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Abstract. In historical perspective, internal conflicts in Nigeria spanned through three distinct epochs: pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial. The resultant effect of each historical epoch of internal conflicts was forced migration. The major thrust of this paper is the historical analysis of the post-colonial internal conflicts, with major emphasis on the Fourth Republic, and forced migration. It argues that since 1960, the eruption of varying types of violent internal conflicts have exacted a heavy toll on the country's society, polity and economies, hindering her developmental potentials and democratic possibilities. Since the birth of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the Nigerian nation has continued to experience an upsurge of violent conflicts, which have taken terror dimensions, resulting in the killing of many people, large-scale internal population displacement, refugee production, wanton destruction of property, capital flight and so on. For instance, in November 2007, Nigeria was included among the seventeen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, which were described as the world's most fragile states. The paper, therefore, submits that in order to save the fragility of Nigerian state from collapsing, the adoption of a holistic and pragmatic approach in addressing the growing challenge of internal conflicts in the 21st century is fundamental. It concludes that it will be practically impossible to achieve any meaningful development in a war-torn society.
Keywords: forced migration, internal conflicts, Nigeria
Introduction
Nigeria, a country with diverse culture, ethnic groups and religion could be best described as a pluralistic society. The pluralistic nature of Nigerian society has been one of the major problems responsible for unhealthy relationship among different ethnic groups living in it. One of the resultant effects of this development is perennial internal conflicts. Major forms of generalised violent conflicts that have been identified as the main determinants of forced migration in Nigeria since independence include civil war, ethno-religious, indigene-settler syndrome and political conflicts.
Arguably, forced migration remains one of the worst scourges that have continued to torment mankind. Thus, the socio-political history of Nigeria is marked by forced displacement of people both within and outside the country's boundary. Meanwhile, the causes and consequences of forced displacement of population in the country are differently experienced in time perspective. Most importantly, the forced movement of population in the country since 1960, which was...