Conflict Management In Africa: The Nigerian Context

Conflicts are naturally occurring or human-induced phenomena occasioned by the interrelationships between the elements that make up a society. Since societies are comprised of human beings and their existential tendencies such as work, business, family, life, and living, there are bound to be conflicts arising from the clashes of interests, personal desires, environmental, cultural, or religious demands, and the imposition of the same by one party or parties on others within the same environment.

Conflicts can occur within a family structure, workplace, and community to different degrees, and the ability to manage these conflicts and transform them into positive influences for peace and development is critical for coexistence, harmony, and survival. However, to effectively manage and transform conflicts into positive agents of peace and development, leaders and stakeholders must identify and understand the various triggers that instigate conflicts within the particular environment. Agitations over concerns such as political under-representation, economic inequalities, perceived or real marginalization, income disparities, inflation, increasing high cost of living, uncontrolled migration, and control over limited natural resources are known to trigger societal conflicts.

Hence, leaders at all levels must appreciate the significant impact that these factors can have on peace and development if they are identified early and addressed using constructive approaches such as negotiation, communal engagement, constitutional reforms, and dialogue. Where these factors exist without a corresponding channel of continuous engagement and communication, there are bound to be conflicts. Moreover, whenever parties to a conflict feel sidelined, ignored, or underestimated, they seek alternative means to affirm their position, express their misgivings, and enforce their demands. More often than not, these alternative means are violence-prone and subject to repercussions. The lingering farmer-herder clashes, boundary disputes, resource control agitation, and the recent nationwide protests across Nigeria and Africa are examples of conflicts where the parties have sought alternative means to drive home their demands. Unfortunately, the impact is all too obvious: many dead, public infrastructure destroyed, private businesses and livelihoods decimated, and national peace and economic development truncated.

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The Cost of Conflicts

While most of the negative results of conflicts such as financial losses, deaths, etc. may be estimated in terms of numbers, the real cost of conflicts can not be fully quantified. For example, the real data on the value of direct and indirect job losses, impact on family dependants, permanent disabilities of victims, internal displacements, and cost of rebuilding and stabilizing destroyed infrastructure and societies do not exist. The closest data available are mostly estimated figures, which also leaves room for corrupt government officials to inflate reconstruction and redevelopment budgets and contracts.

In the organized private sector, many large businesses have had to relocate their operations to safer havens within the country where they can guarantee return on investments in a peaceful environment. Others have closed down their entire operations and left the country altogether due to perennial insecurity, hostilities, and violent clashes. In addition, the unabated rising costs of doing business in Nigeria, skyrocketing interest rates, and cost of funding have left business investors and managers at a loss as to where else to turn for recouping their investments. Only a few years ago, Nigeria was the darling of global investors seeking to earn great return on investments (ROI). However, from all indicators, that is fast becoming an illusion rather than a reality.

This is the reason why the current political leadership in Nigeria and across Africa must wake up from their troubling inertia and take drastic steps towards addressing the myriad conflicts that endanger our collective commonwealth as a nation and continent. Honest and independent feedback mechanisms devoid of political biases and ethnic witch-hunting must be urgently institutionalized across all strata of society to enable the people to express their views, concerns, reservations, or dissatisfaction about government policies, institutions, methods, approaches, and also to demand accountability and transparency from elected and appointed public servants.

There is no doubt that conflicts are inevitable, but they can also be used as transformational tools for fostering lasting peace and sustainable development if and when properly harnessed.

(c) Prince Bright Eweka, M.Sc, FISO, CINTA, CPSM, CSP, SRMP-C