Nigeria, June 18 -- The haunting images and staggering death toll from recent attacks in Benue State - where over 200 people were reportedly killed - should gnaw deeply at any nation's conscience. But what is more worrying than the violence itself is our persistent failure to engage with its true complexity. The dominant narrative of a "farmer-herder clash" grossly oversimplifies what is in fact a dangerous confluence of climate-induced displacement, electoral opportunism, and uncontrolled arms proliferation.

We are not witnessing isolated acts of community violence. We are seeing a regional crisis metastasise into national fragility.

Climate Change as a Conflict Catalyst

For decades, the advancing desert and shrinking water bodies in ...