WEST AFRICA REVIEW ISSN: 1525-4488 Issue 6 (2004)

Kelechi A. Kalu

Introduction: The Argument

In the 1999 Federal Constitution of Nigeria contentious issues are examined within the context of politicized ethnicity. Given that ethnic identities are part of all social formations, the question is -- when is ethnicity a contentious aspect of politics in Nigeria? Let us begin with the following propositions: First, in multiethnic states like Nigeria, the role of the state and government are critical in the management of ethnic relations. Second, as a political variable in Nigeria ethnicity is a colonial phenomenon. Third, unless politicized, ethnicity is not inherently conflictual. Fourth, ethnicity, a basis for communal organization of identity is a positive variable; therefore, fifth, ethnic-based conflicts in Nigeria are an outcome of various situational group competitions for saliency within a political platform managed by the government. However, since ethnicity mutates, it is not a fixed political category. This means that we must understand the situational context of ethnic relations in Nigeria’s constitutional experience. Contentious issues in the Nigerian State and Constitution are traceable to Nigeria’s colonial history and promises to remain an aspect of future Nigerian politics.

Substantively, contentious issues in Nigeria’s Constitution and politics can be categorized into three broad outlines: (a) issues of sovereignty, which questions the desire and practicality of Nigeria continuing as a unified legal and political entity consistent with international norms and standard; (b), secularism, which questions whether or not the Nigerian State permits its citizens through a federal structure to practice different religious beliefs without local or national state sanctions; and, (c) procedural governance issues, such as revenue allocation, census figures, creation of new states, Federal Government appointments, access to national institutions, e.g. higher education, the army, police and other civil service employments; property rights, and boundary adjustments, including water rights, etc. For the rest of the paper, I will refer to (a), (b) and (c) as first, second and third category issues. The extent to which the first and second categories (i.e., the structural problematique in Nigeria) are dealt with in a satisfactory and effective manner will determine how the third category issues (i.e., matters of politics as authoritative allocation of values) can be resolved.

In light of the foregoing, using an effective and accountable leadership within the context of a constitutional governance system, which respects the rule of law and supports a general desire by citizens to cooperatively work together will resolve these contentious issues without destroying lives and property. It is important to understand that these (i) contentious issues are not fixed; and, (ii) given individual multiple identities like ethnicity, class, religion, education, etc., significant change in one aspect of identity often results in fluid and instrumental use of identity to secure important interests. Consequently, we can plausibly argue that politicized ethnicity is more likely to be employed as a mobilizing agent for politicizing a specific contentious, but important, resource issue with the ultimate goal of securing more of the resource for one’s group. Therefore, if the structural problems referred to above are resolved, the debate will then be focused on how the existing method of government allocation of scarce resources in Nigeria can be equitably managed.

Using Nigeria’s constitution, I shall examine the extent to which the government has the capacity to manage ethnic relations. I shall explore this in terms of the economic, social and political contexts in which various groups interact in order to achieve specific or general goals. Equally significant is the extent to which Nigeria uses its constitution to distinguish what is inherent and therefore not susceptible to change from provisional issues that may change through a constitutional amendment process. For example, if a country is able to institutionalize process-led and inclusive constitutional provisions, ratified by the majority of the citizens, its constitution and government’s legitimacy will be enhanced before its citizens. This is because an inclusive approach establishes an enabling governance framework that transfers ownership of the constitution to the people. A constitution created in this manner can rightly be claimed to represent all the citizens and is not subject to military overthrow and/or abrogation. The point here is that, making the Nigerian constitution a living document that guides the management of conflict resolution and/or orderly management and implementation of public policies is facilitated if Nigerian citizens or their elected representatives are a priori consulted and their support gained for the establishment of the rules and institutional framework for governance. Accepting a constitution as a nation’s supreme legal document becomes a contentious issue when its rules for resource allocation are disputed or seen as unfair by any segment of the population.

Resolving the first category issue helps to establish, through constitutional provisions, that issues such as the sovereign existence of the state are not subject to discussion. Also, consistent with the provisions for amendment, other aspects of the law that are inimical to harmonious existence of social relationships can be abrogated and/or amended using such provisions.

The foregoing is possible if the government consults the people in the process of drafting and ratifying the constitution. However, and as evidenced by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, in the absence of such process-led and transparent constitution-making effort, the tendency will exist for multiple interpretations on the extent the constitution advances the lot of some citizens at the expense of others. Resolving the first and second category issues in a transparent manner will eschew such multiple interpretations of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution that confuse the meaning and manner of a Nigerian citizen’s safety outside of their presumed ethnic region. Clearly, while procedural issues may be contentious, there are fundamental issues in the constitution that must never be in doubt. For example, while Section 25:1: subsections (a), (b) and (c) defines who a Nigerian citizen is, it is the enforcement of the claimed citizenship under Section 42:1 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution that determines the extent the government is capable of constitutionally resolving the structural problems of sovereignty and secularism. In this regard, Section 42:1 states that:

A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person: (a) be subject either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions are not made subject; or (b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria, or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or other advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions.

Securing the benefits of Section 42:1 for Nigerian citizens demands an activist national government focused on ensuring that the federal constitution asserts its supremacy over those of the states as specified in Part I, Section 1 (3), and Part II, Section 4, Subsection (5). The relevance of the foregoing to my discussion here is further articulated in the theoretical section below.

As is true of most constitution-making efforts, issues that eventually make it to the constitution are often contentious, hence, there is always a need to categorize and/or prioritize issues in terms of their relevance to the overall national goal. To categorize is to make explicit the value principles that undergirds societal normative desires and prescriptions for resolving present and future political, economic and social differences. Careful categorization enables objective appraisal of issues and averts the onset of national political crisis. Since the late 1970s, the delegitimization process of various political institutions and leaders has accelerated constitutionalism in Africa because, intrinsically, it is about how to institutionalize political rules for managing public policies. Thus, the constitution must provide a clear definition of citizenship, rights, responsibilities and processes for holding public officials accountable for their actions while in office. Often, the definition and practice of what the constitution means by “a citizen” becomes problematic and tends toward conflicts over government distribution of scarce resources on the basis of values. In light of the above, the imposed 1999 Nigerian Constitution reflects, at best, a liberal political transition that will result in illiberal politics; this is different from a liberal democracy that promotes popular sovereignty, economic opportunities, political liberty and political equality.

