Abstract
Insurgency and religious conflict are one of the most serious challenges threatening world peace, inclusive of West African states. The causes of these conflicts vary across countries, with religious conflict in particular seeing accelerated increase within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region.
These conflicts have gained the attention of conflict professionals from around the globe in recent years. So far, however, there has been little discussion about insurgency and religious conflict as a joint phenomenon, which has fallen short of investigating the causation, crimes and methods of control within the ECOWAS region, and from a policy perspective. This gap in knowledge has made it difficult for various stakeholders and experts to come up with an appropriate framework that will help curtail the escalating cases of extreme violence within the region.
This research employed a qualitative approach and implemented eight stakeholder studies of a total of 21 participants, including four ECOWAS conflict resolution professionals; four religious leaders (Christian and Muslim); four law enforcement officers; two Peace and Conflict Institute professionals; four journalists in the area of peace and conflict reporting; one staff member from the United Nations Commission for Refugees; one staff member from the Nigerian Red Cross; and one staff member from the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency. These participants were selected as a result of their direct involvement with the research focus. The ECOWAS staff included those from the Regional Security Department, Early Response Department, Mediation and Dialogue Department, and Conflict Prevention Department, who were directly involved in developing and applying the conflict prevention and management framework for the ECOWAS Commission.
Religious leaders included ministers of faith who were involved in delivering teaching to the religious faithful in their respective denominations. The law enforcement officers were from four separate institutions saddled with the responsibility of maintaining law and order within the society, in relation to the prevention of extreme violence. Data were collected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews; direct observation and document analysis; and archival records to provide empirical evidence of the causes, crimes and the role of ECOWAS in mitigating against insurgency and religious conflict within the region. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.
A number of important conclusions were obtained from the collected data.
Firstly, the results showed that whilst there are several definitions of insurgency and religious conflict, there was agreement amongst all stakeholders interviewed about the threat and crimes committed by these groups within the region. Secondly, several variables are responsible for the causation of this conflict that includes the economic, political, social and institutional dimensions. Thirdly, ECOWAS’s current conflict prevention and management framework is not being adequately implemented to meet the designed aim and objectives. Fourthly, the victims of these conflicts are facing a great number of human rights violations. Furthermore, the results revealed that some of the identified humanitarian challenges are causing new wars in the host communities, largely perpetuated by those fleeing their homes.
The implications of the results are that ECOWAS and conflict management and prevention professionals should endeavour to understand the dynamics of insurgency and religious conflict, and as a result develop unique methods of addressing the conflict that focus on such dynamics. ECOWAS should engage its Member States and relevant stakeholders in developing a framework that is user friendly. ECOWAS should also place more emphasis on community stakeholders to improve security and the basic infrastructure within the Member States and communities, and set up a mechanism for tracking the progress and implementation rate of the relevant framework to raise the level of compliance and implementation.