Institutional weakness and conflict management in Nigeria: the need for collaborative governance approach

In a culturally plural and religiously balkanized society like Nigeria the basic yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of the Government lies in its capability to develop an institutional frame-work which can facilitate the harmonious existence of the citizens through the integrative process of representative governance, sound judicial system and effective law enforcement agency.However, the Nigerian Government was established on a fragile legitimacy, by the diarchic British colonial administrative system under which existed a relatively weak central authority with more autonomous regions in terms of administration which invariably confer on the independent Nigerian state the colonial legacy of relatively strong regional and local ethnic authorities and weak central institutions in which the institutional mechanism for central coordination are either not fully internalized or weakly internalized hence the Nigerian central authority appear grossly infective to exercise substantial control over the entire geographical enclaves which therefore paved the way for the perpetuation of violence and conflicts.This paper therefore argues that a collaborative approach to governance both at the state and local government becomes an important yardstick for crisis management in Nigeria through the creation and internalization of new values.This is because the primary way of value creation involves focusing on the underlying interests of the diverse parties, public information sharing and constant communicating with one another, which can facilitate the formation of shared interests and the evolution of common value