Inter-communal land conflicts in Benin City, Nigeria: Exploring the root causes in the context of customary land supply

Land Use Policy 83 (2019) 532–542

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Inter-communal land conflicts in Benin City, Nigeria: Exploring the root causes in the context of customary land supply

T

Justin Eduviere Agheyisi Department of Geography and Regional Planning, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Community CDAs Dispute Boundary Violence

Inter-communal land conflict in Benin City has increased owing to informal land subdivision by land owning communities. As development intensifies, boundaries between communities in peri-urban areas become distorted leading to contestations and violent conflicts. However, little is known about the roles of organized groups in these conflicts. The legal pluralism in land ownership in Nigeria and the ineffectiveness of the State’s Land Law have created informal land market in which leaders of land owning communities dominate. This paper explores these issues through a case study of boundary dispute that developed into violent conflict between two communities in Benin City. The findings revealed that at the root of the conflict were material and emotional needs of groups seeking power and wealth which resulted in diverse claims. Other endogenous factors underlying the conflict were the socio-cultural environment of urban land market and local power relations among the actors involved.

1. Introduction Interests to secure land, exploit land resources, or develop land are major causes of conflicts across Nigeria. Varying claims result from different value systems and aggressive competition for resource control (Ikurekong et al., 2012). Otite and Albert (1999) report that diverse claim to land constitute about 90% of all communal conflicts in Nigeria. Notable communal conflicts in Nigeria usually follow political, ethnic, religious, indigenes versus settlers; and cattle herders versus settled farmers divides. As indicated by Oji et al. (2014) in the case of the conflicts between Ezillo and Ezza-Ezillo, many contending communities in Nigeria usually engaged in several episodes of minor conflicts before the major one that eventually bring that particular conflict to the media and public attention. The pervasive competition for land in sub-Saharan Africa has revealed the processes of social exclusion, deepening social divisions and class formation (Amanor, 2001) which have taken many forms including youth against elders, men against women, ethnic and religious confrontations (Peters, 2004). Much of the rural land conflicts in Nigeria have gradually become urban pathologies owing to rapid urbanization. However, land conflict occurs in different spatial contexts (Brown and Hamlin, 2005) such as rural, urban and peri-urban areas with some cross-cutting themes such as the actors involved (Barry et al., 2007), varying land regimes (US Agency for International Development USAID, 2005), effects of land reform (Lombard, 2016) and specific causal factors (Wehrmann, 2008)

particularly in the global South (Lombard and Rakodi, 2016). In the context of urban areas, increased demand for land can only be met in peri-urban areas around major cities where land subdivision and speculative buying of land in anticipation of development create a complex urban land market difficult to monitor (Butler, 2009, 2012; Durand-Lasserve and Selod, 2012). Peri-urban area is a zone of transition and mixed land uses in which rural activities and modes of life are in rapid retreat and into which urban land uses and activities are intruding. In both land use and administrative terms, the area is only partially assimilated into the growing urban complex. Land conflicts in peri-urban areas are exacerbated by competing claims to land rights and unclear legal clarity ((Lombard, 2016). Different actors involved also highlights the importance of the changes in social and economic environments in which urban land market operates. Structural deterministic factors such as types of land tenure, legal pluralism, informal urban land market, the withering traditional institutions, rapid urbanization and land governance capacity provide the key explanatory factors of urban land conflict in most of the cities of the global South. With regard to the actors involved, the conversion of rural land into urban uses is often carried out by leaders of land owning communities (see Magigi and Majani, 2005; Agheyisi, 2015, 2016). Large parcels of land belonging to several landholders are pooled and subdivided for urban development as the need arises for land sales to be organized at the community level. While issues of access to and control over land are often implicit in

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.02.027 Received 6 August 2018; Received in revised form 15 February 2019; Accepted 19 February 2019 Available online 01 March 2019 0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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elaboration (or coproduction) (Archer, 1996). The structural conditioning refers to the context in which action takes place within a set of preexisting structural conditions. At the social interaction stage of the cycle, agents being strongly influenced by the structured conditions at stage 1, seek to advance their own interests and thus exercise their own independent powers, abilities and personalities to affect events and outcomes. Lastly, the structural elaboration stage is where the structural conditions changed as a result of the actions and outcome at the social interaction stage. At this stage, one group successfully changed the conditions to suit their own interests while the other group lost out. Consequently, the structure is not newly created but it is modified and transformed as a result of the actions at the social interaction stage. Crucially, Archer (1996) points out that the structural elaboration stage may not exactly be one of structural elaboration, but rather, that of structural coproduction which she calls ‘morphostasis’. This is because individual and group actions left the structural condition relatively unchanged. Arguably, this model seems to infer that social structures can be enduring in nature once they existed and may thus be difficult to transform (see McAnulla, 2002). However, this model fails to elaborate on what might happen if the framed condition for structural conditioning seizes to exit. For example, land reform can regularize all land in customary holdings and thus closes informal land market and prevents neo-customary actors from exercising their agency. As a contribution to the identification of the primary determining factors of urban land conflict in cities of the global South, this study aims to examine the contextual factors that shape the situation, in conjunction with the local-level factors involved in generating land conflicts between communities in Benin City. It also examines the drivers, dynamics and consequences of urban land conflict in order to contribute to the understanding of the material and discursive aspects of land conflicts. The next section examines the dual institutional framework of land management in Benin City. Section 3 provides a detailed conceptualization of conflict and violence. Section 4 deals with the methodological approach adopted in this study. Section 5 provides brief profiles of the case study communities. Section 6 is the analysis and discussion of land conflict between the case study communities. Finally Section 7 concludes the paper.

