Intra-Ethnic and/or Intra-Religious Conflicts in Nigeria

The major recent instances of intra-ethnic clashes in Nigeria are the Aguleri-Umuleri conflicts in the Igbo state of Anambra and the Ife-Modakeke conflicts in the Yoruba state of Osun. Like many inter-ethnic clashes, the intra-ethnic Aguleri-Umuleri and Ife-Modakeke conflicts have involved conflicting claims to land, which were aggravated in the Modake-Ife case by government’s arbitrary and inconsistent demarcation of local government boundaries. The violent conflicts involving the
Maitatsine movement, which invoked Islamic themes but was rejected as heretical by mainstream Nigerian Muslim groups, were largely intra-religious in so far as the movement’s lethal uprisings against official security agencies and the wider populace took place in northern Muslim towns and cities. Significant tensions have also developed in the Muslim north between the two major brotherhoods of Quadriyya and Tijanniyya, between these brotherhoods and more puritanical or radical Islamic movements like the Izala and the Muslim Brothers (Shiites), and between these puritanical or radical groups themselves.