The Nature and Impact of Armed Conflicts in Some African States (1960-2017)

Abstract

Conflicts remained prevalent in most of the African States; where hundreds of thousands of people were affected by a number of hostilities across Africa that the scale of destruction and struggling were enough to call it African Wide War (AWW). Most often, these conflicts are triggers from political, religion, territorial, control over mineral wealth, ideology or cultural life. This article explores the common characteristics of the various nature and the impact of these armed conflicts on Africans. The study relied on the historical method which involves the use of content analysis of the secondary data. This paper submitted that the preponderance of violent crisis and armed conflicts in African states constitutes a veritable threat to African peace and security. The study, therefore; in a bid to proffer a pragmatic solution, provides a way forward and suggests a paradigm shift to collective security through allinclusive African Union andRegional Organisations; this has practically helped to avert series of wars and conflicting situation especially a possible war that was avoided recently in Gambia.