CONFLICT

Generally, Nigerian civil service has been politicized to the extent that most top of icials openly support the government of the day and this had grossly af ected various strategic intents of policy formulation and implementation in the service. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of socio-political conflict on ef ectiveness of civil service in Edo State civil service. The study relies on secondary sources of data collection, such as public service reforms, textbooks, journal articles, newspapers and the internet based materials. Data analysis techniques are content, thematic, historical and secondary data analyses. The finding of the paper shows that the Edo State civil service has been politicized to the extent that most top of icials openly use the public bureaucracy to consolidate their position and reputation. The paper concludes that the influence of politics in the Edo State civil service cannot bring about any change or improve ef iciency, rather it will generate a conflicting and non-cooperativerelationship between the public bureaucrats and the political of iceholders. The paper recommends ‘blind to dif erences’ approach in theState civil service employment process, which hinges on merit in a competitive employment process

The need for national development in Nigeria at this crucial time cannot be overstated in order to foster peaceful co-existence and national integration. Peace as well as nation building is an element that promotes unity, non-violence, economic growth and human development. However, the Farmers-herders menace that has been prevalent in some parts of Nigeria seems to make the concept of peace and national development a wild goose chase. As Okereke (2012) observed, all over the world (particularly majority of the third world countries and the Middle East) there has been a surge in the rate of violence, kidnapping, insurgencies, vandalism, rape, unemployment, terrorist attacks, cultism, and armed robbery, etc. The Nigeria state has had its fair share in this global challenge with the trend worsened by the spate of farmers-herders crisis. The armed Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria have destroyed many lives and properties worth millions of naira while influx of people have been rendered homeless

Crisis and conflict have become constant features of countries in West Africa, from civil war in Liberia between1989 and 2003, Sierra Leone from1991 to 2002, to insurgency and instability in Mali, Nigeria, Guinea, and Mali. Election crisis has plunged some West African states into a battlefield between supporters of the contending parties in the election as in Cote d’Ivoire and Madagascar, and this has resulted in a state of instability in these states. When Gambians went to the polls on December 1, 2016 to decide who their next president will be, the country did not know that a change is about to take place in the country’s highest seat of authority, that is, Yayha Jammeh, who has been in power since he led a military coup against President Dawda Jawara in 1994, would lose his bid to became Gambia’s president for the fifth term to the opposition leader Adama Barrow.