Mass Atrocities and Transitional Justice in Nigeria’s Middle Belt: Analyzing Mechanisms for Accountability and Reconciliation

This research analyzes the applicability and design of transitional justice mechanisms for addressing mass atrocities committed in Nigeria's Middle Belt region, focusing on farmer-herder violence and intercommunal massacres in Plateau, Benue, and Nasarawa states that have claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands. Transitional justice scholarship has largely focused on post-authoritarian or post-civil war contexts, and its application to ongoing, cyclical subnational violence in federal states like Nigeria remains theoretically underdeveloped. The study draws on the UN Guidance Note on the Secretary-General's Approach to Transitional Justice and comparative transitional justice designs from Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda to develop an analytically grounded framework. An empirical qualitative methodology employs focus group discussions with affected farming and herding communities in Jos, Makurdi, and Lafia, combined with interviews of state government officials, traditional conflict mediators, legal practitioners, and civil society peacebuilding organizations. Analysis applies a transitional justice dimensions framework encompassing accountability, truth-seeking, reparations, and institutional reform. Findings reveal that affected communities prioritize truth acknowledgment and material reparations over prosecutorial justice, and that mechanisms must be culturally grounded to achieve reconciliation. The study argues for a hybrid transitional justice model combining government-sponsored truth and reconciliation commissions with community-based restorative processes. Keywords: transitional justice, mass atrocities, Middle Belt, reconciliation, accountability.