Book excerpt: In view of the explosion of violent conflicts in many parts of the world and the hasty, but prevailing, assumption that ethnicity is the source of these conflicts, this book is encompassed to highlight, describe and examine how ethnicity is politicized in many of these current conflicts. By deploying the instrumentalist approach and the theory of identity and difference in ethnicity, the author identifies the actors involved and depicts how religion is exploited as an instrument of division by reflecting it on the Nigerian situation, exploring the examples of the Jos conflicts and the Warri Crisis within a twenty years period, 1990 to 2010.