Name: Oluwatoyin O. Oluwaniyi
Address: Department of Policy and Strategic Studies
    College of Business and Social Sciences
    Covenant university, Ota, Ogun State
     Nigeria
Tel. No: 234-803-9133-900
e-mail address: otoldo_olu@yahoo.com 

THEME: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN AFRICA

SUB-THEME: CAUSES OF WARS AND CONFLICTS AND HOW THESE HAVE CHANGED OVER TIME

TITLE:  CONFLICT IN AFRICA: EXPLORING THE TRENDS AND CAUSES
OF WARS IN POST-INDEPENDENCE AFRICA.

Africa has been enmeshed in violent conflicts over the years to the extent that the continent’s track record on violent conflict has earned it the appellation, a continent against itself.  Armed conflicts in Africa moved from the popular bloody wars of national liberation between Africans and their colonialists, and inter-state conflicts, that is, conflicts between African countries, into more debilitating and extremely violent intra-state or civil wars. Though attempts are made to resolve these conflicts, post-conflict periods still show traces of important unresolved issues, which in some circumstances have relapsed into worse conflicts as the cases in Liberia, Somalia and Sudan have shown or still have potential for severe relapse as the case in Sierra Leone is showing. It is therefore, to this extent that this paper seeks to contribute to the debate of seeking permanent solutions to Africa’s crises by undertaking a deeper analysis into factors that could be responsible for conflicts prosecuted in Africa, which can only be explained by delineating them into structural, precipitating or exacerbating and triggering factors or catalysts. It is only after we might have drawn on these three factors that it will become possible to fully identify the various factors responsible for armed civil wars, proffer suggestions into resolving such conflicts and ensure peace and security in Africa.