Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

At the top list of social (to certain extent religious) unrest in Nigeria today has been the recurrent incident and cases of Herdsmen- Farmers crisis / conflict. One form and nature of confrontation has been witnessed across the regions, states and communities of the nation. In some regions and states, the confrontation seems to be more intense and dynamic more than in another. Available materials before us reveal the various efforts made by the Government/ Stakeholders at different levels to bring the conflict to a stop or minimal level, unfortunately, instead of the rate of the conflict reducing, in the present time it has escalated to the point of constituting a great threat to the peace and stability of the entire nation. It is against this background that the present study sets out to explore the various factors obstructing any meaningful resolution plans and dialogue among the conflicting communities in Nigeria. The study is a qualitative research. It adopts historical design, with thematic and descriptive formats as the methods for data collection and analysis. The findings of the study reveals three latent claims/ positions propagated by the conflicting parties that have been hindering any successful and mutual understanding/ relationship among the two conflicting communities. These are; migratory/ constitutional right (propagated by the Herdsmen community), invasion and Islamization plan / motive (held by the Farmers and mostly, non-Muslim communities).These divergent claims and positions have made it difficult for any conflict resolution measures and dialogue among the two communities to sell through. It is the submission of the study that future conflict resolution plans/ dialogue between the communities should put into consideration the impact of the pluralistic nature of the nation, reflecting mostly in the divergent cultural and religious backgrounds and worldviews.

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