ORIGIN OF POLITICAL CONFLICT IN NIGERIA

The origin of conflict in Nigeria could be traced to the British interruption of the hitherto existing traditional institution with her administration. Changes is part of nature, where as a gradual change can be taken as a way of life, rapid, spontaneous and forceful change, is often resisted and resented by the victims. Even though changes can be positive for the development or advancement of any polity, people are often averse to any new order. In some case, changes can be negative, detrimental and inimical to the goals and aspirations of any polity. However, changes whether positive or negative promote conflict in any society.



In Nigeria, as a case-study, the effective occupation of Nigeria by the British imperialists after the Berlin Conference of 1884/5, and their attempts to solidify their conquest of Nigeria, could be said to be the origin of conflict in modern Nigeria. It would be recalled that in 1898, one Miss Florence Shaw (later Mrs Lugard), named the areas around the River Niger as Nigeria for the first time. One event after another led to the unification of different peoples, tribes, cultures and origins as on indivisible country called Nigeria in 1914.

The issue was not the creation of Nigeria as one political entity, but the imposition of new administrative order in Nigeria called indirect rule by Lord Lugard, and his colonial administrators. This development brought a lot of resentments and resistance amongst some sections of this country. This is because of the perceived notion that indirect rule was the system of government adopted by the British colonialists, not to necessarily develop the colonized people of Nigeria, but to further the imperialists’ economic exploitation through taxation of the natives. The surely disrupted the pattern of life of the natives, and there were pockets of resistance in many parts of the country.

In the North, natives’ administration succeeded because of the monolithic nature of the North’s politics which was more or less patterned in monarch structure and Islamism, where such policy as taxation was a common factor among the rule. But in the South, especially in East, which was cosmopolitan and egalitarian in nature, indirect rule was a barrier, a sudden development and a resistible phenomenon.

Conflicts arose in some sections of Nigeria, owning to introduction of indirect rule. In most parts of Eastern Nigeria, the institution of “Warrant Chiefs” who the British used as symbol of authority in absence of Emirs and Traditional Rules, were so hated by the people that were conflicts arising from their actions when they tried to effect their masters’ biddings

Consequently, crises began in Nigeria by the imposition of indirect rule policy of the colonialists, examples abound which include;

• The Egba Massacre of 1914, and political crisis in Egbaland which lasted till 1918.
• The Aba Woman Riot of 1929, which spread to area around Calabar province.

In Aba Women Riot, women resisted the counting of women thinking that the exercise was a prelude to the taxation of women. While Egba Massacre killed over 1000 people, Aba Women Riot of the wasted more than 30 people. In Enugu, there was 1949 Riot of the Coliery Workers which provoked shooting that led to the death of 21 people. This led to the spread of the roits by politician of the Zikist Movement to such Eastern cities as Onitsha, Aba, Calabar and Port Harcourt.

The above signify the origin of political conflict in Nigeria. One problem after another, prominent among which was the struggle for political independence by the nationalists which spanned from 1923 to 1960. Actions by the activists and reactions by colonialists led to pockets of conflicts in the country, prior to independence.

However, with independence in 1960, decade of trouble manifested through to 1970 when Nigeria fought a bitter war that started in 1967 and ended in 1970, such issues as profligacy among the politicians and lack of real concern of the ruler on the ruled, the economic stratification between the super-rich and the downtrodden within five year of political independence, the moderate slavish and passive foreign policies of Balewa’s regime, the disrespect for the country’s consideration during elections which led to the constitutional breakdown in the country, and the imbalance in the constitution which gave the North more political representation than the whole South culminated in the conflict that erupted in the country seven years after independence to civil war.

The Nigeria civil war, as it were, was the worst and most grievous crisis or conflict that had ever taken place in history of the Nigeria