Pluralism, Citizenship and Ethnic Crisis in the Middle Belt Valley Nigeria: Towards a Civilization of Peace and Tolerance.

PLURALISM, CITIZENSHIP AND ETHNIC CRISIS   IN THE MIDDLE BENUE VALLEY NIGERIA:TOWARDS A CIVILIZATION OF PEACE AND TOLERANCE.
By

Department of Rel. and Philosophy
Benue State University,
Makurdi.
Nigeria.
alloyihuah@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
One of the most complex features of the Nigerian nation is its ethnic composition. Like very other African nation Nigeria labour under triple cultural heritage; euro-Christian tradition, arabico-islamic culture and the indigenous Nigeria thought system. These polarities have each made a contribution to the development of human capital though, the aggressive attitudes of Islam and Christianity in particular has collapsed the capacity of the ethnic nationalities to overcome exclusion and strengthen inclusion. In the north, it is either the Muslims against the Christians, Hausa/Fulani against the Siyawa   or the non-state and anti-state contraptions like the Maitatsine religious riots in the 80’s and or Boko Haram disturbances in 2009. In the Middle-Belt, the settler-indigene dichotomy has torn the once peaceful green zone of Nigeria into shreds. The southeast, the south-south and the southwest are similarly guilty of the same sectarian acrimony and everyone else is fighting everyone else. Given the impact of modernization the growth of the democratic culture, the new range of economic, social and political horizons of Nigerians, the only hope of genuine peace and harmonious inter-group relation lies in the acceptance of some form of accommodation of each other and some compromise that is engendered by a seeking together with responsibility, lucidity and tact. Our paper focuses on the variegated population of the Middle-Benue valley and argues that, if its citizens should be a United Nation, the different ethnic nationalities should be welded together and made to place loyalty to the nation. We argue on this score that pluralism is a process of integration in which different ethnic group with their geographically conditioned... [continues]

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