all Nigerians of the fragility of the country’s polity and of the need to continue efforts at nation building. 173. Nigerian polity is one of the most complex ethnolinguistic formations on the African continent and is marked by ethnic and religious identities comprising about 370 ethnic communities. Perception survey data cited in the CSAR identifies communal conflicts as the most prevalent form of conflict in Nigeria, followed in descending order by political conflicts, resource-control conflicts, ethnic and religious conflicts, and land conflicts. However, these forms of conflict correspond to specific geopolitical zones in Nigeria. With regard to the causes of conflicts, economic inequality and wealth distribution rank the highest, followed by petroleum resource control and religious intolerance. These perceptions also differ from one geopolitical zone to another. Issues such as political representation and elite manipulation rank high across all geopolitical zones. 174. The CSAR further notes that the patterns of intrastate conflicts in the last two decades or so have created areas that have become flash points of conflict and violence. The north-central part of Nigeria, which accounts for about 35 per cent of ethnic groups in the country, has experienced the most protracted and recurrent ethnoreligious conflicts, which appear to have peaked since the return to civil rule. The CSAR explains that the recurrent sectarian conflicts that pitch the Muslim majority against the Christian minority have partly resulted from the fear and anxiety that attended the adoption of the Islamic legal code – Sharia – by states in the northern parts of the country. The majority of conflicts in Nigeria, according to the CSAR, come from such communal, ethnoreligious sources. 175. To a large extent, many instances of ethnoreligious conflicts are reactions to a collective memory of domination by the various ethnic minorities, and to the legacy of colonialism in reversing previous patterns of autonomy of small communities. The postcolonial state inherited a federal system of government from the British that the ruling elites have repeatedly manipulated in order to promote sectional or regional interest rather than national interest. 176. The CSAR explains that Nigeria has a dichotomy between ‘ethnic’ as opposed to ‘civic’ citizenship in which a Pan-Nigerian notion of citizenship exists at the national level, while indigeneity operates at the local level. The dichotomy between ‘indigene’ and ‘settler’ has hardened into a theory of clan and ethnic exclusiveness and often provides the basis of inclusion or exclusion from access to state power and resources. Resistance to, rather than passive acceptance of, exclusion has been the basis of much of the intrastate and communal violence plaguing Nigeria. The Niger Delta 177. 80 The Niger Delta, Nigeria’s oil producing region, has experienced one of the most protracted and deadly conflicts since the 1990s. The conflict in the Niger Delta is largely a product of poverty in the midst of plenty, and of worsening environmental consequences of oil production that are destroying the livelihood opportunities of the communities.