Traditional Institutions and the Management of Communal Conflicts in Gwer-East Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

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This study examined traditional rulership institution and the management of communal conflicts in Gwer-East local Government Area, Benue State of Nigeria. The study aimed at finding out why there is a persistence of communal conflicts in the study area even with the efforts by traditional rulers to help manage them. The study pursued objectives that range from; ascertaining the relevance of the traditional rulers in communal conflict management, identifying the causes of communal conflicts, examining the effectiveness of traditional rulers in the management of communal conflicts, identifying the challenges faced by traditional rulers in the management of communal conflicts and advancing ways of ensuring the effectiveness of traditional rulers in the management of communal conflicts in the study area. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Questionnaires were used for data collection and the analyses done using simple percentage presented in tabular form. Structural functionalism was adopted for the study. The findings of the study revealed that land dispute is the major cause of communal conflicts in the local government area. Equally too, it was found out that traditional rulers have not been effective in the management of communal conflicts owing largely to the lack of cooperation from warring communities. This showed, as revealed from this finding, the lack of respect for the traditional rulership institution in the local government area. The study also revealed that sensitization and awareness campaigns for attitudinal change by community members are the major ways of enhancing the effectiveness of traditional rulers in the management of communal conflicts in the area. The study concludes that traditional rulers are relevant in communal conflicts management as they are considered traditional administrative structure for community mobilization. The study made recommendations in the light that; traditional rulers should be given additional powers other than mere advisory and assistance roles, the government should revisit community boundaries and make them clearer to curtail issues of encroachment into peoples’ lands in the area and the beef-up of check mechanisms on traditional rulers to help unfold irregularities of biased settlements, corruption and primordialism.