Desertification of previously arable land ranks high among the documented side-effects of global warming.  In Nigeria and other West African countries that share northern borders with the Sahara Desert, the spreading sand dunes mean above all a permanent loss of cattle grazing land, at rates measured in square kilometers per year.  Populations dependent on such arid desert border environments are thus ultimately forced into permanent migrations that bring them into close quarters with established communities stretching hundreds of miles to the south, incresing the likelihood of conflict over water and land rights.

Nomadic Fulani cattle herders have for generations roamed their vast herds of white, long-horned Zebu cattle southward, in seasonal escape from the dry and dusty December Harmattan desert winds, bound for diminishing pockets of greener pasture in scattered locations closer to the Atlantic seaboard.    United by culture, tribe, language and religion, those herdsmen and their waves of cattle traverse national boundaries across sub-Saharan Africa unchallenged, navigating by the night stars with ease, thanks to the inherited knowledge of those who walked those remote trails hundreds of years before.

Commencing in the 1990s, increasing numbers of previously nomadic northern Nigerian cattle herders have chosen to remain in those relatively few available southern coastal grasslands year round, rather than venture back to northern homelands already destabilized by rivalries over parched landscapes, during rainy seasons that now exist in name only, for much of what lies north of the Niger/Benue river confluence.  In a few short years, those nomad cowboys are now new residents, surrounded by uneasy hosts who have an awful lot to lose by sharing land with visitors who own thousands of hungry cows.

The permanent occupation of farmland by foraging cattle, during the planting, growing and harvest seasons, has been identified as a recurrent trigger, touching off bloody clashes between farming communities and cattle herders, at escalating cost in lives and livelihoods.  Those regular herder versus farmer conflicts have in more recent years spread to virtually ALL agrarian zones of Nigeria’s south, pitting the tenders of her bread-basket farmland against equally determined fighters enlisted by her cattle-meat providers.   

Equally ominous has been the diversification of SOME Fulani cattle herders into armed banditry along southern Nigeria’s national highways, and in rural settlements.  Police reports in Nigeria cite frequent clashes with, and arrests of, bandit gangs comprising turban-clad Fulanis, as well as other north African battle veterans fleeing the quiescent desert skirmishes of Chad and Niger, and lured by the smell of money to Nigeria.    Take a closer look at the saddle bags on that lead cow next time you happen upon a magnificent herd of hunch-backed Zebu cattle in Nigeria, for SOME of those bags are rumored to conceal loaded Kalashnikovs, with enough magazine-packed ammo to sustain an old-fashioned Mexican standoff.

Desert encroachment is a serious problem indeed. However, every coin has two sides. The Sahara desert recieves enough solar insolation to supply the whole World with its electricty needs if harnessed. Northern Nigeria too can have its deserts harnessed to power the nation.

Solar energy can be the new oil.

Emulating that massive solar panel installation in the Arizona desert would definitely be a step in the right direction, for sure.

Jakumo:

Emulating that massive solar panel installation in the Arizona desert would definitely be a step in the right direction, for sure.

We're prolly fifty, maybe even a hundred, years away from that.

Jakumo:

Emulating that massive solar panel installation in the Arizona desert would definitely be a step in the right direction, for sure.

My dear fellows whilst there is oil in those Niger Delta creeks your sensible idea sounds a bit too much like bloody hard work.

Beaf:

Desert encroachment is a serious problem indeed. However, every coin has two sides. The Sahara desert recieves enough solar insolation to supply the whole World with its electricty needs if harnessed. Northern Nigeria too can have its deserts harnessed to power the nation.

Solar energy can be the new oil.

If I remember correctly, solar panels aren't quite a panacea. Not clear it is cost effective w/o gov't subsidies. This McKinsey survey paper discusses the issue in further detail:

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pdf/economics_of_solar.pdf