Colonial Administrative Strategies and Their Long-Run Effects on Ethnic Conflict Intensity in Nigeria: An Empirical Analysis

This study empirically analyses the relationship between colonial administrative strategies employed by the British colonial government and the long-run intensity of ethnic conflict in Nigerian states, addressing a critical gap in the quantitative historical literature on how colonial legacies shape contemporary governance outcomes. Existing qualitative scholarship has argued that indirect rule, direct rule, and boundary-drawing policies produced divergent inter-ethnic relations, but rigorous empirical tests of these claims at the Nigerian sub-national level are absent. A cross-sectional quantitative design is employed, using a unique dataset linking colonial administrative records from National Archives holdings in Ibadan and Kaduna with contemporary ethnic conflict intensity data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project for the period 2015 to 2023. Colonial administrative strategy is coded using a composite index capturing the degree of indirect rule preservation, boundary partitioning of ethnic groups, and colonial taxation intensity. Ordinary least squares and instrumental variable regressions address potential endogeneity concerns. Modernisation Theory and the Historical Institutionalism Framework jointly provide the theoretical anchors. Findings confirm a significant positive association between colonial indirect rule intensity and contemporary ethnic conflict, mediated through the preservation of exclusive ethnic institutional authority. States where colonial boundary drawing partitioned previously unified ethnic groups show higher inter-community land conflict rates. The study contributes original sub-national empirical evidence to the colonial legacies and conflict literature in West Africa. Keywords: colonial legacy, ethnic conflict, indirect rule, Nigeria, historical institutionalism.