Ethnic and Religious Violence in Nigeria and the Need for Moral and Political Solutions

Abstract

There is no doubt that the world is agog with differing and varied religious and ethnic militias that are compelling on many fronts, some of them with plausible ideological, political and mostly economic drives. This has drawn a wedge between different segments of the world and has also created tensions, strife, death and ultimate chaos that makes the world a very dicey place to live in. Obviously, as a segment of the world, Nigeria cannot be insulated from these combustible forces that have courage to drive the world to the very edge of the precipice. Violence in all ramifications, mostly from religious and ethnic parameters, has leAft the country tethering on a knife edge that leaves a macabre spectre across the horizon. In such a scenario, development, in all its ramifications, becomes arrested and the very survival of the nation becomes seriously imperiled. From the perspective of the felt need for peace and harmonious existence, this work attempts to prescribe some moral and socio-political solutions in order to control, if not completely eradicate, the ones that are already full-blown; while others could be nip in the bud. This option is two-fold: in the first place, it is offered because every problem must get solutions, and in the second place, it is expected, though novel, but that the moral and socio-political solutions would work where other options had failed to yield the desired result.

Keywords: Ethnicity in Nigeria, Violence in Nigeria, Militias in Nigeria, Corruption, Boko Haram.