Ezenwa E. Olumba, Aston University

When armed groups attack a community, people often assume that everyone who can escape will leave. This belief influences news stories, public discussions and humanitarian efforts, which usually focus on those who have been forced to move.

However, while I was doing research in north-central Nigeria, also called the Middle Belt, I came across some communities that had the means to flee to safety but decided to remain, even though they faced repeated violent attacks from armed nomadic herders and got little or no help from the government.

I have been studying why people move or stay, and the violent conflicts between farming communities and nomadic herders in the Middle Belt, since 2018. I have published several studies on these issues. My research examines the history of the conflicts, what causes them to escalate, and why some people choose to remain in conflict zones. I have also studied how memories of people, places and past experiences influence decisions to remain.

In one study, my co-authors and I use the term eco-violence to describe conflicts over land and water between farming communities and nomadic herders across the dry Sahel region. These conflicts are driven partly by pressures on land and water, discrimination, and failures of government, as herders move with their livestock in search of grazing and water.

Studies show that in many crisis situations, more people stay than leave. To better understand migration and conflict, we need to ask not just why people run away, but also why some remain.

One reason is that they fear losing their ancestral land and traditional way of life.

The study

In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, communities have faced violence and the loss of homes, farms and food stores for many years.

Thousands of people are killed every year, with many communities destroyed and others deserted. According to Amnesty International, over 6,896 people were killed between May 2023 and May 2025 in Benue state alone.

These rural communities receive little or no protection from the police or military. Sometimes, attackers even warn the communities ahead of time, but the police or military still do not step in to protect them.

Hardly a week that goes without a killing in Benue, Plateau or Nasarawa states in Nigeria.

In 2022, I spoke with 54 people living in Benue and Nasarawa states. In Benue, I spoke with people who were indigenous to the location, as well as people who had fled to nearby communities. In Nasarawa State, I spoke with members of a community who had been displaced but later returned after regaining control of their village.

Why ancestral land matters

Their two main reasons for staying emerged from the research, which has since been published in Mobilities.

The first was their attachment to their ancestral land and the resources it provides. Many people in the Middle Belt are farmers who cultivate land inherited through generations. The same land contains their family homes, burial grounds and sacred sites, and provides the setting for rituals and traditional festivals.

The Middle Belt is known for its fertile land. Benue State, for instance, is often described as the country’s “food basket” because much of the food grown there is supplied to other parts of Nigeria.

The second was their desire to preserve a familiar way of life that makes living meaningful to them. For these communities, home is made up of relationships, memories, traditions and identities passed from one generation to the next. Some of them put it simply: they would rather die than leave.

One of the community members said this:

This land is where I was born, and this is my father’s land. Wherever I run to, I will become a stranger and may become destitute … If I die in my house for what belongs to me, let me die. This is why I did not flee.

Their decision is not simply about whether they could survive elsewhere. It is mostly about preserving their traditional way of life, since life away from their ancestral land may no longer feel meaningful.

These communities believe they can only keep their way of life by staying on what they call their “father’s land”. Leaving would mean surrendering their land, livelihoods and communal life to live elsewhere with little or nothing.

One of the community members said:

Another factor is that the area where we are settled now belongs to our forefathers, and if we flee and abandon this place, where are we heading to? … [S]ince this is our land, we must live on it.

Remaining does not mean that they prefer violence. They know the dangers and fear further attacks. Many have lost relatives and friends. But leaving would mean losing a way of life they believe they cannot rebuild anywhere else.

Conflict is not the only thing people fear

Understanding this can help scholars, policymakers, journalists and humanitarian groups to work more thoughtfully with people who choose to remain in conflict, for whom leaving may carry losses they consider impossible to replace.

Ezenwa E. Olumba, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Aston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.