AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL SECURITY IN NIGERIA.

Abstract

The clash over grazing lands and water could become worse as the effects of climate change becomes more drastic; with direct implications not just internally, even for the region and wider globe. Equally, the adverse change in climate has also displaced lots of persons and seen to the loss of lives and lands to deadly sweeping floods across the country. Recent years have seen a growing trend of annual disastrous floods that have, and continue to destroying properties, while registering a high rate of casualties in almost all the states (regions) in Nigeria; an incident that has equally affected agriculture and food supply. Climate change has emerged as one of the most significant non-traditional security threats confronting Nigeria in the twenty-first century. The intensification of desertification in northern Nigeria, recurrent flooding in southern regions, and the dramatic shrinkage of Lake Chad have disrupted livelihoods, displaced populations, and heightened competition over scarce resources. These environmental problems intersect with weak governance structures, socio-economic inequalities, and identity politics to generate violent conflicts, particularly farmer–herder clashes and insurgency in the Northeast. It is becoming increasingly clear that a good number of other security challenges in Nigeria are connected, in very many ways to the effects of climate change as the country’s food production, infrastructure, arable lands, crime rates, transportation network, natural and human resources are susceptible to the adverse changes in the environment. Indeed, the adverse climate change in Nigeria is a crucial security concern worth addressing as it destabilizes state and human security both directly and indirectly.  These emerging security problems and threats to Nigeria’s national security bring to mind the Paradox of growing, sleeping or undermined threats to public safety, and an urgent need to neutralize as well as build adaptive mechanisms against them while reforming Nigeria’s outdated and narrow-set security structure. Based on this reality, this study seeks to examine the phenomenon of climate change as an emerging and potentially serious security threat in Nigeria. Using Resource Conflict Theory as its analytical framework, this paper examines the relationship between climate change and national security in Nigeria. Drawing on secondary data and empirical studies, the study finds that climate change functions as a “threat multiplier,” worsening existing vulnerabilities rather than acting as a direct cause of conflict. Key findings reveal that (1) environmental degradation intensifies resource scarcity; (2) scarcity fuels communal violence and migration; (3) climate stress contributes indirectly to insurgent recruitment and internal displacement; and (4) climate-induced disasters strain state capacity and undermine economic stability. The paper argues that Nigeria’s traditional state-centric conception of national security is insufficient to address climate-induced threats. It recommends the integration of climate security into national defense planning, strengthened environmental governance, climate-resilient agriculture, and enhanced regional cooperation.