Project Materials

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Nigeria presently is faced with enormous challenges to peace and stability than ever before. The different regions in the country, the Northern part of the country, the South West, and the Niger Delta, are a volatile mix of insecurity, ethno-religious conflict and political instability. A large number have been wiped away in conflict between the two major religious groups stimulated by various events:

the implementation in 2011 and 2013 of Sharia, or Islamic law, in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states; aggressive campaigns by foreign evangelists; and the 2002 Miss World pageant saga which resulted into another religious imbroglio when a local Christian reporter, Isioma Daniel, outraged Muslims by writing in one of Nigeria’s national papers,

This Day, that the Prophet Mohammed would have chosen a wife from among the contestants. Similarly, in 2006, riots triggered by Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed left more people dead in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world (This Day September 2006).

The attention to the role of religion in conflicts has been persuaded by positive and negative developments, including the de-secularization of Nigeria’s polity and the rise of religious conflicts. In the country today, focus is now on the militant forms of religious fundamentalism as a threat to peace.

Also important has been the phenomenon of continuous armed religious crisis which has gone viral quickly across other states in the nation (Mason and Talbot 2013; Polgreen 2008). Religious diversity appears to play a complex role in these conflicts, often entrenching struggles over resources through ethnic violence and social exclusion.

Both the federal government and some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have set up various institutions to deal with ethno-religious conflicts in the country. Many deal with them on an ad-hoc basis without articulating a standard way to process conflicts.

Some of these ad-hoc committees have gone to the extent of designing a Conflict Management System (CMS) to address the issue of religious conflict in Nigeria (Kwaja 2009; Ahmed 2007).

Inter-Religious Mediation Groups and Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) are no exception. While many FBOs have well-developed programs for scripture-based peacemaking, conciliation and mediation, , very few religious communities have taken advantage of the CMS approach to their internal conflicts (Ibrahim 2011.

The plurality of methods by which human beings showcase their spiritual cravings is a reality. This truth points in a way to the point that human beings are by nature religious and that they differed and would continue to differ in religions.

As regards the first assertion of man being by nature religious, this is in line with the anthropological fact that no human society has been found without one form of religion or the other (Maishanu, 2011)[4]. Since the prevalence of a plurality of religions is a reality, then there is bound to be religious intolerance.

In fact, many religiously diversified societies all over the world have had to struggle with the problem of religious intolerance. Like most plural state, Nigeria is a country with religious diversity. African Christianity, Islam and traditional religion, constitute the dominant religions in Nigeria, with each enjoying large followership