Kaduna peacebuilding groups seek to stop local disputes becoming communal violence

Peacebuilding organisations in Kaduna State are using mediation, dialogue and community programmes to prevent everyday disagreements from developing into wider communal violence. Their work focuses on young people, religious leaders, women and community representatives. The approach was illustrated by Mistura Hussain, an 18-year-old Kaduna State University student who helped settle an argument during a community activity.

Rather than immediately deciding who was right, she listened to both participants and encouraged them to explain what had happened. The disagreement ended without a fight. Hussain said a peacebuilding course organised by the Muslim Peace Network had changed how she responded to disputes.

The organisation teaches that a disagreement does not automatically have to become a conflict, and that conflict does not have to become violent. Practitioners say the approach is important in Kaduna, where disputes involving land, political interests, resources, identity and religion have contributed to violence. The supplied report cites an International Crisis Group assessment linking conflict in northern Nigeria to factors including political manipulation, poverty, unemployment and ethnic and religious rivalry.

The report also points to the 1992 Zangon-Kataf crisis, which began with disagreement over the relocation of a market before taking on broader ethnic and religious dimensions. It cites official estimates recorded by scholar Rotimi T. Suberu of 95 deaths, 252 injuries, and the destruction of 133 houses and 26 farmlands.

In Kakuri, Muslim and Christian youths have used football to build relationships. Hussain Makanjuola, executive director of the Muslim Peace Network, said those ties were tested after anger followed the 2022 killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto State. He said retaliatory violence in Kakuri killed three people before security personnel intervened.

The Muslim Peace Network, established in 2020, runs peace education, interfaith dialogue, mediation, Peace Clubs and a network of Community Peace Officers across six local government areas. The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding has also reported that a reconciliation committee in Kakuri helped settle a feud between two families.