COMMUNITY BASED INSTITUTIONS AND CULTURAL PRACTICES AS PREDICTORS OF PEACE-BUILDING IN COMMUNITIES OF THE NIGER DELTA REGION, NIGERIA

Abstract

The reported neglect of the region over the years and resultant agitations and communal unrest has led to destruction of lives and properties. Past efforts at resolving the crises have focused on the multinational activities and interventions, government interventions and youth empowerment programmes without considering the use of community based institutions and cultural practices. Yet these institutions and cultural practices have been found to be effective mechanism for conflict resolution. This study, therefore, examined the extent to which community- based institutions (traditional councils of chiefs, peace committees, age grade system, stakeholders‟ meetings and community development committees) and cultural practices (oath taking, taboo system, oracle consultation and festivals) predict peace-building in the Niger Delta Region. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. Stratified proportional random sampling technique was used to select 1466 respondents (71 traditional rulers, 830 adult inhabitants, 410 youths, 90 nongovernmental organisation officials, 65 community development committee members (CDC)) from three local government areas in each of Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers States. Three instruments were used namely Community Based-Institutions and Peace-building questionnaire (r= 0.76), Cultural Practices and Peace-building questionnaire (r=0.84) and Communal Peace-building questionnaire (r=0.79). These were complemented with 13 sessions of Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and three sessions of Key Informant Interview (KII) held with a chief, health officer and head of the joint security task force. Seven research questions were answered and two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Multiple regression analysis, t-test and percentages were used for data analysis. Content analysis was used for the qualitative data. Community based institutions and cultural practices correlated positively with peace-building in the region(R= 0.832) and they jointly explained 69.1%, the variance in the dependent measure. The order of the relative contributions of the factors to peace-building is as follows: oath taking (β=.450), taboo system (β=.358), festival (β=.199), age grade system (β=.112), oracle consultation (β=.076), community development committee (β=.061), peace committee (β=.049), traditional council of chiefs (β=.048) and stakeholder‟s meeting (β=.043). All the nine factors predicted peace-building in the region: traditional council of chiefs (B=-.021; t= 2.403; p<.05), peace committee (B=-.027; t= 2.61 p< 0.05); taboo system (B=1.650, t= 14.176; p<.05), festival (B=.948; t=7.811; p<.05); oracle consultation B=.953; t= 5.216; p<.05), oath taking, (B=2.269 t=29.619; p<.05), age-grade system (B=-.055; t= 6.152; p<.05), stakeholders‟ meeting (B=-.01929; t=2.282; p<.05) and community development committee (B=-.314; t=3.279; p<.05). FGD and KII revealed that the use of community-based institutions and cultural practices would bring peace, unity and development to the region and the people believed that community based institutions are more effective in peace-building than government instituted structures. Also, cultural practices are means of bringing people together and help in curbing crisis in the communities. Community-based institutions enhanced peace-building more than cultural practices in the Niger Delta region. Therefore, all components of community based institutions and cultural practices should be strengthened through training of leaders of various groups on the rudiment of peace-building. It is also recommended that these group leaders be involved in the process of conflict management.