The Contemporary Conflict in Africa: Enemy within or without? Nigeria's Experience

Political Science

The paper examines the contemporary conflicts in Africa with a view of determining whether they are internally induced or externally influenced using Nigeria as a case. The African continent is currently bedeviled with various internal conflicts, which has impeded the socioeconomic and political development. Africa has become a continent with negativity in terms of human security. The continent has not had unfavorable vertical relationships with her counterparts ranging from the slave trade period to the colonial era. However, Nigerian has the largest concentration of black African population on earth, with an estimated of over two hundred and six million people, and two hundred and thirty ethnic nationalities. Nigeria was engulfed in a civil war that lasted for over 30 months barely 6 years after the attainment of political independence in 1960. The civil war led to the destruction of lives and properties worth billions of dollars. The contemporary conflict in Nigeria has been internally induced, particularly Boko Haram terrorism, herds/farmers conflicts, poor leadership, ethnic strife, the existence of Overlords, among others. The investigation was informed on the fact that there have been several accusations of external forces in contemporary conflict in Nigeria and Africa in general. The paper adopted qualitative methods of data gathering techniques using content analysis. The paper unraveled that most of the contemporary conflict in Nigeria and Africa at large are internally induced, though with a relative external capitalistic undertone. The paper recommends amongst others a regular security conference among African countries to harness her potential in conflict management.

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