Abstract
Without any form of prejudice, it is a fact that Nigeria is a multi-ethnic state with differences in its socio-political and economic development all of which have resulted in conflicts and counter conflicts. Ethnic politics in Nigeria’s political system have come to be a tragic and constant in Nigeria’s political system; where one must belong to the mainstream of ethnic politics for political relevance. It depicts attachments to the sub-national ethnic groups which threaten to undermine national integration and therefore divide the nation. Significantly, ethnicity in Nigeria was orchestrated by a long period of colonialism, a period which witnessed the ascendancy of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria to the socio-political domination of other ethnic groups. It was a period when the three major ethnic groups were used by the colonialist as a pedestal for the distribution of socio-political and economic goods. Using a mixed method, this work argues that Nigeria’s political problem hinges on the negative consequences of ethnic politics. The paper concludes that if Nigeria’s political system must progress, it must be anchored on the need for the review of the constitutional and political structure of Nigeria to restore healthy political competition as opposed to the existing outdated political mechanism imposed on Nigeria by the military under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Highlights
If you are born in Nigeria, grow up and trained to become an engineer, lawyer, doctor or a teacher and probably die rich; you remain a Nigerian
This paper argues that Nigeria’s political problem hinges on the negative consequences of ethnic politics in the country
Among the resultant negative effect of ethnic politics in Nigeria according to Babangida (2002) are wastage of human and material resources in ethnically stimulated crisis and communal clashes reinforcing the insubstantiality of the economy and political progression, threat to security of life and obviously property which has in no measure affected local and foreign investments and loss of confidence in the economy; increasing gaps in social relations among ethnic nationalities, structural suspicions and detestation for one another
Summary
If you are born in Nigeria, grow up and trained to become an engineer, lawyer, doctor or a teacher and probably die rich; you remain a Nigerian. This anomaly impelled the political leaders to start agitating for de-amalgamation of Nigeria in a bid to forestall the future danger which the forced merger of hitherto independent ethnics groups portended This fundamental error has deepened in contemporary Nigeria, the conspicuous differences in Nigeria’s ethnic configuration stretching from language to population, geographical landscape, level of education which the colonialist never considered before the artificial creation of Nigeria. Of recent is the use of North/South dichotomy–a political arrangement that states that if the Hausa/Fulani from the north produces the president in a particular political dispensation, the will have to come from the southern Yoruba and Igbo This arrangement (not in Nigeria’s constitution) did not specify which part of the south pitching the majority ethnic groups in the south against the minority ethnic groups in the zone. It argues that ethnic politics is significant in explaining the prevalence of decay in Nigeria’s political system
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