Philosophical Issues

Given the various tensions, transitions and transformations that post-independence Nigeria has experienced, we might want to ask: why do humans in general and Nigerians in particular need a socio-political platform to organize relationships among themselves? Perspectives on human organization often lead to differing considerations and conclusions that tend sometimes toward contextual recomposition of the social structure in situations of constant crises, and at other times its maintenance. For example, classical political theorists and philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius would argue that the brutal state of nature, which is characterized by physical and material insecurity forces humans to seek security through an organizational framework that allows them to sacrifice some of their freedom for protection by the state. In such a context, ethnic groups and nationalities in Nigeria are assumed to be united and bound by the sovereignty of the Nigerian state and its laws for individual and group protection of their physical rights, and an opportunity to participate in the creation and enjoyment of Nigeria’s economic wealth. On the other hand, Immanuel Kant asserts that individuals search for company and alliance with others, which enables them to exercise their will, and acquire honor and respect from their fellow beings is an overriding consideration for individual desire to escape the state of nature. Thus, beyond individual and group desire for security, a Kantian perspective would conclude that individualism in the context of group interaction is a compelling reason for individual collective existence within a socio-political environment. In either case, the prevailing environment evolves as a result of the choices that man has in a given socio-political environment. The notion of choice here presupposes the existence of alternatives, such that an individual or an ethnic group in Nigeria may choose a different outcome rather than remaining in the company of other groups. However, given the colonial imperative for the creation of contemporary Nigeria, some may argue that the absence of choice at the first instance makes alternative political arrangement irrelevant in contemporary Nigerian politics. That assumption, in itself is a choice.

However, for Nigerians during the colonial period, neither of the above argument seems to have been applicable. European colonialist projects were based on the “noble” assumption that the non-western societies needed to be rid of their “primitiveness” and brought into European civilization. The current discussion by some pro-democracy movements in Nigeria on the issue of a sovereign national conference is a direct consequence of the patchwork that emerged from the 1914 amalgamation. The ongoing constitutional crisis with specific references to individual state autonomy and therefore rights to determine their economic and religious destinies indicate the relevance of the need for a process-led and popularly legitimized constitution for Nigeria. In the above context, the near silence of the Executive and Judicial institutions on the blatant violation of the 1999 Constitution by some states’ efforts to unilaterally interface religion and state leads to a loss of confidence in the capacity of the national government to protect individual life and property. Judicial and Political analysts who rely on the 1999 Nigerian Constitution Part II, Section 6 (4) (a) that seems to establish an enabling power for the creation of state religious affiliated courts such as the State sharia courts in Niger, Kano and Zamfara States should recognize the supremacy of the Federal Constitution and therefore of the rights of all citizens over and above those of individual states enumerated in Part I, Section 1 (3) and Part II, Section 4, subsection (5). Indeed, such unilateral decisions and the crisis of confidence engendered indicate the relevance and need for a process-led, openly debated, widely consulted and popularly ratified Federal Constitution for Nigeria. Consistent with various theoretical and conceptual arguments, a process-led constitution will unify rather than vilify and objectify individuals and groups on the bases of unverifiable historical myths justified by deliberate misinterpretation of the constitution.

Theoretical Clarification

There is a great temptation to analyze socio-political issues in Nigeria from the Marxists’ class perspective. Such an approach leaves much out that is necessary for understanding the deep structural issues in Nigerian politics. Furthermore, class analysis of the Nigerian situation is problematic because of the several cleavages across issues, ethnicity, region, occupation, and education. It is not lost on the attentive scholarly community that while the so called Nigerian elites tend to unite over conflicts of national relevance against the masses, the same elites are fragmented along several dimensions. For example, analyzing the northern Nigerian elite or what is referred to as the northern oligarchy hides intra-elite fragmentations along the lines of Muslims vs. Christians and, Soldiers vs. Civilians. Within these fragments is the more problematic issue of ethnic identities that tend to divide groups along regional groupings as well as within regions. For example, divisions in the northern region include Tivs vs. the Kanuris, and the Hausa vs. Fulani groups.

Analyzing Nigerian issues from the class perspective by examining the impact of elite decisions on the masses is equally problematic. The masses are divided along ethnic, religious, education, gender, regional and occupational lines. And as evidenced by the Sharia Crises in February and May of 2000, it is the masses that suffer the consequences of ill-conceived inter and intra-elite desire for rearrangement of political power. It is not the case that class analysis is totally irrelevant. Rather, class analysis requires an articulation of occupational stratification and how the status a specific occupation confers on an individual is translated into an element of social standing that makes understanding of differences in occupation an important element of analysis.¹ Thus, if scholars understand the “mentality” of an ethnic group and the extent the group’s mentality is permitted to take precedence over its objective position relative to other groups, then, it becomes possible to explain the seeming inability of Nigerian citizens to transcend ethnic divisions. The point here is that in the absence of a clear statement in the Federal Constitution that each Nigerian has dual citizenship—a citizen of Nigeria first, and second, a citizen of the state in which s/he resides, the notion of group hierarchy will continue to trump individual rights. Unless it is clearly stated that of these, Nigerian citizenship is supreme over all other citizenship in law and application, ethnic identities and ethnicity—which are not necessarily matters of law, but cultural categories—will continue to be politically categorized and manipulated for elite sectional interests. Resolving both the structural and procedural issues in the Nigerian State and constitution requires a clear articulation and enforcement of the concept of a dual citizenship that insists on the supremacy of national over state citizenship and ethnicity. This will mediate the tension of forced obedience to laws that are incongruent with the national constitution. Simply put, for political stability, there is a need to constitutionally erase the false dichotomy between citizenship and indigenization in Nigeria. This approach will open the political process to productive bargaining on the basis of interests, resources and capabilities of the actors rather than maintaining conflicting interests along the lines of politicized ethnicity.

