten its climate-sensitive economy. In the north, there is 25% less rain than 30 years ago and intense heat. Lake Chad is shrinking and the Sahel desert expands southwards by about 1,400 square miles each year, swallowing whole villages through desertification. Water and land shortages have been most pronounced in desert frontline states in the north-eastern region, where in 7 years 154,725 farmers lost arable land. 

In 2009, the United Nations Secretary-General recognised the potential security implications of climate change and its impact as a “threat multiplier”, exacerbating threats caused by persistent poverty and weak institutions for resource management. In March 2017, Security Council Resolution 2349 specifically addressed the activities of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin, recognising that water scarcity, drought, desertification, land degradation, and food insecurity were potentially aggravating conflict tensions. In the state of Borno, where Boko Haram originated, many farmers are youths who have lost their primary source of income. 

Nwokeoma and Kingsley at the University of Nigeria interviewed those affected in the region, and 80% of respondents said that disincentives towards agricultural work due to loss of arable land has caused the youth to abandon farming. 60% said that the youth turn to alternative – often criminal – activities such as armed robbery, drug abuse, and political thuggery, and some are vulnerable for recruitment by terrorist organisations like Boko Haram. President Buhari was aware of the economic repercussions of climate change. In an address to the Governments of the Lake Chad Basin Countries, Buhari said, “our youths are joining terrorist groups because of lack of jobs and difficult economic conditions.” He launched the Buhari Plan for Rebuilding the North East to mitigate climate change and engage in peacebuilding and economic development. 

These troubling trends are now visible in the North West of Nigeria where most of the recent abductions have taken place. The International Crisis Group suggests that conflict in the region is mainly fueld by competition over land and water resources between Fulani herders and Hausa farmers, which have both militarised. Although conflict existed between these groups long before noticeable environmental degradation, the effects of climate change have certainly inflamed them. As the Sahel has encroached south, farmers have needed to cultivate more land, causing herders to lose space for their stock to graze. 

Further exacerbating problems of conflict and crime are the vast forests in the region which provide hideouts for criminals like cattle rustlers, highway robbers, kidnappers, and cannabis growers. Criminal groups aim to generate revenue from these illicit activities, likely mirroring the trend in the North East where disaffected, unemployed youths turn to more lucrative activities. Zamfara state has been particularly affected due to its abundance of gold deposits, turning it into “a fiefdom of deadly gangs”.

It would be an oversimplification to name climate change as the sole cause of security problems in the north of Nigeria. Nevertheless, environmental factors have intensified competition over resources and added fuel to the fire, prompting a disillusioned and unemployed section of the population to take up arms and engage in criminal activity. The multidimensional root causes of crime mean that effective approaches will need governance and climate-oriented economic reforms, rather than a Western-style war on terror framework, to offset conflict over resources and unemployment.