account of urban violence (Lombard and Rakodi, 2016; see also Moser and Rodgers, 2005), territorial control by groups who often use violence to secure land at the micro level has not gain much attention. The need to focus on how human agencies influenced land conflict and how low-level land conflict can snowball into larger scale conflicts has been suggested by Van Leeuwen and Van der Haar (2016). The recognition of human agency in urban land conflict and how they interact is one of the areas suggested by Lombard and Rakodi (2016) as critical to any analysis of urban land conflict. This study contributes to our understanding of this particular dimension of analysis of urban land conflict with the benefit of gaining access to the insiders in the conflict in order to gather useful information on the drivers and dynamics of land conflict. Studies of urban land conflicts have increasingly become the medium through which the “conflict gap” in urban studies is addressed. Urban studies and conflict studies are rarely mixed in empirical studies which often deny us of the cross-cutting insights into the dynamics of the complex interconnectedness between urbanization and conflicts. Conflict studies are often approached from political perspectives but their spatiality at the micro level within the urban context is as important to urban geographers as the global, national and regional conflicts. Urban conflicts and violence have often been portrayed as features of African urbanization process in the context of political instability (Anderson, 2002; Beall et al., 2013). Büscher (2018) uses a long range lens to look at the complex inter-connectedness between urbanization and violent conflict and recognizes the transformative power of violent conflict on African urbanization process with a particular focus on case studies in Eastern African sub-region. This study looks beyond the wider national or regional conflict by using a short range lens to investigate urban land conflict at the urban neighbourhood level. Many researchers (see Deininger and Castagnini, 2006; Lund et al., 2006; Bruce, 2011) had attributed urban land conflict in the global South to land scarcity, thus highlighting the direct relationship between rapid population growth and competition for land. However, due to the lack of empirical evidence to establish a causal linkage between rapid urbanization and land conflict, Lombard and Rakodi (2016) critiqued this approach on the ground that it risks obscuring the contextual factors and role of actors involved which other researchers such as Lombard (2016), and Van Leeuwen and Van der Haar (2016) have emphasized in order to illuminate the contextual specificity of individual cases of land conflict. Many in-depth studies of land disputes (see Brown and Hamlin, 2005) and processes and channels of land supply (see Rakodi, 2007; Ikejiofor, 2009; Hasan, 2015) had contributed to a deeper understanding of urban land conflict in different local contexts particularly in less developed countries. However, Lombard and Rakodi (2016) lament the methodological weakness and a lack of analytical framework in many of such studies which limit the generalisability of their findings and therefore proposed a framework to interrogate the categories used to understand land conflicts, to identify the actors involved and to recognize the interactions between levels of conflicts. Others worthy of note are Obala and Mattingly’s (2014) framework that distinguishes between non-violent, intimidation and violent opposition; Bruce’s (2011) framework distinguishes between dispute, conflict and violence; and Beall et al’s (2013) framework distinguishes between sovereign, civil and civic conflicts. Shrestha et al. (2014, 2016) utilized the concept of “action space” as a framework for analyzing urban land “governance patterns” (see also Foxon, 2013) between different actors and the interactions between them. Moser (2004) developed a holistic framework that utilizes the concepts of structure, identity and human agency to explain community perceptions of urban violence. The analytical framework developed by Archer (1996) can be helpful in analyzing different stages of conflicts and the roles of structure and agency through a three-part cycle of change over time in what she calls the morphogenetic cycle. This cycle consists of three stages namely; structural conditioning, social interaction and structural

2. Customary land supply in the context of legal pluralism in land management Traditional institutions have played a prominent role in land administration systems before the coming of the colonial administrative system in Nigeria (see Ikejiofor, 2009; Agboola et al., 2017) and the promulgation of Land Use Decree in 1978. Customary land tenure is a system of family and communal land holding in which traditional rulers, community leaders or family heads represent key customary institutions and function as trustees and managers of community and family land respectively. Being sons of the soil provides the legitimation to claim and ownership of land by all members of the community or family (see Lund and Boone, 2013). All land in Benin Kingdom is vested in His Royal Majesty, the Oba of Benin and paramount traditional ruler of Benin Kingdom. He empowers all the Enigie (i.e. Dukes) and Edionwere (i.e. the oldest persons in communities without Dukes) to administer land in their areas of jurisdiction. The Enigie and their Chiefs, and Edionwere and their councils of elders exercised supervisory and administrative functions in land allocation on behalf of the Oba. Before the promulgation of the 1978 Land Use Decree, the Oba of Benin had powers to approve applications for building plots through the Plot Allocation Committee (PAC) he set up in each neighbourhood of the city. Stressing the legal capacity of the PACs, Ogbobine (1974) report that they have no jurisdiction outside the City Council Area. Consequently, communities outside Benin City organized their own community development associations (CDAs) to carry out the same functions as those of the PACs. After the promulgation of the 1978 Land Use Decree which vested all land in the country in the State Governors, 533

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in the sense that CDAs and CDYAs are comprised of only the male members of the communities. This gender bias is very useful in analyzing the gendering of inter-communal conflict through the notion of ‘structured patriarchy’ (Halfacree, 1995), in this case demonstrating how men are leading actors and perpetrators of violent conflict events. Customary institutions, viewed as reproduced rules and resources (Dyck and Kearns, 2006) provide the structure within which members of CDAs and CDYAs as human agencies situate and their behaviour influenced (see Goodwin, 1999). Social ‘rules’ are those elements of interactions which individuals and institutions routinely implement (Goodwin, 1999). ‘Resources’ in this context include both the social environment and social relations created and utilized by human agencies. Structure is context specific and usually refers to the material conditions which define the range of actions available to actors (McAnulla, 2002). Human agency refers to the capabilities of individual human agents, viewed as competent and knowledgeable to pursue certain courses of action capable of modifying or transforming their social structure and environment (McAnulla, 2002; Dale and Sparks, 2011; Dyck and Kearns, 2006). There has been a longstanding debate about the relationship between structure and agency and in relating structural issues to individual choices of agency (see Morrison, 2005; Cleaver, 2007). It was his frustration with this tendency of social scientists to locate themselves on one side or the other of this divide and which theory would provide a more applicable integration of both in the explanation of social dynamism in order to transcend this basic dualism of structure and agency that led Giddens to develop the structuration theory (McAnulla, 2002; Morrison, 2005). Giddens’ (1984) basic argument is that structure and agency are not separate entities, but mutually dependent and internally related. Structure only exists through agency and has ‘rules and resources’ which facilitate or constrain the actions of agency (see McAnulla, 2002). The relative power of agency and structure to affect each other which has become the central question boils down to the specific context and situational variables that may determine the degree of influence of the one on the other (Ling and Dale, 2014). The significance of structuration theory in land conflict research lies in the explanatory weight given to either the structure or the human agency (see Goodwin, 1999). However, the challenges researchers often face is whether to stress agency or structure, or both. Many researchers (e.g. Lombard and Rakodi, 2016; Van Leeuwen and Van der Haar, 2016) have stressed the role of agency. This is because the sets of rules and resources which constitute the structure are created by the actions of the human agencies. In fact, structure and agency are mutually constitutive and mutually reinforcing, making both to be two sides of the same coin (Giddens, 1984; see also Goodwin, 1999). The dialectical interpretation of this approach is simply that agency affects structure, but structure enables and constrains agency. The objective of the application of structure and agency framework in this work is not to argue that the influences of structure and agency on one and the other are not without some contextual limitations but to buttress the fact that critical to understanding inter-communal conflicts is the interactions between expressions of individual human agency and social structures in customary land management that have evolved over time in peri-urban communities.