In “The Inference to the best explanation,” Gilbert H. Harman argues that through hypothesis, we can explain the relationship between observed phenomena with certain degree of confidence. Thinking in terms of inference to the best explanation,

. . . we can explain when a person is and when he is not warranted in making the inference from “all observed A’s are B’s" to “All A’s are B’s". The answer is that one is warranted in making this inference whenever the hypothesis that all A’s are B’s is (in the light of all the evidence) a better, simpler, more plausible (and so forth) hypothesis than is the hypothesis, say, that someone is biasing the observed sample in order to make us think that all A’s are B’s. On the other hand, as soon as the total evidence makes some other, competing hypothesis plausible, one may not infer from the past correlation in the observed sample to a complete correlation in the total population.²

Thus, we can consistently explain the relationship between ethnicity and conflict if there are no simple alternatives. Yet plausible explanations for conflicts exist beyond the reality of multiple ethnic groups within the same social formation. However, if there are situations of similar characteristics without conflicts, then the onus of proof falls on those who consistently argue that ethnicity is latently conflictual. In this regard, my argument in this paper advances the proposition that ethnicity is neither inherently conflictual nor necessarily deleterious in a heterogeneous state like Nigeria. It can be harnessed to enhance productive national goals and objectives.

The transitional process in most African states at the end of the Cold War revolves around a desire for grassroots participation in the political process. However, beyond the general clamoring for a democratic form of government, the question of capacity and institutional building in Africa remain superficial. I argue that the focus of analysis on ethnic relations in Nigeria remains incomplete without a clear articulation of the nature of the state in Nigeria; this includes the content of ethnicity that makes it more prone to conflict than other socio-political factors like religion and class. Further, I contend that ethnicity is a normal process of reconciling differences in values, aspirations, wills and the need for individual and/or group respect that are only possible within a pliable constitutional framework that defines politics as the redistribution of scarce economic resources on the basis of values. Thus, the underlying discourse on constitutionalism, governance and the extent government is able to address issues of ethnic relations is better explained through the politics model. In her Political Science in Theory and Practice: The ‘Politics’ Model, Ruth Lane argues that politics is:

. . . the strategic interaction of persons and other actors, who have different beliefs, attitudes, values, and goals as they decide particular conflicts over the distribution of resources and general issues of political rules within a context of norms, expectations, and institutions. Any of the rules, expectations, and institutions may be reversed, maintained or inverted by the individuals who win the right to control them, in the course of those political negotiations that are sometimes called cooperation, and sometimes called war, and are usually somewhere between the two.³

The politics model allows for an exploration that will yield an inference to the best explanation of the nature of ethnicity and its ramifications in a state like Nigeria. It is based on the idea that politics and its effect is fundamentally process based -- a concept which is at the heart of constitutionalism and transparent governance. Also, as a framework, the politics model explains how -- with varying resources and opportunities -- political actors engage in the political interactions that "create, maintain or destroy the political institutions, both formal and informal, under which all human beings must live."⁴ The politics model is based on a macro-view of formal political interactions. It asserts that individuals are the central decision-makers, whose interests can be identified and analyzed to determine how those interests affect policy formulation and implementation. Thus, decision analysts are able to examine the distribution of gains and losses within a political framework. Within the politics model, the analyst considers the cognitive structures of the decision-maker, how he defines the situation and the issues on the agenda table, and ultimately, the goal of all participants in the game of politics.

In the foregoing sense, examination of the structure of political interaction reveals the extent to which individual actions are sui generis and/or generate reactions from others and vice-versa. Given that individual decision-makers are the central actors, their resources, opportunities and possibilities for influencing the outcome of decisions become important for explaining the decision structure. Then, for most political structures, but significantly in democracies, norms, rules and institutions become critical for sustaining political interaction. Within a popularly legitimized constitution, participants are able to compete either for long-term maintenance or change in the rules and institutions by which they play. This involves negotiations over several issues, especially those that are considered negotiable, such as power and revenue sharing for a harmonious maintenance of the state's territorial integrity. A constitutional framework contains the fundamental dynamics for logical political interaction; it shows how people's choices at one moment in time change the context of interaction, so that subsequent choices are influenced.⁵

Ruth Lane argues that the outcomes of issue-based battles are directly related to “the power of strategically situated individuals to understand, confront, and change circumstances.”⁶ The politics model assumes that there are arenas of politics in which the contexts have effects on individual actors whose reactions to political contexts have larger implications for the state. Individual capacity to change existing rules and institutions is largely dictated by the individual or group resources matched against those of the opposition in the context of politics. Also, the outcome of a given political process is either the maintenance of rules and institutions, which support existing structures and people in power, or a change of rules and therefore, people also. Ultimately, the outcome will reflect the knowledge the winners have of the rules, their resources and the weakness of the opposition in a given issue or policy. For example, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Nigeria Peoples’ Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) are institutional actors in the political context that seeks control of the Nigerian State. The extent PDP succeeds or fails to unify the various factions in Nigeria becomes a function of the individual leader’s resources, knowledge, values/beliefs and ability to use existing political rules for advancing a preferred outcome. Thus, to the extent that the rules and political processes are not acceptable to the main actors, alternative approaches, including the use of force, will be employed to attempt to redistribute scarce economic resources in Nigeria.

