Determinants of Social and Rural Communal Conflict in South –South Environment, Nigeria

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue II, February 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705

Determinants of Social and Rural Communal Conflict in South –South Environment, Nigeria

Ubani, Princewill^1*, Kio- Lawson, Datonjo², Comfort Obasiolu^3
1,2Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ken Saro – Wiwa Polytechnic Bori, Nigeria
³31 Rukpakwulosi Port Harcourt Nigeria
*Corresponding author

Abstract: – South- south region is one of the prominent geographical zones in Nigeria West African with hilarious mineral and natural resources. The rich environment has attracted many multi-national companies especially in the oil and gas sector and the people believed that conflict is the only strategy to benefit and attract physical development in their negatively impacted environment. This research was demanded to really substantiate the claim. Therefore, activities and survey of multinational companies, land use dispute, chieftaincy tussle, social media /online communication, waterfront geography and undemocratic leaders questionnaires were designed and distributed across the six states of south-south region for complete determination of social and rural conflict. The collected questionnaires or samples were prepared and analysed using regression and Duncan multiple coefficient. The results for determination of social and communal conflict in the region detailed that exploration and multinational companies (t =12.748), chieftaincy dispute (t = 11.230), social media /online communication (t =7.797), waterfront geography (t =3.324), undemocratic leaders (t =2.992) and landed use property (t =3.214) at (p<0.05) are the drivers of social and rural communal conflict in the region. In respect of social and communal conflict variation, the study further revealed that there was a significant difference and the analysis detail that rivers state recorded the highest social and rural communal conflict with the value of (2.9543), delta state (2.8333), bayelsa (2.7342), akwalbom (2.6952), Edo (2.5729) and (2.5153) for cross rivers state at (p<0.05) alpha significant level. It is our utmost view that social and rural communal conflict will diminish considerably in the region if people of various state ensure that undemocratic leaders and bitter politician are voted out of power without prejudice and irrespective of their financial strength. Since their representation in governance anchored on intimidations of commoners, oppositions and discard the selection of environmental expert such as urban planner, architects, surveyors etc that can efficiently represent various communities before multi-national companies, but select incompetent residents, illiterate and non-professions who cannot contribute to rural development agendas to represent their various communities before multinational companies and other governmental development forums. Therefore, creates vacuums for inevitable conflicts which does not encourage or enhanced community, rural and physical development from democratic governance and multinational companies operating in the region.

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