the PACs were disbanded but the CDAs continue to function. CDAs are decentralized groups of communal land administrators constituted by volunteered indigenes of land-owning communities. Although they have no explicit statutory powers or legal mandate to administer land and regulate development on behalf of the government in their areas of jurisdiction (Agheyisi, 2012), they create layouts using informal rules and locally adopted standards without adherence to the land subdivision regulations approved by the State Land Law (Agheyisi, 2015, 2016). However, their requirement to register as community based organizations by the State Government has given them recognition. Cleavages within the groups led to the creation of Community Development Youth Associations (CDYAs) with separate leadership. Although decision making is top-down from the leadership of CDAs, decisions are easily overturned by the leadership of CDYAs if perceived not to be in their favour. This usually leads to intra-communal conflicts. Leadership succession within the groups is democratic but most times through the use of force which often results in conflict. The social legitimacy they enjoy is derived from their being indigenes of the community and their capacity and flexibility in supplying a high percentage of land for residential development. Acquiescence to the customary processes of land regularization and fear of their enforcement mechanisms by the generality of plot holders reinforce their social legitimacy. Legitimacy as used in this article means the public acceptance or tolerance of CDAs and CDYAs, and the recognition of their activities as being valid and binding on the entire members of the community. Thomas (2013) distinguishes between legal legitimacy and social legitimacy. Social legitimacy, which is incorporated in this study, is seen as an empirical concept which considers legitimacy as social facts and does not rely on a legal normative framework (Shrestha et al., 2014). Social legitimacy is derived from action of actors under socially accepted norms (Shrestha et al., 2016) but without legal recognition (Rakodi and Leduka, 2004). Shrestha et al. (2014) argue that legitimacy specifically lies with the powerful people in the society who are more likely to believe as normatively right about the arrangements that seem to serve their interests. The question of legitimacy is evaluative both to the members of CDAs and their youth wing, and external observers. The members of the groups see themselves as legitimate groups created by popular consensus of members of their communities through democratic processes and customary rites to carrying out legitimate activities. To the external observers, their use of force as enforcement mechanisms negates their social legitimacy because forceful compliance to pay development fees and sundry levies is not an evidence of legitimacy (see Hurd, 2007). The dynamics of urban land management in Benin City manifests in a two-fold framework within which the use of land takes place. This involves the formal and customary institutions. Although the Land Use Act (as amended) is the major legal instrument governing land administration and property markets in Nigeria (Butler, 2012), it did not revoke customary land tenure in the country. In addition, all the States in Nigeria have their individual Land Laws which regulate access to land, land use and urban development (see Agheyisi, 2015, 2016). Urban land market in Benin City operates within this legal pluralism which creates uncertainties in land market and increases transaction costs (see Agboola et al., 2017). The inter-relationships between these institutions are revealed through non-compliance with the State and national Land Laws which has become sufficiently widespread to produce apathy in enforcing government’s land policies and conflicts in land delivery systems in Benin City. Human agency plays a central role in customary land supply and occupies the centre stage of inter-communal conflict. The recursive issue of power relations within and among members of CDAs and CDYAs explicitly draws on the theoretical significance of the relationship between structure and agency in reconstructing the explanations of inter-communal conflict. The constitution of CDAs and CDYAs suggests that structure can be ‘strategically selective’ (Jessop, 1990; Hay, 1996)

3. Conceptualizing inter-communal land conflicts There is a tendency by many writers to conflate all forms of conflicts in Nigeria as inter-communal conflicts. Inter-communal conflict needs to be clearly defined and demarcated from other types of conflicts for analytical purpose without denying the fact that it has similarities with or can transform into other forms of violence (see Brosché and Elfversson, 2012). Inter-communal conflicts are usually more organized and coordinated along a shared communal identity than the other forms of conflicts which are often sporadic and spontaneous in nature (see 534

