Federalism, The Consociational State, and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria

Abstract

From a theoretical perspective which views constitutions and constitutional arrangements as forms of political technology, this article argues that Nigerian federalism is based on a theory of the rights of ethnic groups to autonomous coexistence within the nation. This theory also provided a basis for the development and utilization of consociational conflict-regulating mechanisms, some of which gave rise to affirmative action policies to consolidate elite domination by ethnically-based fractions of the country's political class. But the effectiveness offederalism and consociationalism as conflict regulating mechanisms has been limited. This is due partly to the character of the competition to control the Nigerian state, which impelled political parties in the First and Second Republics to cross-cut ethnic cleavages. It is also due partly to a crude Machiavellian equation of political conflict in civil society with a war situation in which rules can be disregarded and in which one's political adversaries must be annihilated-a conception of the political marketplace at variance with the emphasis of federalism and consociationalism on compromise and checks on political excesses.