Conflict-induced displacement resulting from armed banditry has profoundly disrupted livelihoods and intensified socio-economic vulnerability across Northwest Nigeria and neighbouring Niger Republic. While existing scholarship has extensively examined the drivers and humanitarian consequences of displacement, limited attention has been paid to how displaced populations reconstruct livelihoods under conditions of prolonged insecurity and economic precarity.
This study examines livelihood adaptation among conflict-displaced populations in Northwest Nigeria and the Maradi region of the Niger Republic, with particular attention to the strategies displaced households employ to sustain survival and rebuild economic life following forced displacement. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach, the study utilizes qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, and descriptive survey data collected from displaced persons, host community members, and local leaders. Findings reveal that violent displacement has severely disrupted agrarian livelihoods through the loss of farmland, livestock, productive assets, and market access, compelling displaced populations to transition into precarious forms of informal labour, petty trading, and casual employment. Despite these constraints, displaced households demonstrate considerable adaptive capacity by mobilizing social networks, labour diversification, and household survival strategies to rebuild livelihoods. However, livelihood adaptation remains constrained by insecurity, limited economic opportunities, inadequate institutional support, and resource scarcity. The study argues that forced displacement constitutes a form of socioeconomic rupture and advances the concept of adaptive survival to explain how displaced populations navigate livelihood reconstruction under conditions of persistent precarity.