Peace Building in Africa: Rolling Back Indigenous Non-Coercive African Traditional Model of Conflict Resolution in the Post-2017 Era

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges facing African countries is the continuous
escalation of violent conflicts. The paramilitary and military have been used in rather coercive manners to suspend several violent conflicts in different parts of the continent, but these have not in any way suppressed the conflicts. What this failure suggests is the total embrace of western institutions of conflict-prevention and resolution, to the detriment of traditional African conflict-resolution models. This work holds strongly that the non-participatory roles of traditional rulers in present-day governance as compared to their roles in managing and resolving conflict in precolonial times is, to some reasonable extent, accountable for the escalation of conflicts on the continent. This backdrop presents a compelling need to develop new architecture for continentwide peace-building. To achieve this,
we examine traditional alternative dispute-resolution models, juxtapose these models with western models, and identify specific areas in which the application of traditional institutions of governance would have significant transformative impact on conflict prevention and resolution. In the final analysis, the work suggests how to integrate traditional authorities and traditional democratic political values into the modern governance structure in a dynamic manner to promote peace in Africa.