The Political economy of ethnic conflicts and governance in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria: [de]constructing a contested terrain/ created by Toure Kazah-Toure

This article analyses the complex relationship between ethnic conflict and governance in Nigeria, in particular in Southern Kaduna region in Northern Nigeria. Southern Kaduna, a rural area inhabited by about forty different ethnic groups, has occupied a volatile position in the 20th-century history of interethnic conflicts in Nigeria. Linked with these conflicts were issues of social equality, citizenship, community rights, and democracy. After a survey of interethnic conflict and governance in the late 19th century, the article deals with socioeconomic and political transformations under colonialism which generated ethnic and religious tensions in the region. Then it discusses political developments and ethnic conflicts in the postcolonial era and it ends with a description of the intensification of ethnic conflicts in Southern Kaduna in the 1980s and 1990s. It argues that ethnic conflicts were not caused by the multiethnic nature of the area, but by socioeconomic inequalities and the absence of equal rights experienced by various communities.