Obviously, “the process of politics involves the pursuit of interdependent outcomes in the context of participants’ beliefs about the importance and nature of just relationships, procedures, and outcomes.”⁷ Ultimately, politics, the strategic interaction of actors with different beliefs, attitudes, values, and goals become ipso facto a process that succeeds where the rules for participation are clearly understood and accepted by political actors. However, as the actors decide particular conflicts over the distribution of resources and general issues of political rules within a given context, politics by its nature becomes an ongoing human relationship in either constitutional or authoritarian systems of government. Conceptually, political interactions are structured by (a) the preferred interests and therefore expected outcome of each actor; (b) each actor’s beliefs about changing or maintaining the existing rules; (c) how strongly each actor prefers a given outcome and therefore the risk s/he is willing to take; and (d) how well each actor is able to link issues that could yield the actor’s preference.

As individual participants tend to reflect the values of the community they represent, preferred interests of a specific group could be the maintenance of existing institutions. For example, PDP desires to control most political outcomes in Nigeria, while AD desires a change of the structural composition of the rules. Similarly, the resources such participants are willing to invest in ensuring the existing political rules and institutions become a function of how strongly the status quo is preferred. Intuitively then, “changing the rules of politics changes the incentives for political actors; . . . changing incentives leads to changes in political behavior; . . . [therefore] changing behavior changes political institutions and their significance.”⁸ With Abacha's demise and the sustained efforts of pro-democracy movements, the political transition is resulting in a change in the rules and the leadership within the Nigerian political landscape. The government’s lack of legitimacy and/or the citizens’ lack of knowledge of their rights within the constitution are reflected in the ongoing religious and ethnic crises. However, these liberal political transitions have generally resulted in illiberal politics in the country.

Understanding how political, economic and social issues become part of contested terrains requires in-depth knowledge of participants and their interests and beliefs about existing institutions and rules. Using the theoretical explication above it is necessary to conclude that Nigeria’s leadership is more tuned to maintaining familiar political and economic arrangements of power. Since such structures were created for the maintenance of oppression and exploitation by dominant external powers, they also initiated a basis for ongoing agitation for minority rights and control of resources in relevant regions. Understanding such structures is essential for two reasons. First, it is the elite, especially in constitutional democracies that translate issues from social problems to policy agenda. For example, issues about poverty and inequity are often ignored in both constitutional and non-constitutional forms of government. In constitutional governments, elections are often convenient times for politicians to campaign on alleviating poverty in society and helping to ensure social justice. Unarguably, such campaigns reflect the interest of the political candidate to win the election. However, the extent such issues return to the policy agenda will eventually reflect candidates’ beliefs in the relevance of existing institutions and their rules about how to decrease poverty and promote social justice. Nigeria's political and economic leaders are yet to formulate and implement noticeable policies that will reverse the peoples' pain and misery.

In non-constitutional governments, social justice and poverty are more likely to be ignored until a crisis occurs. Similarly, constitutional, but illiberal governments are apt to ignore calls for process-led and inclusive constitutional reviews until crises erupt. This last point is characteristic of trends in the African continent. Even then, certain crises like famine, drought, floods, corruption, high infant mortality, religious and ethnic genocide, and AIDS are forced onto the public agenda by non-governmental organizations whose existence depends on bringing such issues to public awareness and debate.

In light of the foregoing, policy makers in Nigeria need to understand that “interests are tied to identities – that is what we think we need, is connected to who we think we are – the whole question of self-understandings, goals and aspirations, and fears and anxieties must be investigated as prerequisite”⁹ to understanding why ethnicity is a contentious issue in Nigerian politics. Ethnic based reactions/behaviors are often reflections of perceived insecurity, fear of the future, and a strong sense and/or desire to reverse current trends to avoid complete loss of identity and/or resources later. For example, the desire of the Muslims in the north to establish Sharia Law as the primary law in their states may in the end be motivated by a genuine need for group actualization, which the Federal Government must support within the framework of the Constitution. However, where such desires are in clear violation of the Constitution, doing nothing or very little to uphold the Constitution is an invitation to other ethnic or religious groups to challenge the government and therefore the collective existence of Nigeria’s state sovereignty.

In this regard also, the ongoing consultations by the South-South and the South-East governors, the reaction of the Igbos to the events in Kaduna in February and May, 2000, the renewed call for a Sovereign National Conference and MASSOB¹⁰ are clear indicators that many constituencies in Nigeria question the ability of the national government to lead them out of the dark tunnels of military dictatorship.

Taking identities seriously requires deep investigation into history and culture to map out their connections to existing political landscapes. As a product of European intellectual tradition, the Nigerian State is assumed to possess one identity: that of a self interested and rational actor that seeks to survive within the anarchic international system. Such fallacy of a single alternative is not only ignorant of the history of Nigeria’s state formation, but when superimposed on existing conflictual identities makes Nigeria prone to self-implosion. As I have argued elsewhere, neo-realist lessons are helpful for understanding the nature of domestic politics in Nigeria. Just as states in the international system see themselves in a condition of security dilemma, ethnic groups and inter-elite social formations in Nigeria constantly perceive their political positions as if they exist in a condition of anarchy. This is largely a result of the lack of confidence in the government to maintain a system of law and order based on the Constitution as a legal process and popularly legitimized institutional platforms for governance. Given the reactions or lack thereof to the various ethnic/religious crises in different regions of Nigeria, it is questionable if President Obasanjo understands the awesome task bestowed on him by a section of the Nigeria elite in 1999 to use the power of the state to the good of the people. The near absence of the Federal Government has provided opportunities for groups like the southwestern Oodua People’s Congress to claim to represent the Yoruba interest in Nigeria, the Ijaw Youth Congress’ claims in the Delta region, the Arewa People’s Congress in the North, Igbo Youth Movement/MASSOB in the East, and the Middle Belt Congress in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Analytically, if the rules of the game is institutionalized and understood, the exhibition of political consciousness by the foregoing groups is a positive indication of the extent Nigerians are willing to bargain and engage in the process of politics. However, it is sad that these organization, have mobilized on the basis of perceived government incapacity or unwillingness to positively make its presence known to the governed across regions, class, ethnicity and religion. While the formation of these regional political organizations are part of the democratic process, the fact that their interests are sectional, with none having a national focus, points to a potential legitimate processes for transition without transformation in Nigeria.

