In Mararaban Liman Katagum livestock market, a 54-year-old Alhaji Adamu sits beside a truck loaded with dozens of cows headed to southern Nigeria. A decade ago, he fled Plateau State, Northcentral Nigeria with nothing but the clothes on his back. Once a maize farmer and cattle rearer in Fan village, Barikin Ladi Local Government Area, Adamu’s life changed forever during the farmer-herder conflict in 2014.
His journey to this point was marked by trauma and uncertainty. Stripped of his livelihood and forced to flee in the middle of the night, Adamu spent months in makeshift shelters, relying on the kindness of a few sympathisers and scarce humanitarian aid. The toll of losing his home, community, and sense of security left scars that still remain.
“On a cold harmattan night (February 6) that year, armed men stormed our village. My eldest son, Sani, was injured while trying to help an aged neighbour escape. We left everything. No food, no clothes, no belongings. We just ran,” he recalls.
Adamu’s village was one of several communities attacked that year, leaving 29 people dead and many injured, according to the news report. He took dangerous routes to Bauchi State, in the Northeast, leaving behind his land and livestock. Upon arriving in Mararaba, a hub of livestock on the outskirts of Bauchi metropolis, he had no shelter, no income, and no plan.
He sought refuge in a community with thriving business opportunities, first squatting in an abandoned makeshift shelter near Mararaba military checkpoint. With the help of a fellow displaced trader who arrived five years earlier, Adamu began selling goats and sheep. Slowly, he rebuilt his network, saving from each sale. A decade later, he owned three trucks, expanded his business across regions.
Over time, his network and earnings grew. Today, he owns three trucks and supplies livestock across Nigeria – from North to Porthacourt, Awka and Ibadan.
“I don’t like to remember those dark days,” Adamu says. “But I never imagined they would lead me here.”
Today, Adamu is a successful livestock dealer, supplying cows and rams from Northern Nigeria to major markets in the Southern part of the country, serving as a key link between the producers in the north and southern markets. He told WikkiTimes that his business now supports three households: his own and those of two younger relatives who also lost everything during the Plateau crisis.
Open Doors After Displacement
Once a barren expanse, Mararaban Liman Katagum has evolved into a thriving livestock market, now home to an estimated 10,000 residents. Over 90% of them were displaced persons, by conflict from Plateau, Tafawa Balewa, and other nearby areas. Through shared networks and informal support systems, former IDPs like Adamu have turned this community into a model of trade.
Market officials report that while cows sell for an average of N750,000 ($500), goats and rams go for around N250,000 ($167). Mararaba is now recognised by the Bauchi State government as one of its busiest livestock markets, contributing both to family incomes and public revenue. Support from local market unions and government policies has created a new economic base for many displaced families.
Success after displacement is not unique to Mararaba. Alhaji Abba Sheriff, who fled the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, found a new livelihood in cap knitting. “I earn between N30,000 and N40,000 ($20 and $26) a day,” he told Daily Trust. His business allowed him to enrol at the University of Maiduguri, graduate with a degree in Health Education, and build a home for his family.
“We left Bama hopeless,” he said. “But every crisis holds an opportunity.”
For him, thousands of victims of displacement now access vocational training and career pathways within IDP camps and host communities.
In Bama, Banki, and Gwoza, all in Borno State, hundreds of former IDPs participated in skill-based training over the decade, including 50 who completed a six-month training in leather craftsmanship at the Nigerian Institute of Leather Science and Technologies (NILEST) in 2019.
Follow-up monitoring shows that many of them continued their post-training businesses, earning enough to support their families and also train others.
One of them is Musa Ibrahim, who now trains other youths in Biu town. He said before the displacement from Gwoza in 2009, he was farming, but now he has learned shoe making and earns more money daily.
“I thought I would never earn anything again after leaving Gwoza. Now I make an average of N18,000 ($12) daily, and I even teach others.”
Women Empowered
In conflict zones, women and children often bear the brunt of suffering, but for many, displacement has broken traditional barriers. Through vocational training and peer groups, displaced women in states like Plateau and Bauchi are redefining their futures.
Women for Women International (WfWI), through its Stronger Women, Stronger Nations (SWSN) programme, trains displaced women in vocational skills, reproductive health, and legal rights. Since 2000, over 100,000 Nigerians, mostly women, have benefited. In 2023, 48% of the participants of its SWSN Program increased their earnings. 86% participated in household decision-making (up from 40%) and 98% reported personal savings, compared to 31% at the start 
With these transformations, particularly the economic growth that is emerging after a traumatic experience, several accounts argue that displacement, though painful, can become a vehicle for growth and prosperity. The evidence shows that, with resilience and the right partnerships, millions can transform displacement or migration into opportunity.
