Traditional and Western Methods of Conflict Management in Aguleri/Umuleri, 1933-2010

Abstract

Pre-colonial Igbo communities were faced with conflicts and these conflicts have always been resolvable through traditional methods for conflict resolution. These methods were instrumental for the facilitation of peace and harmony during this period as conflicts occurred at lower threshold resulting in few deaths. That notwithstanding, Igbo communities have always preferred peace to conflict as they had in place a traditional system of preventive diplomacy to resolve a potentially violent situation from escalating. With the imposition of the colonial system of conflict resolution in Africa, however, there occurred a considerable alteration. This situation was the case of Aguleri/Umuleri in Anambra State of Nigeria. The end of the cold war did not help matters either as Igbo culture was riddled with the scourge of violent intra and inter-state conflicts which have defied the western methods of conflict resolution. The attendant failures of these western methods to effectively resolve Aguleri/Umuleri conflicts have brought to the fore the imperative for the search for alternative or more appropriately complimentary methods to fit into the indigenous situation and to address the root causes of conflicts in the land. And, this condition has resulted in the demand for the traditional conflict management resource. It is therefore within this context that the study of the African traditional methods and institutions for conflict management has become imperative. Against this backdrop, this paper seeks to underscore
the ultimate goal of traditional African methods of conflict management as against western methods. The paper has elected to do a comparative study of the traditional and western methods of conflict management in Nigeria with the age-long Aguleri/Umuleri conflicts as a case study. For an effective and successful analysis, the paper adopted the Marxian theory. The paper discovers that
there is a marriage of both the traditional and western methods of conflict resolution that has altered the early stability enjoyed in the area. The paper therefore, recommends that African people should evolve a hybrid-like conflict resolution culture derived from both western and traditional conflict resolution techniques because we live in a globalizing world.