JAPA: Understanding Intercultural Conflicts Management by Prof. O.E Bassey

 The beauty of the world is that it operates in diversity. Everywhere you go, there are bound to be elements of diversity that congregate beauty. But unfortunately, not everyone sees diversity as beauty; there are some to whom, it is a threat.

Nigeria is one country that is heavily blessed with diversities. Yet it is among the very nations who are yet to come to terms with the beauty subsumed in diversities. Intercultural intolerance still holds sway among a large proportion of the country, and this has done more wrongs than otherwise to the country. Up from the top trickling down has been an enduring ineptitude towards the management of abiding intercultural groups. You find resentment, grievances, stereotypes, bigotry smearing ethnical subjects in the country with nationals who should be compatriots treating each other as foes, and of course, Nigeria left as the grass that suffers.

While it is unrealistic to have the heterogenous spread of the country and not have conflicts arise, it is very plausible to manage them effectively so that the people come to accept and respect their respective ethnicities without superciliousness or subjugation. I make bold to say that our individual level of national orientation is chiefly responsible for the intercultural conflicts that have destroyed lives and properties in the country from way back, and till today threatens to pull the country apart, if continued to be underestimated.

The average Nigerian grows up with a distorted and jaundiced narrative of tribes outside that of his kith and kins. From a very young age, he is domesticated with hate and malice for the other tribe with spurious stories of how atrocious, weird and depraved they are.  He grows up with this orientation because there was none from his school, community and religious centre combined to disabuse his impressionable mind; hence, he resents and oppresses anyone from a different tribe. This sums up the origin of the ethnic slurs and spite that has held the country to ransom for years on end, with no pragmatic approach being taken to deeply conscientize Nigerians right from the nursery school about intercultural acceptance.

We lack knowledge about the dynamics of diverse tribes, and how important every tribe is to driving a progressive nation. We hold on to the past – the injustice, the offence, the insults – and content with bleeding from it when we should rather find ways to heal for strength to the nation. We are so wrapped around the notion of superiority birthing bigotry that we carry around us the stench of low self-esteem and affect everyone including people in our clan with it. We think we are protecting ourselves from friends we turned to foes, oblivious to us that we are the devils ourselves who steal peace from our land and rid ourselves of development from the stable of unity.

This has been our bane to the point that it has become almost undetachable from us that even when we get outside the country, we are inept as to tolerating and respecting races and their mores. We stick to our ways of doing things, because we inexorably see it as superior to all others, as such, there is this reckless defiance to mores peculiar to a space different from yours. In that instance, you are found to be a social misfit, and for countries with a high sense of respect for their cultures, they eject you from their space and make you pay for cultural perversion. This is one of the struggles some Nigerians who have taken to the JAPA trend are experiencing outside the shores of the country. There are met with some cultural shocks that are inconsistent with that from home, and just because what is obtainable in their host community is different from what they have been brought up with, they find their host culture repulsive and intolerant, as such, adjusting to it becomes a drag and if not well managed, could land them on the wrong side of the laws therein.

This is a classic example of how we can’t eat our cake and have it. There is a need to be properly cultivated about intercultures and inter-races. For years, this has been meager in Nigeria, but we live on as though we are culturally tolerant when instead, a keg of gunpowder lurks in that regard. We need to go back ‘right now’ to the drawing board, and fix our intercultural education, so we don’t find ourselves abroad, bringing shame to ourselves and the country.

Acts 10:28

And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.

To ensure you are cultivated with deep cultural acceptance that sees you fit into any multinational or multiethnic environment you are likely to find yourself, is our Masterclass on Intercultural Conflict Management.

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Ofonime Emmanuel Bassey is a Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution coach with decades of experience in the practice and promotion of Law Enforcement, Peace and Security through the Nigeria Police and the United Nations.

He is a professor in Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution, a certified United Nation’s Trainer, and currently the Director of ICOF Institute of Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa.

Prof. Bassey has served and interacted at the top-level management of the Nigeria Police as well as internationally as a United Nation’s Monitor/Mentor in Kosovo, Europe.

With his marks well-established in Peace Leadership both in Nigeria and Africa, he is currently the President, NISSI Safety Management Institute: An Institute of Peace Leadership.

To his many humanitarian acts, he currently spearheads a campaign tagged “The Next Peace Leaders” billed to run from 2022-2023 with a target of training 37,000 young peace leaders.

For peace and security tips, consultations and trainings, reach him via:

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