Youth Involvement In Political Violence And Thuggery In Nigeria

Youth Involvement In Political Violence And Thuggery In Nigeria

Chapter One

Prolusion

Background to the Study

The nature of conflicts in the world has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War to the extent that conflicts between or among nation- countries have reduced significantly, while the trend is that conflicts have increased within nation- countries due to violent struggle for power and scarce resources between and among groups, thereby putting racial group against racial group and communities against communities. Consequently, Joshua( 2014) observed that further than hundred( 100) major conflicts passed in the world, leaving further than twenty million() dead, several millions wounded and millions displaced persons.

In Africa, conflict on sub public position between communities or original regulars is a wide spread problem. In fact, the landmass endured 386 cooperative conflicts between the period 1989 and 2014, with an estimate of 131, 563 people that lost their lives within same period. The countries affected include Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya and Uganda, withNigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo being the most affected,( Torbjornsson, 2016, Elfversson, 2013).

In Nigeria, this situation came more current since the return to popular rule in 1999, hanging the survival of Nigerian democracy and orchestration. Within the first three times of popular rule in Nigeria, the country witnessed not lower than forty violent cooperative conflicts. From the violent kick of the Niger- Delta over the perceived injustice for resource control and environmental declination as well as quest for an indifferent civil arrangement, to the Itsekiri- Ijaw violence in the Delta over claims of land power and boundary claims, the Ife- Modakeke cooperative conflict in Osun state, the ZangonKataf in Kaduna state, Tiv- Jukun in Taraba State and Eleme- Okrika in Rivers

state. Nigeria has noway been defied with analogous great security challenge as it presently substantiation substantiated by prolonged cooperative clashes and killings and kidnapping by the Boko Haram side.

No region has been spared the vicious scourge of conflict though their frequency and intensity have not been the same in circumstances across the length and breadth of the nation. thus, galettes are nippy in pointing accusingly to social legacies and continual interplay of external and internal imperialist forces that addict the embers of violence for selfish aggrandisement. The present situation is further boosted by rudiments of globalisation, natural disasters, proliferation of munitions and light arms, corruption, executive lawlessness and leadership insufficiency( Chinwokwu, 2012 393).

While some of these challenges are tone- assessed and corroborated through cupidity- predicated behavior, others are the result of poor institutional capacity of addressing wide organized crime, general insecurity and conflict in the country. likewise, the institutional fragility of the state in terms of its capability and capacity to manage diversity, corruption, rising inequality between the rich and the poor, gross violation of mortal rights and contestation over land are the underpinning issues of conflicts in Nigeria( Kwaja, 2009102).

No doubt conflict could be functional especially if it leads to inventions and other positive changes in the society. On the other hand, it could be dysfunctional especially if it threatens order and stability of the very foundation of mortal society. One can’t overemphasise the fact that peacefulco- actuality is a major demand for any meaningful development to take place in the society, hence the need for order and stability in the society.

therefore, Nigerian government has been responding to the challenges posed by the various forms of conflict in the country. still, the various government response

to these conflicts have been ad hoc and were not organised. This fact is supported by Omorogbe and Omohan( 2005), when they asserted that there are two major strategies of conflict operation constantly employed by government in Nigeria to attack the problem of conflict each time they do, the coercive and the judicial system.

Coercive system as the name suggests has to do with deployment of colors to the areas of conflict with the ideal of controlling the conflict. In Nigeria, this system of managing conflict has taken multitudinous forms depending on the magnitude of the conflict in question. In a light conflict for case, the conventional bulls are drafted to the conflict point supported by the mobile police, but in a truly serious conflict or heads, government may be forced to fix the service for internal security operations, because of the nature of this kind of intervention still, the coercive system is associated with multitudinous vices, analogous as rape, beating and in some cases blasting of innocent citizens( Omorogbe and Omohan, 2005 556).

