RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION: RE-EXAMINING THE ROLE OF FAITH-BASED ORGANISATIONS IN PEACEBUILDING IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria occupies a paradoxical place in the study of religion and conflict. It is one of the most religiously observant societies in the world, and it is also a society in which religious identity has repeatedly been mobilised in riots, insurgency, communal clashes and electoral violence. This article re-examines the role of religious leaders and faith-based organisations (FBOs) in conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Nigeria. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of the "ambivalence of the sacred," structural and cultural violence, and Lederach's model of middle range leadership, it analyses the historical trajectory of religiously framed conflict in Nigeria, from the Kano Maitatsine riots of 1980 to the Kaduna Sharia crisis of 2000, the recurrent Jos crises, the Boko Haram insurgency and the farmer-herder conflicts of the Middle Belt. The article then evaluates the peacebuilding work of key actors, including the Interfaith Mediation Centre in Kaduna, the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the Catholic Justice, Development and Peace Commissions, and Pentecostal and Anglican networks. It argues that FBOs possess distinctive moral authority, grassroots reach and symbolic resources that make them indispensable to peacebuilding, but that their effectiveness is constrained by politicisation, elite capture, denominational competition, theological exclusivism and weak institutional capacity. The article concludes that a re-examined model of faith-based peacebuilding in Nigeria must move from episodic, elite-level dialogue towards a sustained, justice-oriented, community-anchored and state-complementary practice.