Abstract

Violence is triggered by disagreements or contentious issues between two or more individuals, parties, regions or nations. The consequences of violence are often undesirable, leading to disease, malnutrition, starvation, moral decadence (deterioration), poor economic performance of governments, boundary disputes, tribal divisions, the wanton destruction of lives, properties and so on. This paper uses the principles of negative emotion to understand the concept of violence as it occurs in Northern Nigeria. The paper further derives theoretical explanations from the principle that individuals have the power to let peace prevail through a focused consciousness and common structures of intelligibility. The process was based on 10 principles of understanding violence, which were derived from 14 negative emotion indicators or factors of violence in the study setting. Subject matter experts (SME), including security agencies, private security experts, victims of violence and religious leaders, were consulted to determine the interconnectedness between these emotions in trends and patterns of violence. Social network analysis was used as a tool to map the dynamics of emotions, which identified three negative emotions: desperation, frustration and anger. These were ranked in order of their occurrence in conflicts and subsequent violence. The paper also suggests means to reduce violence and conflict by understanding this ‘trinity’ of violence in the region.

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