Ife Modakeke

Urban-ethno communal conflict in Africa: Nigeria

Abidemi R. Asiyanbola PhD Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Faculty of the Social Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria E-mail: [e-mail] or [e-mail]

A paper submitted for presentation at the Union for African Population Studies (UAPS) Fifth African Population Conference, Arusha, Tanzania: December 10 – 14, 2007

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Abstract: Observation from literature shows that the role of ethnicity as a mobilizing agent is among the most important questions of this century as conflicts linked to ethnicity have led to significant loss of life and injuries in many countries, and become major elements in impoverishment, undermining human security and sustainable development. Hitherto, literature on this issue in Africa is relatively weak in terms of systematically providing empirical evidence to substantiate its claims. The paper presents a preliminary report of an empirical study on urban ethno-communal conflict in Nigeria: the case of IfeModakeke. Among the issues examined are the perception of the conflict, how past violence conflict is recollected, and attitude of people towards violence/conflicts/use of weapons, social interaction among the people of the two communities. Also examined is the relationship between perception of the conflict; social interaction; and attitude towards violence/conflicts/use of weapons. The data used is from a larger household survey carried out by the author in Ife-Modakeke community. The result of the correlation analysis shows a negative relationship between perception of the conflict and social interaction. This implies that the more people perceive the conflict, the less is social interaction with the people of the other community. The result also shows a positive relationship between perception of the conflict and attitude towards violence/conflicts/use of weapons. This implies that the more people perceive the

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