Forced migration: The displacement of Tiv People of Central Nigeria in contemporary times

Abstract

In recent history, the Tiv people of central Nigeria has become an endangered specie been forced out of the present homeland of Benue, Nassarawa and Taraba, often displaced, taking refuge in displacement camps. The reasons for such a force migration are not far fetch often factored on the existing political relations between the Tiv rural populations with nomadic Fulani herdsmen backed by the Hausa-Fulani-ruling class in northern Nigeria. This paper resolved the following research questions: Why has the Tiv man become a refugee in his own country? What are the forces that seek his emasculation? What is the citizenship status of the Tiv man in central Nigeria? What efforts by state and private organizations have been put in place to redress the Tiv question? In doing so, this paper employed the use of oral interviews as well as written sources in the discussion of the Tiv forced migration and displacement in central Nigeria as from the colonial to the present.