Suchergebnisse

Accepting that the Land Question was only limited to former settler colonies in Africa such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, dominant opinion in the literature has tended to trivialize the bitter struggles for land, many of which began during the colonial dispensation in many African nations. With globalization, democratization, structural adjustment and intensification of identity politics, many of these land conflicts have lingered. Yet studies of the conflicts, as in the case of Aguleri/Umuleri, have been scanty and almost ignore their historical and colonial roots. This paper explores colonial foundations of Aguleri/Umuleri conflicts, colonial policies designed to manage them and why they failed.

Africa boils on account of intractable communal conflicts. Strategies adopted to manage the conflicts conform to western approaches of conflict management. Traditional forms of conflict resolution have been rarely applied. This has prompted emphasis on traditional tools of conflict management. Drawing from interviews and archival documents, this paper focuses on the deployment of iko mmee ritual by local civil society organizations in managing the Aguleri and Umuleri communal conflicts in Nigeria. It catalogues the failure of western models, explains the principles underlying iko mmee and how iko mmee was able to facilitate peace in the communities.