Constitutionalism, ethnicity and minority rights in Africa: A reply to Jeremie Gilbert

Abstract

Jeremie Gilbert’s article highlights a notable feature of contemporary African constitutionalism, namely its neglect of group or minority rights. The omission, as Gilbert explains, is both deliberate and longstanding. Group-based claims and political formations were anathema to postcolonial Africa’s founding elites. Early official hostility to political mobilization on the basis of ethnicity stemmed from a fear that recognition or encouragement of such activity might challenge and undermine the inchoate national identity that fragilely held the new states’ ethnically heterogeneous populations together. Thus, among the first constitutional and legislative changes enacted by Africa’s postcolonial governments were the proscription of political parties allegedly organized along ethnic lines 1 and the removal of structural safeguards that had been inserted in independence constitutions to preserve a realm of territorial autonomy for ethno-regional subnational communities. 2 Although justified in the name of “national unity,” these measures were also aimed at the time at suppressing political opposition, the most formidable of which tended to represent ethno-regional interests and constituencies, and often supported demands for provincial devolution or federalism. The ideology of national unity was similarly deployed by Africa’s state elites to underwrite both the one-party state and presidential autocracy. In pressing the case for explicit constitutional recognition of the rights of ethnic minorities in African states, Gilbert implicitly rejects the early attempts by state elites to delegitimize political mobilization of ethnicity as a negative force in African politics.