ETHICS OF VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study is intended to examine the high scale and increasing frequency of violence witnessed in Nigeria today. As a study in ethics, it is mainly concerned with examining how peoples of Nigeria evaluate the rightness and wrongness of violence. It will further determine if there are socio-cultural, political, ethnic, psychological or religious reasons, the different groups of people in Nigeria use in justifying or rejecting violence. The study employed the use of quantitative and qualitative methods. Specifically the questionnaire and oral sources formed the main primary source for collecting data, while many secondary sources were also used. The research findings reveal that there are some traditional cultural, ethnic, political, psychological and religious roots of violence in Nigeria. Although religion has been blamed to be the major source of violence in Nigeria, some of the problems associated with the phenomenon are not totally religious. If anything, people use religion for their selfish interests.   Thus, the manipulators of religion should be checked. Findings have also revealed that violent oriented films influence the attitudes of children towards violence in Nigeria. Some modest recommendations have also been made on how to check the frequency of violence and its consequences in Nigeria.