Abstract

Nigeria is undoubtedly a society polarized along acute diversities such as religion, culture and language. As a corollary of the poor management of conflicts arising from these divergences, the problem of nationhood has given ways to the citizenship crises that has remained a subject of heated debate and have by extension hampered economic, social and political development. For decades now, Nigeria has been plunged into a vortex of communal disputes. Hitherto peaceful communities are at each other's throat. Peoples that have cohabited peacefully in some instances for over a century are up in arms against each other. The age-old bonds that once bound communities together are falling apart with the unfortunate consequence that very minor disagreements often result in violence. This paper therefore makes an analytical x-ray of the nature of conflicts that have bedeviled the nation hitherto their trigger. Its findings are that Nigeria’s heterogeneous nature, its belligerent leaders, institutional and constitutional flows, tussle for power, power play and botch of leadership have all culminated in failing to address the question of indigene-citizen dichotomy, and these amongst other reasons is why the nation has had to be plunged into ethno-religious conflicts over the years. It therefore recommends amongst others that the clauses on indigene-citizenship dichotomy must be addressed by constitutional means and this will have to be done by leaders with political will and that the people will have to see themselves first as citizens and put national interest before ethnic or regional allegiance