Romanticising Legal Pluralism Through Religious Revival in Democratic Nigeria: Crusaders, Criminals, and Casualties

Abstract

The two epochal events that have shaped Nigeria’s socio-cultural, economic and political contexts are colonialism and the military authoritarian regimes. The former resulted in the emergence of post-colonial elites including the latter, with efficacy to effectively popularise, mobilise and manipulate primordial identities in their struggle over the control of public resources. The later militarised the Nigerian polity along primordial considerations to the detriment of national cohesion, integration and unity. One of the mechanisms used to execute this task is the deployment of legal pluralism as instrument of inclusion or exclusion. Hence, in deploying legal pluralism they are scaling up their tendencies to not only legitimise their instruments of control, but also legalise the resort to primordial identities. The paper relied on secondary materials in arguing that though the Nigeria’s Legal Systems have been influenced by customary and English jurisprudences, the curiously re-emergence of the Sharia debate and several other proselytised narratives are continuation of elites’ contestations. It is further argued that the state of insecurity is the translation or metamorphosis of the undercurrent in these social conflicts that finds expression in the activities of perpetrators of violence (crusaders or criminals). The resultant consequences of violence conflicts in Nigeria are seen in the country’s democracy and development challenges that manifest deaths, injuries, destitutions, displacements, disruptions, and destructions. As response to this menace, state and non-state institutions should be strengthened and encouraged in the promotion of understanding, tolerance, forgiveness, brotherliness, justice, fair-play and dialogue. Equally, efforts towards depleting the support base of sponsors of identity-driven programmes must be intensified by consolidating measures aimed at national orientation, patriotism and oneness. This is achievable through virile civil society organisations, labour unions, professional bodies, media and academia.