On the other hand, the judicial strategy of conflict operation entails the use of judicial commission or panel, generally people are named from varied backgrounds to probe the problems and submit report to government predicated on the terms of reference given to it. In Nigeria this strategy has created farther bitterness than bring relief, because the commission ‟ s recommendations end up being remitted rather than executed.

These strategies of managing conflict and security have not brought about the asked result because each of the strategies demanded respectable capacity to handle the conflict. These strategies end up suppressing the problem which latterlyre- shells in the future with lower intensity and ferocity causing obliteration on the people and government. Some of the reasons for the failure or poor performance of the constantly used conflict operation strategies are poor logistics, detention in deployment of colors to the conflict areas, lack of cooperation by the parties to the- perpetration

recommendations or white paper submitted to the government by the panel of inquiry among others( Chinwokwu 2012 104).

In support of the below view, Isa( 2001) espoused that the institutional responses played by the state government or its agencies analogous as law enforcement agencies either aggravates the conflict by creating farther suspicion through detainments andnon- perpetration of government white papers, or suppresses it through the law enforcement agencies without diving the underpinning factors of the conflict, what is apparent is that there is emphasis on conflict suppression rather of operation.

Gombe State which is deposited in the North- eastern region of Nigeria, especially the southern Senatorial quarter which houses racial minorities, in recent times witnessed cooperative conflict with analogous violence and instability. These conflicts started in the 1990s with the Billiri- Kaltungocrisis in 1991, Tula- Awak conflict of 1999, Dadiya- Tula conflict 2006, Dadiya- Kaltungo 2007- 2012 and the Dadiya- Waja conflict of 2013, in malice of setting up several panels and commissions analogous as the 2006 Judicial Commissions of Inquiry, the 2007 Joint Peace Security Committee, Seven Man Ad- hoc Committee, the 2013Peace Mission Committee and the 2014 Committee to Consolidate the Recommendations of All former panels to attack the cooperative conflicts by state government did bring the asked result. Hence the need for this study, which focuses on state government intervention in managing the Dadiya, Kaltungo, Tula and Waja cooperative conflict, the end is to draw assignments useful for managing the imperishable conflicts in the Southern Senatorial District of Gombe state.

Statement of the Problem

The phenomenon of conflict is not new to mortal society; this is because wherever you find mortal beings interacting at whatever situations, there is bound to be conflict. What

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is still important is the way these conflicts are managed or resolved to forestall future circumstance and avert massive and colossal loss of lives and parcels.

For over a decade now, Dadiya, Tula, Kaltungo and Waja communities of Gombe southern senatorial quarter have continued to be netted in cooperative conflict. The conflict started in 1990s with Billiri- Kaltungo in 1991, Tula- Awak 1999, Dadiya- Tula 2006, Dadiya- Kaltungo 2007- 2012 and Dadiya- Waja 2013( Gombe state Government Reports to Consolidate All former panels ‟ Report, 2014).

These series of conflicts that passed as forenamed claimed multitudinous lives and caused huge profitable losses to communities concerned. For case, the 2006 Dadiya- Tula cooperative conflict was caused according to Government Draft White Paper( 2006) by boundary disagreement during 2006 introductory tale exercise when there were lapping registrations at GadanTaba, Kakur villages in Dadiya of Balanga Local Government and Tula of Kaltungo Local Government. As a result of this conflict, 8 people were reported dead, a total of 523 houses worth N were destroyed and shops and buses worth N were destroyed( Gombe State Government Draft White Paper,( 200667).

effect to the below mentioned conflict, the government set up a Seven Man Judicial Commission of Inquiry to among others probe the immediate and remote causes of the conflict, determine the extent of damages and to make recommendations which might resolve the problem to ensure lasting results. Consequently, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry did their work and recommended that a boundary demarcation be made using the Yola Federal trace to be a corner boundary between the two communities. For reasons best known to the Gombe State government, the recommendations of the commission are yet to be executed.