The Impacts of Culture and Religion, Ethnicity, Politics and Poverty on Ethnic Violence in Plateau State of Nigeria

Every ethnic nationality has got its own culture and cultural attributes by which the ethnic nationality is known and identified. The inter-play of these cultural attributes as religion or belief system, norms or rules of behaviour, language, history and artefacts, etc. gives rise to politics and determine the nature of the political process in the society, and also the level of pauperization of the people. This paper examines the concepts poverty, culture, politics, religion and ethnicity and how they have fuelled ethnic violence in Plateau State of Nigeria. The paper finds out that violence in the region is caused by the multiplicity of ethnic nationalities and cultures in the region; and the struggle for power and dominance between the cultures and ethnic nationalities within the region. These struggles create poverty through the destruction of human and material resources; and human and capital flight from the region. The poverty in turn causes anger, frustration and deprivations which further fuels the crises in the region and turns the crises into perpetual cycles that cannot end. The conflicts and violence therefore appear as liberation struggles by the native or indigenous population against the dominance of an alien population in the region. The paper therefore suggests the convocation of a sovereign national conference for the various ethnic nationalities in the country to discuss the basis on which the various ethnic nationalities can continue to remain under the authority of a single national government as the crises in the region affect the entire nation.