ETHNO-RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS AND POLITICAL FREEDOM IN NIGERIA: THE NASARAWA STATE EXPERIENCE

Human history generally has been history of conflicts interests and values expressed in varieties of inter and intra-ethnic, religious, class and regional conflicts etc. This school of thought was expressed by Ezeibe (2012) when he quoted Marx and Engels as saying that the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of conflicts and struggles. Stewart (1987) shares same opinion as rightly captured that; ―conflict be it religious, ethnic or class is impossible to occur unless, there exist incompatibility between the different values, desires or the needs of the people that co-exist‖. Ethno- Religious and Inter-religious conflicts dates back to the constant upheavals which occurred between Judaism and Christianity in the 16th century AD. Each time these crisis occurred, they represented the interest of the ethnic in groups involved as well as the religion they follow. It became more prominent when Christianity rose to become a state religion in Rome during the reign of Emperor Constantine the great in 325 A.D (Ezeibe 2012).