AN ASSESSMENT OF THE LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE PREVENTION AND MITIGATION OF ETHNORELIGIOUS CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA

📄 Project Abstract

In its 50 year history as an independent nation, Nigeria has experienced over two hundred recorded violent ethno-religious disturbances. The first major ethno-religious disturbance exploded in 1966 as a direct result of political crisis in one of the regions that spiraled out of hand and led to the fall of the federal government. A civil war ensued which threatened the corporate existence of Nigeria. After the civil war, a decade of relative peace followed in the 1970s. Ethno-religious disturbances resurfaced in the early 1980s and have since refused to go away, with on and off flashes of violence here and there. This dissertation is a research work on ethno-religious crisis. Citizenship is found to be at the root of the conflicts, more particularly the "rights of the citizen" outside his so-called "state of origin" which is responsible for countless indigene-settler conflicts across the country. The study examined the extant laws of the land, from the Constitution to legislation, as w...