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used as a convenience sampling technique of collecting a sample from a population in which a standard sampling approach is either impossible or impractical (see Handcock and Gile, 2011) and hard-to-reach (Heckathorn, 2011). The choice of snowball sampling in this work is for the purpose of link-tracing geographically dispersed people who experienced the six-month violent conflict that involved the two communities under focus. One resident home owner that witnessed the violent conflict between the two communities was identified and interviewed. Thereafter, the participant was asked to link the researcher up with another home owner who also witnessed the conflict until the required number of participants was reached (see Steven and Thompson, 2002). In-depth interviews provided the opportunity for participants to narrate their experiences of the conflict event. Overall, the narratives of the conflict event were the same from respondents of both communities. It was also discovered that interviews with participants in this study have the potential to be participatory when group members and participants’ household members joined in the interview sessions and this provided good forums for using participatory urban appraisal techniques in the analysis of information collected (see Gough et al., 2014). The participants in the two groups were relatively homogenous in terms of ethnic background. All the participants except 3 resident home owners were non-indigenous Binis. Their ages range from 38 to 64 years and educational attainment vary from secondary to tertiary education. Their responses to the questions of what led to the conflict, the actors involved and effects of the violent conflict on the residents were not just answers to the questions but ‘stories’ about the conflict event. Their detailed explanations helped to visualize and represent the violent conflict pictorially. Respondents’ quotations are italicized to highlight the voices and views of the participants. To ensure participants’ anonymity, participants’ group was used to identify each citation (see Lombard, 2016; Agboola et al., 2017). The snowball sampling technique helped to avoid gender bias in this study. Customary land management in the Nigerian context and Benin City in particularly, is a male dominated affair because it is fraught with conflict and violence. Countering the culture of male dominance in a deeply conservative society like Benin City was also very challenging. Women would thus naturally defer to their husbands and grown up children when approached for interviews concerning an issue in which men are the dominant players. Respect for elders’ opinion was another sensitive issue in this study. The mutual suspicion as a result of the simmering conflict between the two communities gave rise to some of these methodological difficulties that are common in researching landrelated violent conflict (see Lombard, 2016). In order to address these problems, a range of validation techniques (see Lincoln and Egon, 1995; Mitlin and Thompson, 1995) such as the use of lead questions directed at specific participants and triangulation method were employed. Drawing from the methodological approaches to the studies of urban violence (see Moser and McIlwaine, 1999, 2006) and land conflict (see Wehrmann, 2008), this study employed relevant analytical tools of participatory urban appraisal (PUA) for the identification of broad patterns from the analysis of the in-depth interviews and to present the findings in graphical or descriptive form as a way of systematizing analysis (see Moser and McIlwaine, 1999, 2006). Pictorial

Brosché and Elfversson, 2012), covering wide areas across regional boundaries. Inter-communal land conflict occurs when at least two communities lay claim to the same piece of land or the use and ownership of land resources along their common border. Otite and Albert (1999) report that the right to own and use land underlies most intercommunal land conflicts in Nigeria (see also Wehrmann, 2008). Definitions of conflict thematically overlap with that of violence, although distinctively varied in context and location. This overlap is reflected in the concept of “violent conflict” (see Moser, 2004; Moser and Rodgers, 2012) as distinct from the twin concepts of “violence” and “conflict”. Violent conflict is a conflict that turns violent or ended in violence, suggesting that conflict is the bedrock of that violence and violence is the end-result of that conflict. Violent conflict as used in this article refers to a sustained fight that lasted for months, involving the use of weapons by armed groups and which resulted in death and injuries, destruction of properties and fleeing of people from the locality. Different frameworks to distinguish between conflict and violence have been developed (see Beal et al., 2013; Obala and Mattingly, 2014). More helpful to this work is the Bruce’s (2011) framework which highlighted the dynamics or progression of conflict from disputes to conflict and finally violence. According to the framework, a dispute involving conflicting claims only changes to conflict when efforts to resolve it failed. The conflict may turn violent involving the use of physical force, when a ‘trigger event’ such as ‘shifting power balance’ acts as a ‘tipping point’ resulting in injury or the loss of life and property (Bruce, 2011; see also Moser and Rodgers, 2012). The concept of “tipping point” as used by Moser and Rodgers (2012) reflects the transition of conflict to violence. However, many urban land conflicts do not necessarily result in violence and this makes them less noticeable by the wider public than violent conflict. 4. Methods Given the dearth of data to analyze land conflicts in Benin City, a case study approach was adopted in this study. A single case study approach allows in-depth exploration of a specific land conflict at the micro scale, necessary to understand the conjunction of spatio-historical context and both endogenous and exogenous factors shaping the conflict (see Simmons, 2004; Lombard, 2016). In-depth case studies of individual neighbourhoods can also “enable the historical factors that help to explain contemporary conflicts to be traced and understood” (Lombard and Rakodi, 2016. 2691). This study utilized the key informant technique because it allows the involvement of key community members who have in-depth knowledge of the subject under examination due to their position in community (see Marshall, 1996; Bergstrom, 2018). A total of 15 members of CDAs and CDYAs, who acted as key informants, were selected from 2 communities for semi-structured interviews. In order to include more voices and to hear from the people who witnessed or are directly affected by the conflict, a total of 20 resident home owners from the two selected communities were selected for indepth interview (see Table 1). Given the long time the violent conflict had occurred, snowball sampling technique was used to select 10 participants from each of the communities. Snowball sampling has been Table 1 Participant Information. Participant Group

CDA Members (CDA) Members of Youth Association (CDYA) Resident Home Owners (RHO) Total

Size

Gender

Age

Academic Qualification

Male

Female

30-40

41-50

51 and above

Secondary Education

Higher Education

6

6

Nil

Nil

2

4

6

Nil

9 20 35

9 12 27

Nil 8 8

7 2 9

2 5 9

Nil 13 17

7 16 29

2 4 6

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and 2016 (Table 2) in which members of CDAs and CDYAs were reported to be the actors involved. Land conflict involving Amagba and Evbukhu Communities was selected for an in-depth study in order to gain a deeper insight into the role of the actors involved. Their selection was based on the intractable nature of the violent land conflict which lasted for six months, the wide publicity it gained from the local mass media, the protracted and simmering nature of the conflict after being resolved, the diverse claims of the actors involved and personal acquaintance with two members of the CDYAs of both communities who acted as key informants for this study. The profiles of the two communities are briefly presented as follows:

