The Rentier Trap and Structural Violence: Conflict-Driven Displacement in Nigeria Goes beyond Bullet Holes

Nigeria’s internal displacement crisis is often blamed on immediate triggers like terrorism, banditry, environmental/climate disasters, communal clashes and ethnoreligious crises. While these factors are real, this article argues that these are symptoms of a deeper, largely ignored structural failure. To address the research problem of how state neglect and weak institutions systematically drive mass displacement, this paper employs the qualitative doctrinal methodology. It also combines Rentier State Theory with Johan Galtung’s Theory of Structural Violence to show how reliance on crude oil revenues detaches political elites from accountability to citizens, fostering systemic neglect. This paper finds that focusing on displacement through the lens of direct triggers is not enough to resolve the situation; instead, a deeper investigation is needed into what enables the structural violence that sustains displacement. It is recommended that Nigeria must transform from a consuming economy to a producing economy; immunise the nation’s security architecture from politics; institutionalise social security; strengthen institutional checks to make the executive accountable; restructure the unitary federal system to enable states to manage their own resources; and make Chapter II of the Constitution fully justiciable to secure fundamental human rights. To establish a resilient foundation for peace, the Rwanda-inspired restorative transitional justice model should be adopted to heal historical grievances and leverage the domesticated Kampala Convention, which is vital to coordinate national response and legally protect displaced persons to achieve durable solutions.