LANGUAGE, CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND RESOLUTION IN OWERRI NORTH LGA AND THE PANDEMIC

Abstract

The people of Owerri North are honest and peace-loving. Despite being peace-loving, they also have misunderstandings and misconceptions from time to time resulting from land issues and others matters. Of course, misunderstanding and misconception is human. Thus, as a people with same culture, they also have their cultural means of resolving conflicts. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t erase the fact that, human activities would not continue though human activities became minimal.  Thus; this paper investigated the role language played in land conflict and resolution in face of the pandemic among the people of Owerri North. The paper found out that language played a significant role and that the people of Owerri North use Asusu Owerre (Igbo dialect) and English language in conflict management and resolution. In such cases, all the COVID protocols were observed as part of the management plan. Settling of land disputes was urgently done by the Eze, his cabinet members and ndiikpe to avoid physical clashes which would have violated social distancing, masking wearing and other COVID protocols. The theoretical framework used was the Communicative Competence theory propounded by Dell Hymes (1972).