RETHINKING THE CONFLICT QUESTION IN AFRICA:
IS THERE AN END IN SIGHT, AND IN WHOSE INTEREST?

Abstract

For post colonial Africa, what makes news hardly reflect the common bearings of its mass public for peace; instead, it is the surge in disharmonious relationships – one in which elite interests have tended to stifle and submerge the ordinary people’s hallowed preoccupation with age-old social concord.  From East to West, North and South of the Sahara, post colonial African States area treated to several odd and regrettable social experiences in conflicts that have taken on populations with varying degrees of intensity.  To a large extent, these concerns mirror the greed of respective elite/leadership of these communities rather than, as some are wont to think, a function of internal contradictions associated with their inability to outlive primitive belligerence and aggression common to uncivilized natives.  This paper seeks to examine the problematic persistent surge in conflicts in Africa.  We contend that post colonial governance projects are so constructed, whether in the authoritarian logic of age-old Africa of early independence years, or in the contemporary conditions of a foisted democratic experience, to facilitate conflict since it is beneficial to dominant hegemonies in respective states.  This study is an attempt to demonstrate how these conflicts earn sustenance and significance for the elites and as such, a reason why its end is utterly precocious.

The above proposal is being presented by the undermentioned co-authors:

1.       Authors’ Name:    Barrister Nwando Joy Obika

          Address:               Office of the Solicitor General/Permanent Secretary
                                      Ministry of Justice,
                                      State Secretariat Complex,
                                      Awka, Anambra State,
                                      Nigeria.

Telephone No:       011 234 805 466  0906

Email:          njobika @ yahoo.com

Institutional Affiliation:     Ministry of Justice,
                                      State Secretariat Complex,
                                      Awka, Anambra State,
                                      Nigeria.

2.       Author’s Name:     Ifediba Victor U.

Address:               Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission
                             Awka, Anambra State,
                             Nigeria.

Telephone No:       011 234 803 668 4696

Email:          vikymoro @ yahoo.com

Institutional Affiliation:      Anambra State Independent Electoral
                                      Commission,
                                      Awka, Anambra State,
                                      Nigeria.