representations (as descriptive tools) of actors involved in conflicts, their positions and feelings as well as the consequences of the conflicts has been lacking in urban land conflict studies. PUA is a tool-kit that allows the researcher to visualize problems, sort out key actors, rank priorities and make visual representations of identified problems (Gibson, 1994; Moser and McIlwaine, 1999). It has been found particularly appropriate for conducting research of marginalized or vulnerable people (Kindon and Kesby, 2007) and people who are victimized or affected by violence (Moser and McIlwaine, 1999, 2006). As a participatory method it emphasizes the need to adapt research to a variety of techniques to capture the importance of context (see Gough et al., 2014). Central to PUA methodology is in-depth interviews which were utilized in this study. It is deeply appreciated that analysis of participatory urban appraisal goes beyond the scope of this study. However, a number of key PUA issues such as safety of the researcher and how to secure it, anonymity of participants, access into the communities and guaranteed protection and entry pass through key informants and the inclusion of the key informants in the research (see Moser and McIlwaine, 1999) were found relevant in this work. Whereas the “culture of silence” is often a constraint in the study of violence (see Moser and McIlwaine, 1999; see also Lykes, 1997), the participants in this study were willing to talk and express their disdain particularly for the members of the CDYAs who were the principal actors in the violent conflict event. Data derived from the semi-structure interviews were presented by the use of appropriate PUA tools including community profiles, conflict matrix, “onion” and conflict tree. The community profiles are brief descriptions of the sampled communities based on the information derived from interviews and direct observation during transect walk around the communities. The conflict matrix is the timeline or phases and history of land conflict between the two feuding communities which were derived through semi-structured interviews with members of CDAs and CDYAs of the communities. “Onion”, as an analytical tool, was used to identify the key actors, their positions, interests, needs and fears. As a ranking tool, the most important of these key elements of the actors is placed at the centre of a set of concentric circles (Moser and McIlwaine, 1999). A conflict tree was used to identify the root causes and consequences of land conflict between the two communities. While the trunk of the tree represents the core problem and the roots represent the causes, the branches represent the consequences of the conflict. The conflict tree, like a map, is a visual illustration of the relationships between the root causes and consequences of a conflict (Moser and McIlwaine, 1999). The use of the various PUA tools in this study did not come without some challenges. Participants ranking and co-creation of conflict analysis were found challenging. To overcome these challenges, the number of participants was recalled in the analytical tools. Although PUA tools encourage visual rather than written or verbal accounts of events or issues by ensuring that participants use drawings to illustrate their experiences (Shah, 1995), this does not necessarily mean that it is the participants’ drawings that should always be used in the research report. Moser and McIlwaine (1999. 213) suggest that “it is possible to invent modifications to the tools”.

5.1. Amagba community Amagba Community is located in the southern fringe of Benin City. It is bounded in the north by Ugbor Community with which it fought over boundary dispute in 2010; in the south by Obagie Community with which it has an ongoing boundary dispute; in the west by Ogumwenyin Community and in the east by Evbukhu Community. It is drained by Ire and Oroma seasonal streams, none of which forms a physical boundary between the community and its neighbors. The attempts by Obagie Community to use the Oroma Stream as the boundary between it and Amagba Community is the cause of the ongoing boundary dispute between the two communities. Amagba Community forms a continuum of the residential high brow sector of the city but lacks public infrastructure and services with the exception of a public primary school. The community does not have a market except commercial activities along the arterial road. However, land speculation and residential development is very high in the area. 5.2. Evbukhu community Evbukhu Community is bounded in the north by Ekae Community; in the east by Obe Community with which it fought over boundary dispute in 2009; in the south by Ohoghobi Community with which it fought over boundary dispute from May to July in 2009 and Obagie Community with which it has an ongoing boundary dispute; and in the west by Amagba Community. The community is well laid out in a compact grid pattern. It has no public infrastructure of any kind. Besides its involvement in a number of inter-communal conflicts, Evbukhu Community had been involved in intra-communal dispute over succession to the throne of the Enogie (Duke) between two members of the royal family which led to violent conflict in 2013. 6. Analysis and discussion of land conflict between Evbukhu and Amagba communities In order to understand the exercise of agency within specific context, it is important to provide the basis for connecting agency with structural conditions and the patterns of interactions between them in peri-urban communities where informal land subdivision and allocation by CDAs flourish. This understanding becomes necessary in delineating both the land market opportunities to which customary land supply responds, the condition or environment under which they flourish and the social interactions between actors. By so doing, the social context that defines individual and group actions provide the medium for understanding inter-communal land conflict as part of and an outcome of the interactions between social groups at the community level. The analysis that follows is divided into four sub-themes namely; timeline of the conflict event, local power relations, diverse claims to land rights and the social environment of customary land supply.

5. Community profiles A community in the Nigerian urban context corresponds with a neighbourhood. The two concepts are thus used interchangeably in this study. A community is a settlement but becomes segregated into neighbourhoods as it grows or expands spatially. The fundamental component that defines a city’s form and character is the neighbourhood. All neighbourhoods in Benin metropolis were once rural communities but have been integrated into the growing urban complex (see Fig. 1). They developed spontaneously as add-on informal neighbourhoods without formal planning and development control norms. Nine cases of inter-communal land conflicts were recorded between 2010

6.1. Timeline of the conflict event Analysis of land conflict requires that not only the actors involved are identified but the phases through which the conflict developed is 536

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Fig. 1. Benin City Showing the Communities.

Thereafter, tools to structure and visualize information on the conflict can be applied. The timeline reveals the subjective perspectives of the two parties involved and enables contradictions and turning points in the conflict to be highlighted. The conflict reflects Bruce’s (2011) framework as it progresses from dispute to conflict and finally ended in violence. The proximity of Amagba Community to the general reservation area (GRA) – a high-brow residential area in Benin City– had made land speculators to start early acquisition of land in the community in the late 1980s. “The sale of land in Amagba Community started from time immemorial” (CDA–2, Amagba Community), meaning that sales of land in the community have been on for a long time. Sales of land in Evbukhu Community started much later. Specifically, “sales of land started in Evbukhu Community in 2002” (CDA–1, Evbukhu Community). At this stage CDAs have not been organized in both communities and hence there was no boundary dispute. The intensification of

Table 2 Cases of Inter-communal Land Conflicts in Benin Metropolis. Community Involved

Year

Ahor versus Uselu n’Ahor Obazagbon versus Okhoromi Okha versus Urhoho Ohoghobi versus Evbukhu Evbukhu versus Amagba Ugbor versus Amagba Obe versus Evbomoma Obe versus Ogheghe Okha versus Ogheghe

