Social Work and Transitional Justice in Post-Amnesty Niger Delta Communities: Healing, Restoration, and Social Reconstruction

The post-amnesty social reconstruction of Niger Delta communities involves complex processes of healing, justice, and social rebuilding that social work theory and practice have inadequately engaged with in transitional justice scholarship. This doctoral study theorises and empirically investigates social work's role in transitional justice processes in post-amnesty Niger Delta communities, drawing on data from Delta, Bayelsa, and Rivers States. A critical transformative research paradigm is employed, combining participatory action research with 60 community members and 25 transitional justice actors, qualitative life history interviews with ex-combatants, and policy analysis of amnesty programme documentation. Narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis are applied. The study's original theoretical contribution is the construction of a Restorative Social Work framework for transitional justice, integrating reparative justice principles, collective trauma theory, and community social work practice in a model applicable to post-conflict settings globally but grounded in Niger Delta specificity. The study challenges social work's historical invisibility in Nigerian transitional justice processes and demonstrates the profession's potential contribution to peace-building. It also identifies ways in which amnesty programme design has undermined community-level social healing by prioritising economic reintegration over psychosocial and relational restoration. Keywords: transitional justice, social work, Niger Delta, post-amnesty, restorative practice