Although virtually all inter-group clashes in Nigeria have involved the mobilization of identities in the competition for some socio-economic and/or political resources, it is still possible to isolate a class of conflicts that are almost exclusively defined by the competition for scarce economic goods. The classic example is the conflict over grazing opportunities that has taken place across the length and breadth of the country between Fulani herdsmen and sedentary farming populations. Many communal clashes in the oil-rich Niger Delta have also involved purely distributive
sectional struggles for the largesse of the oil industry, including infrastructures and financial compensations provided by the oil multinationals.
Although the diverse conflicts identified above have involved various degrees of violence or bloodletting, they have stopped short of actually precipitating the implosion or disintegration of the Nigerian entity. Since overcoming the 1967-70 civil war, Nigeria has been able to avoid the kind of large-scale internal disorder that has convulsed some African countries such as Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan. Part of the explanation for this outcome lies in Nigeria’s relative success in crafting and reinventing institutions of ethnic conflict management and accommodation, including the African continent’s most longstanding and well-known, yet significantly flawed, federal system.