2016 2013 2013 2012 2011-2012 2010 2011 2010 2010

explained (Wehrmann, 2008). To this end, the frame conditions and historical development of the conflict have to be provided (see Table 3). This can also serve as a crucial step toward conflict resolution. 537

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development in the Sapele road – Ugbor road interstice made CDAs to be organized in the 1990s to oversee land subdivision, allocations and sales. Developers in and around the contested zone faced harassment from members of CDAs and CDYAs of both communities and were forced to pay development fees to the groups of both communities. The outcome of the contestation and confrontation between the two contending communities was six-month violence. Although the conflict has been resolved through legal means both communities can be said to be technically at war since one of the parties has not fully accepted the resolution of the conflict. The timeline of the conflict event between Amagba and Evbukhu Communities can be interpreted through the three-part cycle of change over time in the model of the relationship between structure and agency developed by Archer (1996). The general events in the 1980s and 1990s in the timeline of the conflict event (see Table 3) represent the structural conditioning stage of the model. Also, the general events from 2000 to 2011 in the timeline of the conflict event represent the social interaction stage when agents engaged with other agents in the process of consensual negotiations. Conflict ensued when negotiations failed. Lastly, the general events from 2012 till date in the timeline of the conflict event represent the structural elaboration stage in which one group successfully changed the conditions to suit their own interests while the other group lost out. At this stage, the structure is not newly created but it is modified and transformed as a result of the actions at the social interaction stage. The structural elaboration stage may well mark the beginning of another cycle of conflict, with agents now being conditioned by a changed structural context (see McAnulla, 2002). Therefore, this stage may have ended the cycle but becomes stage 1 of another cycle of conflict because both groups have failed to bring about the desired condition favourable to both parties to guarantee lasting peace. The desire of members of Amagba Community CDA and CDYA to maintain the present status quo may lead to another cycle of violence.

Both sides hold a different view about the resolution of the conflict. Normalcy restored but one of the communities disagreed on how the dispute was resolved. 2012 till date (Postconflict)

Amagba elders know the truth about the boundary but the CDA members did not want to obey their elders. Members of Amagba Youth Association attacked us in our own community. The court verdict is rejected and the new boundary is unacceptable because it passes too close to the Oguedion which used to be at the middle of the community. Land sales and development within the contested zone increasingly became impossible as a result of the ensuing violence.

2000s (Crisis)

1990s (Confrontation)

2011 (Outcome)

Elders of Evbukhu Community are not telling their CDA members the truth about the true boundary. Evbukhu CDA has to be stopped from further encroachment. The boundary has been fixed and the conflict has been resolved.

Boundary disputes were limited to individual plot owners in the contested zone. CDA members were occasionally called upon to intervene. Multiple sales of land were common in the contested area. There were reprisal attacks of construction workers by members of the Youth Associations of both communities. Each community considered the other to be encroaching. There were contradictory stories about the exact boundary which allowed for counter claims. Each side blamed the other for starting the fight.

CDAs have not been organized in both communities.

Land use at Evbukhu Community was largely for farming purposes. CDA was formed to undertake layout creation. Existing boundary was maintained using natural landmarks. Negotiations broke down between the two communities because Amagba CDA refused to accept the existing boundary. Land speculators started buying land for building purposes from private individuals. CDA was formed to undertake layout creation. Boundary was independently fixed by Evbukhu Community without consultation. Negotiations broke down between the two communities because Evbukhu CDA refused to accept the boundary that was fixed. Both communities were largely rural areas. There was no dispute. As urbanization intensified in the zone boundaries between the two communities became hotly contested. Issuance of stop work order, seizure of building equipments and beating of construction workers by members of CDAs took place within the contested zone. 1980s (Pre-conflict)

Events as experienced by Evbukhu Community CDA Events as experienced by Amagba Community CDA General Events Year/ Phase

Table 3 Timeline of the Conflict Event.

Author’s Comments

J.E. Agheyisi

6.2. Diverse claims to land rights The timeline of the conflict events presented above reflects the diverse interests and claims of the actors involved. While diverse and varied rights to a given piece of land are common, conflict may arise where different claims are in competition (see Baranyi and Weitzner, 2006; Lombard, 2016). The conflict between Amagba and Evbukhu Communities centres on the competition between the rights and claims of the CDAs of both communities which prompted the CDAs of both communities to take direct actions at stopping or preventing developers from developing their properties within the contested border zone. This reveals land tenure insecurity within the contested zone. One resident home owner at this border zone said that “all home owners within the zone made payments of development fees and levies to the CDAs of both communities before development was allowed” (RHO–1, Evbukhu Community). Evidence of payment of these fees to either of the communities was not acceptable by the CDA of the other community. Despite the legal resolution of the conflict, this situation still persists. The simmering hostility between the two communities still put residents and land owners on their toes, as it was reported that “developers have to take permission from the CDAs of both communities before embarking on building construction” (RHO–2, Evbukhu Community). Such permission, “frequently involves ‘settlement’ (i.e. payment of development fees and levies) of CDAs and CDYAs of both communities” (RHO–11, Amagba Community). “Failure to pay such fees would lead to beating of workers, seizure of building or construction materials and termination of work until all the fees are paid” (RHO–15, Amagba Community). Such evidence of persistent aggression towards the residents and developers by the CDAs and CDYAs of both communities suggests that the permanent resolution of the land conflict lies beyond the current legal resolution.