As constructivists argue, identity and interest cannot be taken for granted. Identities are fluid and can be manipulated depending on the situation. However, in politically fluid moments, identities and conceptualization of interests can change without warning. Nigeria’s efforts at transition without transformation are perceived by the masses and the marginalized as a continuation of military rule. The resulting situation resembles that which is presented in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Though the animals were able to free themselves from their “master,” in the end, everything stayed the same. For Nigerians, the conditions are getting worse, as evidenced by continuing civil disturbances, religious crises and a general lack of safety in the country.

Historical Issues

Many scholars have analyzed the ethnic implication of the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914 by Lord Lugard.¹¹ Generally, it is argued that in creating the geographical entity known as Nigeria in 1914 by integrating the Northern and Southern Protectorates into one, Britain became directly responsible for bringing the "Nigerian peoples" together without their consent. The result was a variety of resistance movements characterized by appeals to ethnic interests that reached its peak in the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970). However, given several decades of Nigeria’s political independence from Britain, the illegitimacy and irrelevance of the state to the lives of the masses remain a theoretical and analytical exercise that runs along ethnic lines.¹²

The fact is that Nigerians individually and collectively tend not to have allegiance to the state imposed by the British in 1914. On an abstract level, Nigerians identify with the geographical entity mapped out by the British but concretely seem unwilling to associate with the idea of Nigeria. Perhaps the key reason is that the Founding Fathers of Nigeria are Foreigners and from the colonial period to the present, there remains an absence of a national discussion on whether the entity, Nigerian should remain a collective choice. Hence, most Nigerians irrespective of their nationalist claims have the tendency to first identify with their ethnic roots before identifying themselves as Nigerians. And, as Okwudiba Nnoli argues, ethnicity is the fundamental basis for identity and political cleavages in Nigeria.¹³

Nigerians who seek to overcome that divisive heritage are typified by an analyst at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs who complained that civil servants are required to state their ethnic origins on a Federal form for identification purposes.¹⁴ More typical, however, is the following statement by Ebino Babatope (Minister of Transport and Aviation in the Abacha regime): "... And if people think that because I am a minister that I have forgotten the fact that one, I'm an Ileshaman, two, I'm an Ijeshaman, and third, I'm a Yorubaman, then fourth, I am a Nigerian citizen, then such people should really go and examine themselves. I cannot divorce myself from the yearning and aspirations of the people of my roots."¹⁵

Babatope is not the first highly placed Nigerian to articulate his primary identification with his ethnic group. Those who argue that Britain is responsible for emphasizing ethnic separatism in Nigeria would find evidence in Governor Sir Hugh Clifford's address to the Nigerian Council on December 29, 1920:

. . . It is the constant policy of the Nigerian government to maintain and support the local tribal institutions and the indigenous forms of government. . . . Assuming. . . that the impossible were feasible--that this collection of self-contained and mutually independent Native states, separated from one another, as many of them are, by great distance, by difference of history and traditions and by ethnological, racial, tribal, political, social and religious barriers, were indeed capable of being welded into a single homogenous nation--a deadly blow would be struck at the very root of national self-government in Nigeria which secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality...and the peculiar political and social institutions which have evolved for it by the wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers.¹⁶

Clearly, Governor Clifford was representing and speaking for and on behalf of the Imperial government in England. Britain's need for administrative consolidation as a strategy for cutting costs while increasing revenues from Nigeria necessitated the imperialists' divide-and-conquer policies in the infamous "indirect rule" strategy which emphasized ethnic separatism among various groups in Nigeria, but especially between the Northern Hausa-Fulani and the various Kingdoms in the Southern portion of the country.

For example, the leader of the Nigerian People's Congress (NPC) the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, during the Constitutional Conference in 1948, stated: "Since the amalgamation of the north and the south provinces in 1914, Nigeria had existed as one country on paper.... It is still far from being united. Nigerian unity is only a British intention for the country."¹⁷ Conceptually, the leader of the Action Group, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1947 argued that, "Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographic expression. There are not 'Nigerians' in the same sense as there are 'English,' 'Welsh,' or 'French'. The word 'Nigerian' is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not."¹⁸

Thus, while the founding fathers of Nigeria established for themselves a congruent relationship between their own nation and the newly created state, the idea of state was imposed on the several nations within the geographical territory called Nigeria. And, although, the founding fathers of Nigeria's eventual political independence from Britain clearly articulated and even resented the idea of Nigerian unity, nonetheless these "nationalists" were enticed by the possibilities of winning independence and controlling the instrument of power offered by the western model of the state with its promises of economic growth and political stability based on the romantic expectation that "seeking first the political kingdom" would eventually result in the addition of "everything else" to the newly independent state including, perhaps, a united polity that would transcend their primordial loyalties to legitimize the authority of the new leadership.

The model of the western state, which is characterized by a set of interconnected institutions with its dynamics often independent of the institutions of government and civil society remain misunderstood in much scholarly discussion on Nigeria. For Nigeria as well as for most of Africa, the concept of state has often been seen as coterminous with government or the ruling class. Thus, the western state as an “… organized aggregate of relatively permanent institutions of governance,”¹⁹ was neither entrenched as an institutionalized legal order in Nigeria nor was it respected as a framework for unifying the different aspirations of Nigeria’s several nationalities. Rather, the state in most of Africa and particularly in the case of Nigeria became a material object hijacked for personal, class or group interests. Consequently, the current effort at democratic transitions and constitutional debate in Nigeria and much of Africa is both an effort to understand the concept of democracy and how it applies in Africa. Such understanding requires a clarification of the concept of state and government and their mutually reinforcing capacities for advancing the individual and collective interests of citizens in a particular state.

