Communal Conflict and Traditional Conflict Resolution the Ugep/Idomi 1992 Conflict Experience

Abstract

Conflicts are part and parcel of man's existence. This is because disagreements among peoples are so natural. People must disagree to agree and conversely, it becomes logical that they should agree to disagree. That is logic of the conflict equation. But such agreement or the disagreement to agree does not in themselves constitute conflict. In conflict resolution these human tendencies and reactions are causal factors to conflict situations. If these tendencies of action and reaction, which are natural in nature and in relation to human conflicts, are as old as man then it is pertinent probing how man has coped traditionally with his conflict situations. It has been argued elsewhere that societies which are stable are not those that are conflict free but those that have in place structures for the successful management of conflict situations. Traditional African societies were stable because they have in place structures for the resolution of conflicts. In this paper, the Ugep-Idomi conflict of 1992 is here X-rayed in support of the contention that traditional African societies have and do hold such conflict resolutional mechanism secret and locked in their ways of life. These structures have been formed from centuries of custom before their disruption by colonialism. The Ugep-Idomi conflict of 1992 shows that even when modernization has acculturated such traditions of the people, yet it passed by, and so these traditions are still effective. IFE PsychologIA Volume 9 no 3, 2001, pp. 71-82