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to be underpinned by local power relations among the members of CDAs and other interest groups. The configuration of the local power relations encompasses two political office holders who acted as patrons of the CDYAs of their respective communities. The two political office holders, though belonging to the same political party, hailed from the opposing communities. Both have large estates in their respective communities and it is widely believed that they funded the violent confrontation in terms of providing arms and ammunitions to the youths. Their involvement in the conflict represents a confluence of political and economic interests. There is suspicion that the membership of the youth associations in both communities is dominated by violent secret cult groups. Again this is suggestive of the link between youth associations and secret cult groups on the one hand, and politicians and secret cult groups on the other hand. The involvement of youths in conflicts in Nigeria had been reported (see Oruwari and Owei, 2006; HRW, 2007) as increasing the likelihood of using firearms which turns conflicts into violence. It has been reported that the emergence of large cohort of youth organizations increases the risk of outbreak of violence in many societies (Moser and Rodgers, 2012). The land conflict between Amagba and Evbukhu Communities therefore reflects the enduring and intricate nature of local power relations in urban land governance in Benin City. To verify which details are still missing, the conflict matrix (Table 5) was prepared to list and structure the additional information on the conflict. Land demarcation into residential blocks within the contested zone by the CDA of Evbukhu Community marked the “tipping point” (see Moser and Rodgers, 2012) when the conflict escalated into violence. Fig. 3 is used to illustrate the root causes and wider impacts of the conflict on both communities. Participants consistently mentioned increase in land value which translates into great gains for members of CDAs and CDYAs as the main root of the land conflict. The conflict tree shows three other factors incidental to land and two other factors associated with the actors involved as the root causes of the conflict. The destruction of private and community properties consistently stand out as the major consequence of the violent conflict. The conflict tree also shows other consequences both external and internal to the two communities. The additional information about the key actors of the conflict and the consequences of their actions provided by the conflict tree does help to support conflict resolution by identifying the most urgent and relevant causes of violent conflict to be addressed (see Wehrmann, 2008). Emphasizing the significance of increase in land demand and land values to the land conflict, a resident home owner in Amagba Community said that “land sales have become a major source of wealth for members of CDAs and CDYAs” (RHO–18, Amagba Community). This was supported by another resident home owner in Evbukhu Community who asserted that “the greed for money among members of the CDAs and CDYAs is the major root cause of the conflict” (RHO–1, Evbukhu Community). The display of power and affluence by the leaders of these groups clearly supports this fact. Traditional and cultural attachments to ancestral land and income generation from land sales have shaped individual interests and group identity which then resulted in mobilizing group action and eventually led to violence. Wehrmann advices that emotional attachments to land must be taken into account for a peaceful conflict resolution (Wehrmann, 2008; see also Lombard and Rakodi, 2016).

6.3. Local power relations Understanding land conflict requires that the parties involved are not only identified but their positions, attitudes and behaviour understood (Miall et al., 1999 cited in Lombard and Rakodi, 2016). The leadership of the key actors in the conflict includes the CDAs’ chairmen and secretaries, the Youth Associations’ chairmen and secretaries, bush inspectors, pointers and members of patrol teams. Wehrmann (2008) points out that conflict resolution becomes easier once the identity, needs, interests, positions, desires and fears of the key actors in conflict have been identified. Moser (2004) opines that power relationship between actors is fundamental to understanding the causal factors that underpin violence. Social identity is particularly salient in social construction of violence among youth gangs (Moser, 2004). While providing explanations for these key elements of the actors involved in conflict, Lombard and Rakodi (2016) explain that position relates to diverse goals, needs and interests between the parties involved; attitudes relate to belief and value systems including emotions which are shaped by existing relationships between the parties involved; and behaviour includes, among other things, cooperation, negotiation, intimidation, use of threats and violence. Fig. 2 is used to identify or “peel off” the positions, interests, needs and desires/fears of these groups. The details of these are presented in Table 4. At the core of the land conflict is the material need of the actors involved. Members of CDAs and CDYAs of both communities consistently mentioned material need as their major concern since the land is their major asset and means of livelihood. Emotion ranked next because of their attachment with their land.”This is the only thing we have. We have no other things to sell” (CDYA–2, Amagba Community). “We have no land left for farming. (CDYA–5, Evbukhu Community). Although the land in question is divisible, both communities claimed indivisible property right over the contested area. A divisible property right would have led to a win-win solution to the conflict but because the conflict turned out to be asymmetric in favor of Amagba Community, its CDA disagreed to reach a compromise. Although the positions and needs of both communities are the same, they ranked differently. Both communities also differ significantly on interests, desires and fears. Here emotion is certainly involved particularly on the part of Evbukhu Community who sees the ancestral land being lost to its neighbour. “We have suggested that there should be a trade-off of land between the two communities as a way of resolving the conflict but they (i.e. members of Amagba Community CDA) have objected to it till now” (CDA–3, Evbukhu Community). On this issue, his counterpart in Amagba CDA said that “we rejected the proposal because the case has been concluded in the court” (CDA–3, Amagba Community). What seems not to be taken into consideration in the resolution of the conflict between the two communities is the location of the Oguedion (i.e. the building housing the community’s shrine and where elders meet) of Evbukhu Community which, originally was at the middle of the community, is now at the border. This is the reason for the Evbukhu CDA not accepting the court verdict. One of the Evbukhu Community CDA members asked rhetorically: “Can Oguedion be at the boundary? Have you ever seen any community in Edo Kingdom whose Oguedion is at the boundary with another community? (CDYA–1, Evbukhu Community). The diverse claims to land rights identified above have been found

6.4. The social environment of customary land supply The dominant channels of land delivery in Benin metropolis include sales of private held land, sales of customary land and sharing of customary land to members of communities (Agheyisi, 2012). Regardless of the huge success of this grass root land delivery system in supplying a high percentage of land for the urban poor, the system is fraught with tenure insecurity and conflict (Agheyisi, 2012; see also Ikejiofor, 2009; Rakodi, 2007) as the social norms and customary rules governing land

Fig. 2. Conflict Onion. 539

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Table 4 Actors and their positions, interests, needs, desires and fears. Conflict Party

Position

Interest

Needs

Desires/Fears

Amagba Community Evbukhu Community

It is our land It is our land

To keep the land that has been won in court To get back the lost land

To make more money from sales of land To make more money from sales of land

Desires that the present position be maintained Fears that the ancestral land is being lost

