Historicising hybrid conflict management: state and non-state dynamics in Nigeria's Middle Belt 1957-2018

Abstract

This study set out to answer one critical question: how have hybrid conflict management and resolution processes in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region evolved and transformed between 1957 to 2018? Also worth examining was the impact of the conflict management strategies on intergroup, cultural, and social interactions. Drawing on two theoretical approaches, social identity and constructivism, this study established that hybrid forms of conflict management can be traced to the colonial period when the emirate system functioned alongside the traditional administrative system in the Middle Belt. The two theories were critical in capturing Nigeria’s security sector strategies the Nigerian government used to handle the insecurity challenges in the Middle Belt. The research used a historical research design alongside a qualitative and quantitative approach. The researcher obtained data from oral interviews and historical records, including newspaper reports, to account for the trajectory and evolution of conflict management in the Middle Belt. The researcher analysed data interpretively. The study combined a quantitative online poll with data from ACLED and Nigeria security tracker. Online polls used simple statistics to develop qualitative explanations and explore people's opinions on hybridity. The data from ACLED and Nigeria security tracker allowed the researcher to evaluate the Nigerian government's hybrid conflict management strategies in the Middle Belt. Therefore, the study presented a nuanced view of particular initiatives employed to reduce insecurity in Nigeria's Middle Belt.

The findings established that hybrid forms of conflict management were not a post-colonial development but dated back to the colonial period when the emirate system functioned alongside what the colonialists regarded as "pagan" administrative structures. The study also established that despite being established along Westphalian liberalism, the Nigerian state evolved to institutionalise non-state actors, especially vigilante and hunting groups, to overcome security services' personnel and funding shortcomings. Local government reforms in the 1960s and 1970s diminished the dominance of traditional institutions, but the traditional rulers renegotiated and reclaimed power through vigilante, hunter, or militia organisations. From the late 1990s, hybrid conflict management became prominent due to the legacies of the Nigerian civil war (19671970), the Structural Adjustment policies of the 1980s, almost four decades of military dictatorship, and when the Cold War ended. The study analysed the micro-narratives of persons who align or reject hybrid frameworks which socialised violence as the preferred means of conflict management. The thesis also explored dialogue and mediation as ways to settle problems. Much work remains to allow women to participate in state-initiated peace processes and manage internally displaced persons.

The thesis concluded that hybridity should not be romanticised despite the few successes recorded. The inconsistency between policy and practice has hindered the effectiveness of hybridity in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Especially political discontinuity of strategies and policies for mitigating conflicts. The recommendations advocate for conflict management strategies devoid of political interference and a system where hybridity will emerge from a balanced arrangement between implemented state and non-state local power structures.