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1. The Legislative Framework: A Path to Peace in Ethnically Divided Communities in Warri Conflict Area

Author:
Mathias Jarikre
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
The literature on conflict interventions in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region have shown profound interest in Government attempts to prevent ethnic fragmentations and the proliferation of armed militia groups. Legislative structures have often generated the multi-track approaches adopted by government to mitigate the conflicts. Though significant, the results of these efforts have remained unclear. The article explores the role of legislation in designing paths to peace in fragile, ethnically divided communities. Specifically, the article examines the Delta Development Administration Committee Law 2004. The legislative plan to promote the development administration law was to enable the executive, with participatory governance assistance, to implement key strategies for conflict transformation and peacebuilding. The article concludes that, contrary to the fears that the establishment of exclusive ethnic Community Development Committees (CDC) is a dreadful anachronism that will increase the dangers of ethnic exclusivity and offensive actions, the CDC will in fact generate conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnicity, Legislation, Peace, and Community
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

2. Violent Ethnic Extremism in Ethiopia: Implications for the Stability of the Horn of Africa

Author:
Yonas Adeto
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Scholarship on the challenges of ethno-linguistic federalism in contemporary Ethiopia is copious; yet a critical analysis of violent ethnic extremism in the country and its implications for the sub-region is rare. This article argues that violent ethnic extremism is a threat to the existence of Ethiopia and a destabilising factor for its neighbours. Based on qualitative empirical data, it attempts to address the knowledge gap and contribute to the literature by examining why violent ethnic extremism has persisted in the post-1991 Ethiopia and how it would impact on the stability of the Horn of Africa. Analysis of the findings indicates that systemic limitations of ethno-linguistic federalism; unhealthy ethnic competition; resistance of ethno-nationalist elites to the current reform; unemployed youths; the ubiquity of small arms and light weapons; and cross-border interactions of violent extremists are the major dynamics propelling violent ethnic extremism in Ethiopia. Thus, Ethiopia and the sub-region could potentially face cataclysmic instabilities unless collective, inclusive, transformative and visionary leadership is entrenched.
Topic:
Political stability, Ethnicity, Conflict, and Political Extremism
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

3. The Anglophone problem in Cameroon: The change from crisis to conflict, and a possible way forward to resolution

Author:
Billy Agwanda and Hacer Soykan Adaoğlu
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Since the dissolution of the federal system in 1972, Cameroon has been entangled in an internal crisis between the Anglophone region and the government. After four years of violence, the outcome of peace efforts have largely been countered by more incidents of violence. This article traces how the crisis has evolved over the years from a political crisis into a conflict situation. While appreciating the theoretical perspectives of internal colonialism and ethnonationalism in explaining the conflict, the authors highlight that the evolution from a crisis into a conflict has been driven by factors such as the expanding waves of democratisation, the emergence of new actors (militias) and the evolution of the digital space (social media as platform for mobilisation). The article emphasises that whereas grievances over marginalisation form the underlying drivers of the conflict, disagreements over the judicial (common law) and education system in the Anglophone regions exacerbated the crisis, thereby leading to the outbreak of violence. Against this background, the article provides recommendations that may encourage a recourse to peace and stability for a nation previously lauded as one of the (few) stable countries in the Central Africa region.
Topic:
Nationalism, Political stability, Ethnicity, Conflict, Peace, Marginalization, and Anglophone
Political Geography:
Africa and Cameroon

4. South Sudan Conflict from 2013 to 2018

Author:
Israel Nyaburi Nyadera
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
With the South Sudanese conflict in its fifth year in 2018, this paper seeks to not only examine the status of the civil war that has engulfed the youngest nation on earth but to also discuss the evolving narratives of its causes and provide policy recommendation to actors involved in the peace process. Having examined the continuously failing peace treaties between the warring parties, it is evident that the agreements have failed to unearth and provide solutions to the crisis and a new approach to examining the causes and solutions to the problem is therefore necessary. This paper argues that ethnic animosities and rivalry are a key underlying cause that has transformed political rivalry into a deadly ethnic dispute through vicious mobilisation and rhetoric. Therefore, it recommends a comprehensive peace approach that will address the political aspects of the conflict and propose restructuring South Sudan’s administrative, economic and social spheres in order to curb further manipulation of the ethnic differences.
Topic:
Civil War, Ethnicity, Discrimination, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

5. Power-Sharing Consociationalism in Resolving South Sudan’s Ethno-Political Conflict in the Post-Comprehensive Peace Agreement Era

Author:
Francis Onditi, Kizito Sabala, and Samson Wassara
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This article uses Arend Lijphart’s notion of ‘power-sharing consocia-tionalism’ to understand the mutually reinforcing conflict system and the barriers to resolving such conflicts in South Sudan. ‘Consociationalism’ has been affirmed as an ideal approach for resolving conflicts in ethnically divided societies, but in South Sudan, the formal institutions of power sharing have not delivered sustainable peace. Analysis in this article reveals that the implementation of the various ‘peace agreements’ and ‘deals’ deviated from classical ‘consociationalism’. Consequently limited attention was paid to inter-ethnic tensions and too much emphasis was placed on the mechanics of power sharing among the executive and military institutions, leading to the proliferation of ‘organised political movements’. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of power sharing, a viable consociational model for South Sudan should concentrate on how such multifaceted layers of issues can be accommodated within a single settlement. Therefore, the South Sudan conflict system requires a stronger reconceptualisation of issues. Hence we have coined the term ‘tragedy of ethnic diversity’, not as a replacement of the well-known concept of ‘resource curse’, but as new thinking that might shape future research and scholarship in the increasingly complex South Sudan conflict system.
Topic:
Political Power Sharing, Ethnicity, Discrimination, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

