Human Development as Correlates of Ethnic –Based Violence in Nigeria

Abstract

The general objective of this study is to produce a causal analysis of ethnic based violence using available secondary data. This is necessary to guide national and state social engineering drives to stem the tide of growing ethnic based violence in Nigeria especially in the North. Number of ethnic groups per state, literacy level per state and poverty level per state were used as independent variables. Both correlation and regression statistics were employed to identify the pattern and significance of relationships among the variables. Two working hypotheses were set: That level of  human development measured in terms of education and wealth have significant relationship with incidence of ethnic based violence across  Nigeria. The second is, ethnic based violence is caused by intensity of ethnic combination per state. From the analysis, Number of ethnic  groupings per state has highest correlation (0.53), followed by poverty  level (0.31) while literacy level has negative correlation (-0.49). In  summary, the more intense ethnic multiplicity, the more violent  relationship becomes, the more the literacy level, the less the violence and the more poverty is not alleviated across the states, the more the breeding points for ethnic based violence though the most significant factors are  those of number of ethnic groups per state and literacy level. The most  effective public intervention for peace building will be social and cultural  re-orientation of Nigerians especially in more conflict prone states and  encouraging local acculturation of other interacting ethnic groups through  various communication channels. Equally implementation of the  constitutional provision of free and qualitative education has impact of  improving the socio-economic skills of the people and takes them out of the pressure on the limited land resources.

Key words: Ethnicity, Democracy, Poverty, Education, peace