BOUNDARY DISPUTE AND THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF COMMUNITIES IN SOUTH-EAST NIGERIA

Abstract

Background: Boundary disputes remain a persistent constraint on the economic and social life of communities in Nigeria’s South East geo political zone. Contested claims over land ownership disrupt agricultural production, hinder trade, and weaken the social cohesion on which collective community functioning depends. This study examined the effects of boundary disputes on the economic and social life of selected communities in the South East geo political zone
Objective: To determine the effects of boundary dispute on the economic life of the people in the affected communities in the South-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, and to ascertain the effects of boundary dispute on the social life of the people in the affected communities.
Methods: The study adopted a descriptive and correlational design involving 400 respondents drawn, through purposive and simple random sampling, from a population of 1,059,431 persons across the affected communities. Data were collected using a structured and validated four-point Likert-scale questionnaire whose economic and social life subscales returned Cronbach’s alpha reliability indices of 0.90 and 0.91 respectively. Analysis was conducted using frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and simple linear regression, tested at the 0.05 level of significance. Higher scores represented stronger perceived disruption arising from boundary dispute
Result: Findings revealed that 75.21% of respondents reported that boundary dispute had a strong negative effect on economic life, while 73% reported a similarly strong negative effect on social life. Regression analysis confirmed that boundary dispute exerted a significant negative effect on economic life (p < .001) and on social life (p < .001).
Conclusion: The study concludes that unresolved boundary dispute constitutes a structural constraint on both the economic productivity and the social cohesion of affected communities in the South-East, and that livelihood restoration and social reintegration require concurrent, rather than sequential, policy attention.