COMMUNAL CONFLICTS IN AFRICAN SOCIETIES: A CASE STUDY OF AGULERI AND HER NEIGHBOURS

ABSTRACT

Peace and conflict resolution is a important area of discourse; one devoted towards understanding the intricacies of conflict and its resolution, as its prevalence cannot be overlooked in any societies. The history of African societies has been laced and punctuated by a spate of communal conflicts. The study becomes imperative since disputes have shown to have dire consequences on the standing inter-group relations, as the case of Aguleri and her neighbours which includes Umuleri and Odeke community. This work therefore conceptualized communal conflicts in African societies and positioned these conflicts in relation to their meaning typology, pattern and causative factors; proper identification of the origin, and manifestations of conflict resolution was also examined. A survey of the intervention by government, civil society organization and traditional institutions was made. From these aforementioned points; a corpus of propositions can be deduced. From the study, it is evident that communal conflict is as natural as communal peace. It is also evident that communal conflict is inter-group relations by other means. This simply means that as long as communities interact, communal conflict is bound to rear its head. This is because these communities have incompatible stance and it has seemingly become a norm in African societies, with the communal conflict between Aguleri and her neighbours as a classical example. The identity of communal 129 conflict is rather fluid. It could occur in diverse forms. They can also be imbued and inspired by religious, powers, resources and land issues. Most especially communal conflicts in Nigeria and Africa at large have been precipitated by struggle for competitive advantage by contagious communities. The objects of these struggles have varied from cultural, economic, and political to socio-ecological factors.