Education for Peace and Justice in Nigeria: A Critical Analysis 1999 – 2015

Abstract

The arrays of violent conflicts in Nigeria, and government’s reaction to them, through the application of adversarialhard powe, call for a review of governments, conflict handling styles. Since the advent of civilian administration in1999, education for peace and justice has not got the required impetus, and it should be at the bedrock of anydeveloping country’s master plan. The theory of pacifism, coined by the French peace campaigner, Emile Armand(2016), that peaceful, rather than violent or belligerent relations should govern human intercourse, was applied. Thispaper observed the prevalence of conflict in Nigeria, ranging from ethic and relations violence, Niger Delta crises,Boko Haram insurgency, communal conflicts, political violence, kidnapping, as well as the bombardment of courtswith political litigations among others. Lack of awareness of other non-adversarial methods of resolving conflicts hasled to its unabatedness, which has cost the country so much loss in human and material resources.This paper recommends that education peace and justice should be designed in a number of ways such as inworkshop and awareness campaigns. The formal channels must be well staffed with people grounded in peace andconflict studies, to be complemented with train-the trainers approach, in order to ensure suitable knowledge transfer.Government must exhibit good governance. As the level of illiteracy is high in the country, informal education forpeace and justice must be given greater emphasise. The use of internet and other means of information technologywill promote the dissemination of education for peace and justice in Nigeria.