As Naomi Chazan et al. note, the concept of state is characterized by three important components. First, the decision-making structures, i.e., legislative, executive, political parties and parliaments are responsible for making the decisions that advances the collective interests of the people and therefore the state. The second component of a state is the decision-enforcing institutions such as bureaucracies, parastatal organizations, and security forces. The third component identified by Chazan et al., are the decision-mediating institutions, which is characterized by courts, tribunals, and investigatory commissions.²⁰ From this viewpoint, the state through its structures, organization of its people and resources, and how public policy agendas are set to establish policy priorities, are essentially institutions of power with definite interests.²¹

Consequently, it is the constitution of the state that establishes the rules and principles that govern the relationship between the state and its various components. Thus, if the state and its constitution result from the collective desire of the people, the exercise of state power that results in contentious outcomes are more likely to be resolved within the decision-mediating institutions without resorting to ethnic or religious conflicts. Such legitimate outcomes are largely based on the extent the government, (this refers to the specific occupants of public offices) is willing to make fair and binding decisions on national and specific issues at all times, without overt and/or intentional discrimination based on any identifiable criteria. It is not the state but the government that is responsible for nation-building. Although the state is an organization of power and is not a neutral concept, it is the responsibility of government to manipulate the organization of citizens and resources to advance the national interest, which was defined during the period of decolonization as nation-building. By assigning the state the nation-building project, the occupants of government spaces blamed their lack of vision and crass opportunism on the state and therefore were able to neglect the decision-making, decision-enforcing and decision-mediating roles of the state. Lacking the foregoing clarifications, a number of scholars have tended to analyze the Nigerian socio-political issues from the Marxist production relation points of view. Such analytical obfuscation in Gramscian tradition that sees no line of demarcation between the state and the social classes that sustain it only helps to confuse the difference between the Nigerian State and the specific ethnic or class origin of the Head of State. The failure to differentiate between the state and government on the one hand, and the problem of separating the state from the social class or ethnic origin of the head of the government saps national productive energy as emphasis is then placed on differences rather than on nation-building.

Like other African nationalists, early Nigerian leaders accepted the western state model without its various components and largely interpreted the problem of ethnicity as a problem emanating from nation-building. Consequently, they sought to reconcile the centrifugal forces of ethnicity with nationhood by assigning the state the central role of nation-building. This assumed role of the state in nation-building is at the root of the contentious issues in Nigerian politics. Frequently, the disagreements are about the organization of power and the resources such organized power grant. Properly contextualized, the occupants of public offices are perceived as coterminous with the Nigerian State. This explains the call for a sovereign national conference.²² According to Sheth, the Peace of Westphalia ended all ambiguities in the status of existing nation-states in Europe by establishing the principle of territorial existence for emerging societies in the face of conflicting but overlapping religious and denominational identities of the peoples.²³

In essence, then, the state as originally established in Europe was the center of social relations, which enforced allegiance to national identity over and above religious loyalty that competed for the attention of citizens. In this regard, Section 10 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution would be ideal in a political framework characterized by popular legitimacy and leadership accountability. Thus, emphasizing national above religious or cultural identities, the organizational structure of the state would make it possible for the Nigerian state to act as a unifying factor for national integration and development. Such situations easily lend themselves to the establishment of national institutions such as the civil service and academic and industrial foundations for the development of the nation. For Europe, as it should be for Nigeria,

Such a state was not merely the means of keeping political order within the national society, it was a carrier of the scientific and industrial revolutions under-way in Europe as well as the engine of economic growth and social progress. Implicit in this idea of relationship between the state and the nations was the concept of civil society. In its framework the ethnic minorities could exist as social categories which could preserve their esoteric life-styles, their cuisines and their costumes. But they could not function as groups and communities which devised and lived by their own ideas and traditions of political rule and cultural organizations.²⁴

Thus, if ethnic groups choose to be part of a state’s territorial boundaries, they could not then choose to live outside the sovereign state’s constitution, while enjoying the security rights provided by the state. Consequently and ideally, as the state performs its function as a platform for integration, it paves the way for all citizens -- majority and minority – within the framework of government to participate in the process of nation-building without obstacles. In the process, the state will demand the highest quality of input from its citizens by institutionalizing the concept of merit as a criterion for employment. This would ensure that competent and qualified citizens are attracted and retained to serve the national interest. In the same context, the state through its constitution makes explicit provision for revenue allocation that ensures that all parts of the country are adequately integrated into the national policy agenda. Nigeria needs such policy priorities aimed at enhancing the collective goal to assuage the tensions in the ethnic minority regions as well as those that result from perceived marginalization by some segment of the Nigerian state.

However, in Nigeria and for the sake of Federal Balance, government policies have tended to politicize national appointments rather than mitigate against ethnic consciousness. Successive governments have used this approach to intensify the negative aspects of ethnicity and embolden the perception of ethnic domination, exploitation and crass opportunism by the minority groups. Indeed, the various occupants of government positions, mostly from the northern region and especially at the executive level have converted such status-conferring social standing from government employment into status-honor to the detriment of national unity. It is clear that ethnicity, without politics and the harnessing of scarce economic resources, is atavistic. In multiethnic states like Nigeria, ethnicity comes alive as the basis for a politicized search for redistribution of scarce resources, which are almost always contentious. Although European expansionism encouraged ethnic sentiments in states like Nigeria by nurturing peoples’ differences rather than their similarities; ethnicity is neither immutable nor inherently conflictual. Ethnicity is like a two-side sword – it tends to be the basis for communal identity and security (primordialism); but, it is also a basis for exclusionary practices (instrumentalism), which sometimes result in conflict.

For primordialists, especially Edward Shils²⁵ and Clifford Geertz²⁶, ethnic identity characterized by language, religion, region, blood, race and culture are inherent in all social formations and have a tendency to resist change. Thus, in spite of the evolutionary nature of historical change in the context of modernity, primordialists are of the view that ethnic identities are immutable and therefore present in modern states. As Lawrence Robertson notes, to the extent that “ethnopolitics, social structures and political processes are trumped by individual identity,”²⁷ ethnic groups act as a collective, thereby foregoing individual for collective interests. Thus, at the end of the Cold War and given a general decline in world conflicts, primordialists would point to increased conflicts in Africa and Eastern Europe – Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc., as an illustration of their argument.

