Mbakyer at the Crossroads: Communal Violence, Conflict Diffusion, and Positive Peace Pathways in Nigeria's Middle Belt

This article examines the Mbakyer crisis in the Takum–Donga–Bali axis of southern Taraba State, Nigeria, as a localized communal conflict with wider implications for insecurity, governance fragility, and peacebuilding. Rather than presenting untested econometric claims, the study adopts a qualitative documentary case-study design triangulating published scholarship on Taraba conflict, conflict-event reporting, displacement records, and global peace and terrorism indicators. The core argument is not that communal violence is identical to terrorism, but that persistent subnational violence can create enabling conditions that mirror the structural risk environment highlighted by the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) and the Positive Peace framework. Nigeria’s continued placement among the countries most affected by terrorism, alongside documented violence and displacement in Taraba, underscores the analytical importance of localized conflict systems within broader national insecurity. The article makes three contributions. First, it situates the Mbakyer case within broader debates on land, indigeneity, exclusion, and state presence in the Middle Belt. Second, it demonstrates how localized communal violence may diffuse spatially and institutionally when governance deficits, social distrust, and livelihood disruption are left unresolved. Third, it applies the Positive Peace framework to identify practical pathways for prevention, stabilization, and recovery in southern Taraba. The findings suggest that repeated violence in the study area reflects deficits in well-functioning government, equitable distribution of resources, good relations with neighbours, free flow of information, and accountable institutions. The article concludes that sustainable peace in southern Taraba requires moving beyond episodic security deployments toward an integrated framework grounded in inclusive governance, local mediation, livelihood restoration, and institutional credibility.