Abstract Niger Republic and Nigeria are two neighboring countries in the Sahel region of West Africa which have experienced similar forms of conflicts in the last 20 years (2005 to 2025). Though they both share the Sahelian landscape, tribes, religion, and culture, they are separated by artificial borders created by both the French and the British empires. While famine and security in West Africa have been widely studied, there remains a noticeable gap in comparative analyses that link conflict patterns in these two countries to their respective Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) levels of food insecurity. This study addresses that gap by examining whether a significant difference exists between the conflicts of both countries across their IPC phases. The study employs a qualitative descriptive approach, integrating data from ACLED, scholarly articles, and grey literature such as policy reports and media publications. The findings reveal that the difference in conflicts frequency between Niger and Nigeria during food-insecurity phases is not statistically significant. Furthermore, the analysis shows less than a 1 percent likelihood that the clustering patterns in both countries occurred randomly, indicating a deliberate or systematic spatial distribution of conflict incidents. The study also identifies substantial cross-border interactions of conflict within the shared Sahelian region.
Babatunde O. Ogunwo (Tue,) studied this question.