Northern Nigeria remains one of Africa’s most displacement-prone regions. Years of insurgency and disasters related to climate change have driven millions of people out of their homes. Towns and villages in states like Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa have become hotspots of displacement due to attacks by Boko Haram and ISWAP, alongside shrinking farmland caused by the drying Lake Chad and seasonal flooding.
A 2025 Amnesty International report estimates over 10,000 lives lost to armed violence across seven states – Benue, Edo, Katsina, Kebbi, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara – in the last two years of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.
The report added that nearly 7000 people were killed in Benue State alone, with Plateau State following with about 2,600 fatalities. While in Katsina State, nearly 300 people were killed, all between May 2023 and May 2025. Zamfara State lost 273 lives to attacks, and over 600 villages were sacked.
Within the period, the two states with the highest displacement were Benue and Plateau States, with 450,000 and 65,000 people displaced respectively, totalling 515,000 IDPs.
Scope of the Crisis
On June 20, 2025, the Nigerian Government disclosed that there are over 138,000 refugees in the country and 6.2 million IDPs, out of which 3.5 million are in camps, while the other 2.7 million live in host communities.
It noted that the refugee figure includes the asylum seekers who were forcibly displaced from 48 countries, with six nationalities – Cameroon, Niger, Syria, Central African Republic and Sudan making up 86% of the figure.
As of 2021, due to Boko Haram and other non-state armed groups, as well as clashes between herders and farmers, at least 3 million people were out of their homes, especially in parts of Northeastern Nigeria and the country’s Middle Belt, but increasingly also in the Northwest.
In 2022, there were 3.1 million IDPs in the country, becoming the largest population of IDPs in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
As of December 2023, there were a total of 3.9 million IDPs across the country, with 3.3 million IDPs recorded in the Northern part of the country. 2024 recorded 3.5 million IDPs, with Borno State alone hosting more than 1.6 million.
With conflicts surging from early 2025, the figure skyrocketed to 6.2 million. Alhaji Tijani Ahmed, the Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), expressed this on June 20, 2025, on the year’s World Refugee Day in Abuja.
While conflict remains a major displacement driver, climate-related disasters are also disruptive. In 2023 alone, flooding displaced nearly 650,000 people in Nigeria. Bauchi State reported 8,338 displaced people, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
In September 2024, the collapse of Alau Dam in Borno State triggered severe flooding that displaced 419,000 people, with over 150 fatalities and at least 2.3 million residents affected, according to authorities.
A month earlier, flooding killed 49 people and displaced thousands in three states – Jigawa, Adamawa and Taraba – after heavy rainfalls.
In March 2025, Nigeria, Chad, and UNHCR signed a tripartite agreement for the repatriation of nearly 8,000 Nigerian refugees. Also, IOM partnered with Cisco to promote ICT training for IDP youth and with Dangote Foundation and MTN to pilot tech-enabled enterprises.
Despite unexpected success stories like that of Alhaji Adamu in Bauchi, Sheriff in Borno and several others, many IDPs still face notable hardship. According to the 2023 Humanitarian Needs Overview by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 8.4 million people in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa need humanitarian assistance.
Poor funding, renewed violence, and flood threats remain formidable challenges. Some of the vocational programmes lacked post-training support, like start-up capital or business mentorship. Observers believe that without sustainable planning, gains can erode.
Also, settlements like Mararaba Liman Katagum and several others, and businesses across Nigeria, lack documented demographic and infrastructural data. This absence of records poses a challenge to strategic development. Without statistics on economic activity and service needs, government agencies, NGOs, and investors operate blindly and often fail to recognise the potential of critical communities.
To transform displacement into opportunity and sustain the progress of IDPs like Alhaji Adamu and Sheriff, there must be interventions focusing on economic inclusion, data-driven planning, and post-training support. In addition, documenting demographic and business data is vital for infrastructure provision, service delivery, and investment.
Other observers, such as Mudi Musa, a Gombe State-based influential skills provider, suggest that strengthening partnerships between local authorities, NGOs, and the private sector will also promote economic recovery in communities affected by conflict.
He added that global institutions, such as the African Union (AU) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), must expand regional frameworks that protect the rights of displaced persons while promoting livelihood integration across borders.
The Nigerian government at all levels must also integrate IDP settlements into national development plans by creating economic zones around host communities, such as Mararaba, to provide basic services and invest in rural roads and markets, thereby expanding these successes and making them sustainable.
