Exclusion, Inequality, Deepening Conflict, Insecurity in Nigeria, Says AUSS-NG

Funmi Ogundare

The African Universities Seminar Series–Nigeria (AUSS-NG) has called for the reconstruction of Nigerian citizenship around inclusion, equality, participation and social justice, warning that structural inequalities and exclusion continue to deepen conflict and insecurity across the country.

The scholars also urged the government to move beyond conventional commemorative remembrance of past conflicts to what they described as reparative memory that acknowledges historical injustices, restores the dignity of victims and helps prevent the recurrence of violence.

These were among the major recommendations contained in the communiqué issued at the end of the second AUSS-NG conference and signed by Victor Ogbonnaya Okorie, Professor of Development, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).

The three-day conference, hosted by the University of Lagos Institute for African and Diaspora Studies (IADS), brought together scholars, researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders to examine the theme, ‘Citizenship, Belonging and Geographies of Conflict in Contemporary Nigeria’. It featured 25 papers, comprising a keynote paper, a lead paper and 23 plenary papers.

According to Okorie, the discussions identified diverse geographies of conflict and forms of belonging, including conditional citizenship, noting that each geography of conflict contains a triangle of violence involving perpetrators, victims and witnesses, whose memories and experiences may vary. The scholars observed that violence is fungible, explaining that an individual who is a victim in one situation could become a perpetrator in another, while a witness could also become involved in violence.

The conference distinguished between subjective violence, experienced through community and interpersonal conflicts such as land disputes and farmer-herder conflicts, and objective or structural violence embedded in institutional and governmental arrangements.

Okorie noted that unequal access to resources, land, education, employment, opportunities and public institutions could foster exclusion and deepen social divisions.

The scholars therefore called for peacebuilding interventions to address not only immediate violence but also the institutional, economic, social, and political structures that reproduce inequality, deprivation, and conflict.

“There is a need for greater recognition of locally generated peacebuilding initiatives and community knowledge, rather than relying exclusively on elite-driven or top-down approaches,” they stated.

The conference also recommended integrating indigenous African knowledge systems, local conflict-management mechanisms, and community-based practices into national, regional, and global peacebuilding frameworks.

They further called for stronger recognition of women’s informal peacebuilding roles in homes, markets, religious spaces and communities as legitimate components of conflict prevention, mediation and reconciliation.

The scholars urged closer links between informal community-based peacebuilding initiatives and formal governmental, institutional and international mechanisms.

On education, the conference recommended treating learning as a fundamental component of peacebuilding and reintegration, particularly for children and women living in displaced communities.

It also called for participatory approaches to displacement, deradicalisation and reintegration programmes, stressing the need to recognise the agency, identities, narratives and social realities of displaced persons.

“Scholars and practitioners must also strengthen research-policy linkages through innovative, interdisciplinary and field-based studies capable of informing policy and institutional practice,” they stated.

The conference also called for African experiences, knowledge systems and locally generated evidence to play a greater role in regional and global debates on conflict, security, citizenship and peacebuilding.

The scholars advocated a broader conception that moves beyond a narrow state-centric approach to recognise everyday economic, social, environmental and human insecurities experienced by citizens. Regarding the healing of war trauma and painful memories, the conference called on the state to move from historical and commemorative remembrance to reparative memory.

It said reparative memory should openly acknowledge past injustices, including colonial violence, war crimes and systemic oppression, while ensuring that victims and marginalised groups are remembered in ways that restore their dignity and affirm their humanity and agency. According to the conference, such an approach should also encourage society to accept responsibility for historical wrongs, with the ultimate objective of preventing a repetition of violence and promoting healing.

The conference further restated the importance of strengthening the capacity of universities, research institutions, civil society organisations, government agencies and community organisations for advocacy, policy engagement, conflict management and institutionalised peacebuilding.

In its conclusion, AUSS-NG said questions of citizenship and belonging could not be separated from inequality, exclusion, displacement, identity, religion, gender, governance and structural violence, reiterating that sustainable peace would require not only the management of immediate violence but also the transformation of the structures and narratives that produce exclusion and insecurity.

The conference consequently called for “stronger collaboration among universities, communities, government institutions, civil society organisations, religious institutions and international partners in designing and implementing peacebuilding interventions”.

It reaffirmed the AUSS-NG community’s commitment to producing rigorous, interdisciplinary, and policy-relevant scholarship that contributes to more inclusive citizenship, stronger social cohesion, and sustainable peace in Nigeria and beyond.