However, modernization theorists do not see issues of ethnicity as a puzzle that necessarily has to be solved. The modernization perspective argues that a movement from authoritarian systems of government toward democracies will ensure that a democratic state will unify rather than fragment the different nationalities forced together in Nigeria by colonialism. For them, the focus would be on the extent economic and political development in Nigeria would result in increased migration from rural to urban centers, increased higher education attendance, and thus a movement from “primitive” to modern social formations that consequently will resolve ethnic issues. Transport and information technological developments are supposed to increase interactions of individuals and communities, moving them from communal to individual identities. Such arguments are definitely challenged by the decision of several northern states in Nigeria to institutionalize the Sharia Legal System in their various states in contravention of Sections 10 and 38(1) of the 1999 Federal Constitution of Nigeria.²⁸ Indeed, it is ironic that the pro-Sharia states make their case on the basis of their rights within Nigeria’s nascent democracy, which is supposed to result in a movement from communal to individual identity. Although it can be debated, religion is faith-based and remains indisputable because it is guided by unverifiable assumptions that are individual or communal in nature. The interest of nation-building necessarily takes precedence over and above individual or sectional faith-based preferences. For national integration purposes, the Nigerian State is built on a set of verifiable principles incorporated into the 1999 Nigerian Constitution Article 15, Sections (1) and (2), Section 3 sub-section (a-d), and sections (4) and (5). Furthermore, for those times when state laws would tend to compromise nation-building efforts, the federal government is strengthened by the supremacy clauses of Articles 1, section 3 and Article 4 section 5. Consequently, in a multiethnic state like Nigeria, the conflation of religion and politics only strengthens politicized ethnicity and its conflictual tendencies. Indeed, conflating religion and politics would lead competent historians to argue that if religion becomes the basis for individual state or national social organization, Nigeria should, by virtue of its history, be a predominantly Christian State, by law, as its colonizer Britain. However, given its historical secularism and the provisions of Article 10 of the 1999 Constitution, the occupants of government offices are responsible for enforcing the law that makes the Federal Constitution supreme over state laws, especially in the area of religion—that destroyer of historic empires. Thus, any effort to institutionalize a state-dominated religion, especially within the context of law, must ipso facto be seen as a recolonization project with predictable outcomes for national unity.

Thus, the modernists’ argument suffers from the fallacy of a single alternative, especially with respect to the transformative imperative of democracy. Following the end of the Cold War, scholars and policy makers have learned that Liberal democracy is not the only alternative to authoritarian governance because military and one party regimes reign supreme in most African states and continue to pose serious life, political and economic implications for those the state defines as its “enemies.” For now, the assumption that democracy will cement the divisions between ethnic, cultural, religious, race and linguistics differences in Nigeria continues to yield negative results decades after political independence from Britain. From Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia to Rwanda-Burundi ethnic sentiments continue to flourish, becoming more politicized and intensely conflictual. As Benjamin Barber argues, even though there is a deep human need for community, factors essential to the survival of democracies present liberal democrats with a conundrum. Barber opines that “… the great dilemma of community is that those forms of communal association that yield the highest degree of intimacy, membership, solidarity, and fraternity are those rooted in strong communal ties of the sort that arise out of blood, narrow belief, and hierarchy: the demonization of outsiders.”²⁹ Consequently, an essential framework of modernization democracy is consistent in its impact on the European social formations whose organizing framework for state was largely ethnic based and ridden with conflict. This is not an argument against liberal democracy. My point here is that politicized ethnicity in Nigeria is best understood in the context of scarce economic and political resources that are likely to continue into the foreseeable future, irrespective of the political system.

In a sense, ethnic identities are political resources just like money and/or votes. Instrumentalists like Michael Banton³⁰ and Michael Hechter³¹, argue that ethnic identities are not inherent in group or social formations of people. They see ethnic identities as social capital brought to bear on the political negotiation table by different groups and at different times. Hutchinson and Smith³² also argue that ethnic identities are an important resource that political elites employ in securing the support of the masses as a strategy for gaining a desired good. These goods and or goals are “measured in terms of wealth, power, and status, and … joining ethnic or national communities helps to secure these ends either by influencing the state or, in certain situations, through secession.”³³

Using the above context, the ongoing discussion about the place of Sharia Law in Nigeria must be seen as an effort by northern political elites to change the political focus and debate in Nigeria from ethnicity to religion. Such a strategic and politically calculated approach to changing the discussion from issues of poverty to religion—a contentious issue in which the Northern elites are better positioned to win—are symptomatic of a crisis of legitimacy and leadership on a larger scale. Seen in this light, and despite primordialists’ claims to the contrary, ethnicity lacks boundaries and/or an inherent quality. And, given that politics generally involves the process of redistribution of scarce economic resources on the basis of values, political actors are adept at using different strategies, including ethnic affinities, to their advantage. In that respect and consistent with the claims of this paper, ethnicity is not necessarily conflictual. Rather, politicized ethnicity is characterized by competition for goods and services as evident in many African countries. However, there are some occasions, best exemplified by the conflict in Ethiopia, where ethnicity is not completely tied to politics.³⁴ In such circumstances, the survival of the group (e.g. Eritrean struggle for independence) becomes more important than any political motive the leaders may have for organizing on the basis of ethnic affinity. The unilateral decision to institutionalize the Sharia Law along ethnic/religious lines challenges the supremacy of the federal constitution and actually helps to advance the demand for a sovereign national conference and the call by some Igbos for the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).