(Ikejiofor (2009). The opportunity to appeal to external agents or authorities when property claims are contested is perceived to be one of the benefits of possessing a title deed (Durand-Lasserve et al., 2002). In Benin City, a titled deed provides evidence of formal recognition of ownership of land that is not in an approved layout. The material needs of members of CDAs and CDYAs made them break customary rules in order to profit from institutional shortcomings (see Wehrmann, 2008). Although the withering of traditional authority and functional deficits of social institutions are not the main reasons for urban land conflicts, Wehrmann (2008. 24) opines that they facilitate them. The other more important reasons are the greed and profiteering tendencies of the operators of informal land market which manifest in form of land grabbing, multiple sales of plot of land, land encroachment, social exclusion of members of communities from CDA and CDYA groups and embezzlement of money accruing from sales of community land.

transactions become increasingly strained and eventually resulted in land disputes and violent conflicts. The nature of land conflict in Benin metropolis reflects the social environment within which urban land transactions take place. The legal pluralism regarding land ownership in Nigeria (Butler, 2012) and ineffective State Land Law (Agheyisi, 2016) have created a vacuum in which members of CDAs and CDYAs have taken advantage of and consolidated their control over community land and informal land market. Three factors interact to constitute the social environment that affects land supply in the city. Fig. 4 illustrates the framework of these mutually interacting factors and provides a broader context for understanding urban land conflict in Benin metropolis. In terms of operation, these three entities are not mutually exclusive. For analytical purposes, their separate consideration allows an understanding of how the individual factor influences human behaviour with respect to land use. The informal land market is the outcome of the inter-relationship of these entities. The traditional institutions create the socio-cultural environment and the forces of collective action that influence the behaviour of the individual as a member of family or community. They govern the social and economic relations between individual actors in land delivery processes. These relationships are embedded in social norms and cultural practices, including customary rules (Pamuk, 2000; van Horen, 1999) and are revealed through land transactions (Razzaz, 1994). The withering of traditional authority in regulating land transactions in customary land delivery systems and absence of state control of the informal land delivery channels mean that land conflict and tenure insecurity are inevitable. Indeed, the violent conflict event between Amagba and Evbukhu Communities is an expression of agency responding to the opportunities created by the withering capacity of traditional authority in conflict resolution and frustrated government control of urban land management. Wehrmann rightly pointed out that “dysfunctional institutions which constitute and regulate informal land market act merely as catalysts for land conflict and not the main cause” (Wehrmann, 2008. 24). The general consensus among all participant home owners in this study is that plot owners and developers are no longer satisfied with merely obtaining ‘Deeds of Transfer’ for the purchase of land and payment of sundry fees to the CDAs. Rather, they further seek and obtain building permits and land titles from the State Government. The desire for official titles has become imperative due to tenure insecurity associated with informal land transactions. The issuance of formal titles for land acquired from local communities thus created a major interface between the formal and informal land administrative systems in Nigeria

7. Conclusion This paper provides a historical perspective which shows that CDAs have long been actively involved in customary land delivery in Benin City. The CDAs and CDYAs as human agencies located within the structured customary institution therefore become the key focus of this study. The study builds on and extends the structure and agency framework by explaining that critical to the understanding of inter-communal conflicts is the interactions between social structures and the actions of human agencies and their evolving legitimacy in customary land management. The paper agrees with the existing literature that diverse claims and local power relations among the actors involved are not only key factors in land conflict but also reflect the wider sociopolitical environment of informal land market. This is especially the case in peri-urban areas where local actors used different and overlapping frameworks to lay claim to land. Uncoordinated peri-urban land market ascribes new powers to non-state actors at the expense of state control. Also, local power relations shaped by the withering traditional institutions in conflict resolution have tended to intensify urban land conflict. Urban insecurity may be exacerbated by intercommunal land conflict which suggests a need for further investigation of the link between increasing urban insecurity and inter-communal land conflicts in Benin metropolis. Inter-communal land conflict presents both risks and potentials. The risk could be in form of repeated cycles of violence between communities if the conflict is not properly resolved or if one of the conflicting parties refuses to accept the resolution as this study has shown.

Table 5 Conflict Matrix. Type of conflict

Inter-communal conflict due to uncertainty of the boundary between the two communities which allows the opposing sides to make different interpretations convenient for their claims.

Conflict issue Manifestation of conflict Actors involved Causes of conflict

Diverse claim by both communities of each other’s territory. Conflict escalated into violence during land demarcation into residential blocks by Evbukhu Community. All members of CDAs and Youth Associations of both communities. Lack of proper or accurate delineation and demarcation of the boundary; refusal to let the elders of both communities who knew the true history of the communities delineate the boundary; lack of respect for traditional institutions in land dispute resolution. Effective land management system which include layout preparation and registration as required by the State Land Law. Repeated cycles of violence between members of CDAs and Youth Associations of both communities. Infiltrations of armed secrete cult groups taking sides with opposing communities. State intervention in the land conflict, dialogue and acceptance of tradeoff of land as proposed by Evbukhu CDA.

Potential Risks Possible solutions

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Fig. 3. Conflict Tree.

and town planners on the other hand. Approved layout plans of communities would provide a technical tool for preventing and resolving land conflicts between communities as well as improving land tenure security for individual property holders. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and critical insights in urban land conflicts which helped to strengthen the paper considerably. The author is also grateful to Mr. George Osayomwanbor Osagie and Mr. Collins Eribo (executive member of Amagba and Evbukhu Community Development Youth Association respectively) who acted as key informants for this study in their respective communities. Fig. 4. The Social Environment of Urban Land Market in Benin City.

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Potentially, land conflict could lead to effective land management system which include layout plan preparation and registration which are imperative for effective urban land management and administration systems. It also presents opportunities for the State intervention in customary land delivery system with a view to enforcing the Town Planning Law as well in collaboration with land-owning communities. Also, inter-communal land conflict presents opportunities to regularize customary land supply in peri-urban areas. Finally, it presents opportunity to modernize land transactions in line with formal regulatory framework. This requires synergy between the government and CDAs on the one hand, and CDAs and professionals such as land surveyors

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