There are unavoidable, social, economic and political implications of the periodic eruption of violence in Nigeria. The truth is that the occurrence of persistent social turmoil, such as large-scale violence perpetrated by ethnic militant groups and by aggrieved individuals and groups in society, as witness in the pre and post elections violence and the current Boko Haram crisis and allied ISWAP have negative effects on the possibility of democratic institutionalization, least alone sustainable democracy.
Similarly, violent conflicts cannot create- the conducive environment necessary for political stability and economic development. An environment where there are frequent eruptions of intra and inter ethnic clashes, riots, violent demonstrations, armed confrontations, breakdown of law and order, and political assassinations, legislative impunity will be found unfriendly to investment, either local or foreign, and by extension, cannot engender development.
The bitter animosities, bloodshed and displacement of people, consequent upon civil strife. are sufficient reasons for wide condemnation of the use of violence for the resolution of grievances, which make it absolutely necessary for the Government of Kogi State to constitute a permanent committee that can respond to crises and even violent in any part of the State. Such committee should comprise people of proven integrity from the three scnatori.il districts of the slate who are not partisan politically, these would include Security Agents. Genuine Civil Society Organizations, Media Practitioners, Nigeria Bar Association, Youths, Women Groups and Religious leaders. Looking at the Bassa LGA Continuous Crises
Although every one condemns violence, it’s use has been wide spread in society both by official and private sources within all established democratic societies there is popular belief in the democratic culture of the settlement or conflicts peacefully rather than by coercive methods. However, Nigeria’s experience from independence to date suggests a wide gap between the ideal of democratic governance and the reality of governance.
The explanations for this are many and varied. On the part or those who govern, high premium is put on the acquisition and retention of power, hence their political intolerance, unbridled partisanship, political corruption, disregard for constitutionalism, and the rule of law, Transparency and Accountability. In short, the political class uses the coercive instruments of the state to perpetuate themselves in power on the other hand as previously argued within the Nigerian pluralistic society, there are deep cleavage, cutting across ethnic, religious and social-political line.
The Government in Kogi state must be ready to face and skillfully manage the challenges relating to identity, legitimacy and distribution, in order to consolidate the authority of the state over it citizens. When the government fails to meet and response to these crises of political development, violent conflicts become inevitable. Given the natural suspicion among the people under this Government, participation and distributional crises would serve as a threat to national stability.
In other words, power must be collectively exercised in most inclusive manner just as the authoritative allocation of values require transparency and equity amongst the different members of our society. The Nigerian State was a product of colonial imperialism, hence the state was not only an imposition by an alien authority for predatory and exploitative purpose, the Nigerian State from the word go was alienating undemocratic and anti-people.
A fall out of this was the development of patronizing concepts of citizens into indigenes and settlers. The settlers, despite the constitutional provision on equal and non-discrimination on the basis of place of birth, gender, religion, and education. We must appreciate the fact that, conflicts cannot be-wished away in any human organization, whatever the size, ideological orientation, the pursuit of divergent and contradictory interest goals and aspirations by individual or groups provides the bedrock for conflicts in societies. A universally constant fact pertaining to conflicts is the fact or its impossibility outside the struggle and competitions over resources that are not unlimited.
Though this scarce resource may be power, given its scarcity, one can safely say that all conflicts have economic character, that are a product of the problems of scarcity and the need to either secure one’s individual or group privileges, protest perceived injustices and inequalities in allocation of resources, and or strive to obtain without regards whether others are currently having a lager and bigger share of available scare resources.
The combinations of economic factors and power in the engendering all conflicts, whether violent or non-violent, even religious conflicts, which ultimately can be reduced to power over peoples believes, thoughts, mind, and what happens to them in the hereafter, can be understood in the context of power. The twin problematic of violence and democracy which is our concern in this write up. Therefore. the political economic frame work offer us a very rigorous and systematic basis for interrogating and understanding the issues and contradictions these twin concern had generated and continue to generate in Nigerian Society. I must warn that all conflicts are not class conflicts that find expressions in ethnic and communal or group conflicts.
The fact that community politics is highly instrumental, provides opportunities for ethnic entrepreneurs to cash on communal sentiments in furtherance of class objectives. Beyond a narrative of the historical occurrences of violent conflict in Nigeria, conflicts are by nature a product of history, contrary to the believe that conflict just happen or rooted in the present, all conflict have deep historical roots. The ethnic militia deploys violence against any institutions and groups perceived as constituting a threat to the interests of their primordial groups.
However, since the militia phenomenon is a highly unregulated, structural deficient, under the leadership of intellectually bankrupt. As the experience of the violent crises in Nigeria are unleashed even against members of the same ethnic group they claim to be defending. This raises a fundamental question as to the genuineness of the objectives of these groups. This is however not to say that there are no genuine concerns from their struggle. However, the Nigeria people must realize that what cannot be settle peacefully would not be achieved by violent.
The inability of democracy to change the exploitative condition of the people and the reality of their continued disempowerment is responsible for the escalation of violent conflicts in Nigeria and particularly in Kogi state. Hence, the preference is for ethnic justice, exclusiveness, corruption, injustices, domination and executive gangsterism, legislative lawlessness, impunity and miscarriage of justice as we currently experience in Kogi State.
Conflict sensitivity involves the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of development projects so that they are better adapted to conflict environments and also have some ameliorative impacts on the conflict or at least, not worsen them. It concerns the ability of the development process to work more effectively not only “in” and “around” conflicts areas, but also on the conflicts themselves. A direct and practical way to tackle these priorities in my own opinion is to explore the specific interactions that occur between developments in these environment.
Such a review can alert development practitioners to the threat that conflicts represent to development and also help them ensure that their programs are having the desired positive effects, these environments in terms of conflict mitigation and peace building in Nigeria. A starting point may be for us to identify in this interaction, is to look through a conflict lens at the development process. This approach can uncover how development project have sought to adapt within their environment and where they may need to be modified to be more conflict-sensitive.
The importance of ensuring that development programs are more sensitive to conflict environments is manifold. Also the stakes of not taking into account conflict dynamics, impact analysis, and environmental threats, as well as opportunities for development projects. as well a deliberate peace building programs, clearly have and can make specific, positive contributions to peace by adopting approaches that reduce the source of conflict and strengthen a society’s capacities for managing tensions constructively. Much of the destruction arisen from social conflict, as well as inadvertent harm caused by development, can be avoided because programming choices arc within human control.
Unfortunately, our traditional communities are disintegrating and today are wracked by conflict and dependence. To impose development on such communities only exacerbate the conflict and make finding solutions even more elusive.
The first steps of laying a foundation for development is to build the capacity of these communities to manage their internal democratic processes, learn how to manage their natural resources and emerging challenges and then empower them to understand and participate in the identification, design and implementing development projects. This is fundamental if we want to turn around the fortunes of our people.
The task of adopting youth sensitive development is new and difficult. This is mostly for two reasons: the capacity, commitment and interest of the development authorities to carry out youth sensitive activities and to change policies and practices, the second is the capacity of the youth and poor communities to participate and demand effectively, for their rights in youth sensitivity.
Presently in Kogi State, these capacities arc not even under consideration not to talk of adoption and implementation. Yet having experienced and suffered, so much violent conflict, it is our duty to champion the institutionalization of conflict sensitivity in both governance and development.
To do that, we have to refuse the temptation of violence and irregular behaviour, things that provide excuse for our interests to side-stepped, ignored or misrepresented.
– Idris Miliki Abdul
Executive Director
Conscience for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR),
Lokoja, Kogi State.
