Examining the ethnoreligious dimension of conflicts in Nigeria

Violent conflicts remain a nagging problem in Nigeria. Because Nigeria’s population is polarized along ethnic and religious lines, conflicts that have nothing to do with ethnicity and religion often turn ethnoreligious owing to the ethnic and religious identities of the conflict actors. This often makes conflicts more violent and intractable. Although some studies have been conducted on the ethnoreligious dimension of violent conflicts in Nigeria, most of them are qualitative. There is generally a dearth of quantitative studies examining the ethnoreligious dimension of violent conflicts in Nigeria. In this dissertation, I use large-N survey data and econometric techniques to fill this gap. I focus specifically on two contemporary conflicts in Nigeria—i.e., the secessionist conflict in Nigeria’s Eastern Region and the intercommunal violence between nomadic pastoralists and resident communities (especially those engaged in crop cultivation) over land and water resources. The three empirical chapters in this dissertation show that ethnicity and religion are crucial in understanding contemporary conflicts in Nigeria. While the topics of ethnicity and religion are contentious, their neglect in the analysis of violent conflicts prevents a holistic understanding of the problem. Solutions can sometimes be found in the places where we are least willing to look.