6. The Ethnification of Electoral Conflicts in Kenya

Author:
Muema Wambua
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Kenya has since the re-introduction of multiparty politics in 1991 experienced periodic electoral conflicts. In the analysis of these conflicts, however, there is an evolving tendency to perceive their causes as merely, or mainly, manifestations of negative ethnicity. In other words, there is the tendency on the part of the state, and non-state actors, to deliberately ‘ethnify’ extra-ethnic conflicts in the country in a phenomenon herein conceptualised as ethnification. The ethnification of extra-ethnic conflicts has caused the country to continually drift into an electoral-conflict trap. The failure to address substantive extra-ethnic factors which have historical, structural, institutional, legal, and cultural standpoints has constrained the pursuit of positive peace in the country. This paper, therefore, examines the evolving tendency to treat extra-ethnic electoral conflicts from the ethnic-identity premise. The centrality of underlying causes and rationales of electoral conflict that are extra-ethnic is highlighted, and a way forward for the pursuit of positive peace in the country is recommended.
Topic:
Elections, Democracy, Ethnicity, and Peace
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

7. Ethnic Federalism and Conflict in Ethiopia

Author:
Bekalu Atnafu Taye
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
The current regime in Ethiopia adopted ethnic federalism and redesigned the country along ethnic lines as soon as it took political power in 1991. The aim of this article is to examine the prevalence of ethnic conflict in Ethiopia and to evaluate the potential causes of the conflicts that followed in the past twenty-five years. There are competing claims, for and against federalism. And though it may be accurate to state that the founding principles of federalism have few ideological shortcomings, it may be that technicality issues (types and forms) may hamper the imposed federal system in Ethiopian. Thus, ethnic conflicts prevailing in Ethiopia may be caused by such technicality problems and the ethnic federal arrangement in Ethiopia needs an urgent reconsideration before the case moves to the worst scenario.
Topic:
Ethnic Government, Governance, Ethnicity, Conflict, and Federalism
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

8. Blurring ‘the Other’

Author:
Philip Ademola Olayoku
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Nigeria, as a multi-ethnic state, has been rife with perennial conflicts resulting from struggles for territorial dominance, administrative and political legitimacy and resource control. This study thus explores the relational contexts of these conflicts, which are often subtended by contours of ethno-religious differences as was the case between the Hausa and Atyap in the Zangon Kataf Community of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The study details the historical context of manipulation of these differences by state actors in asserting and changing the dynamics of political legitimacy and control. The latter part of the paper describes qualitative research supporting earlier assertions. It employs a qualitative methodology with the use of key informant interviews and personal observation involving major stakeholders within a three year period between 2011 and 2014. It subsequently contends that the restoration of peace in the community was dependent on the transformation of relations between hitherto belligerent parties through the adoption of the joint-problem-solving approach and a mediating 14-member reconciliation committee, which created a blueprint for political inclusion. It thus recommends an all-inclusive stakeholder approach in the transformation of relations for the management of resurging ethno-religious conflicts in the region.
Topic:
Religion, Governance, Ethnicity, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

9. The Quest for Happiness as an Underlying Motive for Violent Conflict in Africa

Author:
Mark Chingono
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Violent conflicts continue to be a major feature of much of Africa’s political landscape. Not only are Africa’s conflicts increasing, but they are also interpreted and theorised in varied ways, with irreducible discrepancies. In the dominant literature, ethnicity, religion, resources, territory, poor governance, and the struggle for power, among others, have been identified as the major causes of violent conflict on the continent. This paper, a broad brush that raises more questions than answers, argues that, underlying these apparent causes of violent conflict is the undying desire for happiness. It concludes by paraphrasing Von Clausewitz’s dictum that war in Africa is a pursuit of happiness by other means and, therefore, to prevent it, policy should promote popular happiness.
Topic:
Governance, Democracy, Ethnicity, Conflict, and Identity
Political Geography:
Africa

10. Ethnic and religious crises in Nigeria: A specific analysis upon identities (1999-2013)

Author:
Haldun Çancı and Opeyemi Adedoyin Odukoya
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
African Journal on Conflict Resolution
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Today, Africa is laced with some of the most obstinate conflicts, most of them constructed from differences in religious and ethnic identities. Religious and ethnic nationalism has led to conflicts about control of state power, unequal allocation of resources, citizenship issues, state collapse, economic decline and ethno-religious clashes. Nigeria has been pushed hither and thither by recurrent crises of regional or state illegitimacy, often impairing efforts at economic transformation, democratisation, national cohesion and stability (Osaghae and Suberu 2005:4). With this continental background in mind, this research paper seeks to examine the relationship between religion, ethnicity and conflict in Nigeria, focusing mainly on issues in the North of the country. The question is: To what extent are conflicts emerging from ethnic or religious sources? This paper also looks at the notion of Identity and how it explains the crisis of development and complexities in modern Nigeria.
Topic:
Development, Religion, History, Ethnicity, and Identity
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria