Civil Society in the shadows of Nigeria’s Core Conflicts The Role of Civil Society in Nigeria’s Core Conflicts: Farmer-Herder Conflict Paul Andrew GWAZA, PhD Introduction The transformation of the Farmer-Herder conflict seats at the heart of the fast-changing dynamics of the threats to peace, security, and development in Nigeria. Indeed, farming and cattle rearing have been the two main occupational activities that are being engaged by a majority of citizens, and the practitioners have enjoyed harmonious inter-reliant relationships. However, the complex processes of state-building have been influenced by both internal and global dynamics, which in turn impacted on the nature of the relationship and provides the context for the appreciation of conflict and security typology in the country. Farmers and herders have witnessed rapid changes in their interactions from a peaceful and complementary one to its current combustible state owing to socio-economic challenges, climate change-related demographic alterations, state weaknesses, rising cases of drug abuses, the proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons, militarization of the civil society, propagation of divisive narrative in social and traditional media, rising moral decadence. Within the global space, the advancement in information and Communication Technology(ICT) has facilitated the dissemination of narratives that have further widened sociocultural fragmentation and securitised identity-based discussions in the public square, whereas the complex climate Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Nigeria| 185