MIRS 's Academic paper, prepared by: Jatau Victoria, Lera Bitrus Ishaku and Zita Monday Hassan

  Recently, Nigeria has been under a serious fresh heat of ethnic and regional tension; some clamoring for division whiles some pleading for togetherness, yet, some for restructuring. The plural character of the Nigerian society has done more harm than good simply because of the promotion of ethnic, regional and religious consciousness. The Nigerian state has time and again failed to create a system of democratic institutions that  accommodates  the  interests  and demands of  the  diverse  groups  of  its society which always result in conflict. The recalcitrant nature of conflict in most part of Nigeria like it is in Plateau State and the north-east, particularly Borno State, and now, herdsmen scattered all around the country and causing serious bloodshed, has made govern ability intractable and immensely difficult to cope with. The fundamental significance of consociational power-sharing to Nigeria is the hope embedded in it to resolve conflict and guarantees an equitable distribution of power in the system via its principle of proportionality and mutual veto among others. Also, the proposed consociational power-sharing to Nigeria by this paper is pertinent because of the justification that politics in divided societies such as Nigeria require the accommodation of interacting groups and the realization of compromises over contending interests. This argument is consolidated by the fact that, once all parties are guaranteed a stake or part in the system, violent competition and the tendency for losers to disrupt the entire framework will be less because every player has something to benefit from, if the system thrives. The relevance of consociationalism in Nigeria then will be a system in which the stakes are considerably reduced in shared power, reflecting the due representation of all the important groups, including minorities. Consociationalism is most likely to turn the unstable Nigerian political culture into a less volatile system.