Urban Violence and the Traditional African Institution: The Shaped, Reshaped and Unshaped

Abstract

Man and violence had been in inseparable synergy ever since man's existence and violence had claimed several lives and destroyed valuable heritages. There had been ways the menace had been suppressed in the past, which worked effectively. The traditional rulers in Africa had overcome much of these menaces in the past, but in the recent times, urban violence had defile invaluable recommendations and policies of modern theorist. This paper seeks to answer the question why has the traditional African institutions in the modern times failed to curb the violence ravaging in their domains of which it had been able to curb in the past. The broken window theory is used to explain urban violence. Two-thousand-four-hundred perceptions of people across Nigeria were randomly sampled and analysed to deduce how much influence the traditional institution has on the governance of their respective areas and the level of their trust on the traditional rulers among others. Recommendation of effective participation of the traditional institutions in crises mitigation is emphasised. The conclusion reached is that the impact of colonialism had reshaped the original-shaped traditional African institutions; therefore, it left it unshaped and not totally fit for combating modern urban violence realities.