The question here is not whether the participants in these political interactions and processes understand and accept the rules by which politics is played in Nigeria. The question is whether the government is capable of managing ethnic relations and the legitimate rules (constitution) used to direct and guide such interactions and processes. Clearly, in the case of Nigeria, the Military autocrats imposed the 1999 Constitution and thus, even with its revisions, the constitution remains largely irrelevant to the masses and to the management of ethnic relations in the country. A militarily-imposed constitution that lacks a clear statement in defense of that constitution against future military intervention in politics sustains the interests of the elite class and is a good recipe for conflictual ethnicity, especially in bad economic times.

As previously argued, ethnic group strategy is usually aimed at securing scarce economic resources from the central government, which by arrogating more power to itself encourages the use of ethnic identities by elites to manipulate demands on the state. Consequently, irrespective of the claims of the preamble in "We the people," there is nothing fundamentally democratic about the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. For example, the six-week time frame allocated to the Constitution Debate Coordinating Committee (CDCC) in 1998 to draft a new Constitution for Nigeria is evidence of the extent to which the Nigerian leadership misunderstands the enormity of the responsibility of the transition from military rule to civilian government for Nigeria and Nigerians. In contrast to General Abdulsalami's 1999 Constitution, a process-led constitution that is capable of serving as a framework for managing ethnic relations is characterized by dialogue, consultation, debates and open involvement of various civil service organizations, labor unions, student groups, intellectuals, market women and the general masses.³⁵ Such a process can also benefit from the experiences in constitution-making of countries like Eritrea, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa where the involvement of the citizens at large produced truly sovereign and protective constitutions for their respective countries. Beyond the foregoing, securing popular legitimacy for the constitution requires that those charged with drafting a new constitution be perceivable as honest and capable individuals. Members of the constitution drafting committee must be (a) committed to constitutionalism, (b) have the resources to carry out their assignments, (c) establish viable mechanisms for taking the draft constitution to the people and (d) ensure that the process ends peacefully with the people voting for or against the adoption of the draft constitution. Such an inclusive process will transfer ownership of the constitution to the people--the legitimate foundation upon which the government derives its power. In such a situation, ethnic conflicts are not likely to completely atrophy, but the popularly legitimized constitution will facilitate the provision of acceptable routes to conflict resolutions through the democratic process.

In the end, the essence of the politics model is to articulate an underlying dynamic to the problem of ethnic relations in Nigeria. It emphasizes the identification of individual participant goals, resources and a viable national focus. As demonstrated through the 1963 and through the 1999 Constitutions in Nigeria, the extent that individuals in positions of power and those that draft the constitutions do not believe in them, Constitutions become mere legal documents. Even with the undemocratic set-up of the CDCC in 1998, the Committee did work toward provisions aimed at resolving problems of diverse ethnic relations in Nigeria. For example, Section 14 (3) and (4) of the 1999 Constitution³⁶ provides for a Federal, State and Local Balance in the composition of the Federal, State and Local governments "… thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies." In addition to the above provisions in the 1999 Constitution, the Third Schedule also provides for the establishment of a Federal Character Commission (FCC) composed of a Chairman, one representative from each state of the Federation and one representative from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

Also, the Commission was charged with the responsibility "… for working out an equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the Federation and of the States, the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigerian Police Force and other government security agencies, government owned companies and parastatals of the States. . . ” The power to enforce this last provision is given to the FCC in Section C, Subsection (3) of the Third Schedule. In essence, resolution for one of the most ethnic-based conflictual issues in Nigerian politics--distribution of federal and state government appointments—is provided for in the 1999 Constitution. Further, Section 10 of the Constitution is blunt on the relationship between State and religion. It states, "The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion." However, because of the imposed nature of the constitution-making and the lack of efforts by government to seek its legitimacy from the citizens, both majority and minority groups remain unable to claim their rights in and through that Constitution. Thus, the ongoing discussions in some states to adopt a state law based on religion indicate the extent to which constitution may provide for various liberties and rights, but deny citizens ultimate rights through initial negation of the legitimacy of the Constitution. When citizens do not have ultimate rights by law, government's vigorous enforcement of the rules of politics become problematic as evidenced by the efforts to extend their rights to certain religious freedoms in northern Nigeria. Efforts to extend rights and freedoms begin when most citizens have no idea that the constitution provides for their rights and responsibilities within it.

Conclusion

As Joel Samoff argues, "… all people have multiple identities--which identity is salient depends on the situation."³⁷ However, in economically and institutionally weak states like Nigeria, most salient identities are often triggered by perceptions of benefits and losses in how the "national cake" is distributed. Through a process-led and people-oriented constitutional framework, individual and ethnic groups are more likely to accept their gains and losses if they are based on some verifiable and just process of distribution. Equally significant is an in-built strategy in the system that consistently rewards merit and productivity such that the citizens would have an expectation that loosing today does not confine one to a permanent position of loss relative to perceived “permanent winners.” The strength of explaining ethnicity with the politics model is premised on the existence of an acceptable rule of engagement--constitution--and the legitimacy of the governing elites. To the extent that leaders are seen as fraudulent, ethnic identity will continue to be perceived as the most effective strategy for making demands on the state. This in turn, will tend to increase the capacity of the elites to manipulate ethnic differences to achieve their own goals. However, when the constitutional framework is supportive of a verifiable and just process, allocations for and interactions among ethnic groups will tend to promote the salient interests of group members. In such a situation, political power, economic opportunities, federal government positions, status and physical security of all ethnic coalitions will be promoted using available resources equitably. Then the tendency will be for a coalition politics with a lesser tendency toward politicized ethnicity. It will be the beginning of a coalition politics that enhances generational well-being, a strong economy and peace. Ultimately, given that in the Nigerian context, ethnicity is a political, rather than a cultural phenomenon, establishing an institutional platform with clear and acceptable constitutional rules will determine the impact of ethnicity on Nigeria’s political economy.

Bibliography

Citation Format:

Kelechi A. Kalu. “Constitutionalism in Nigeria: A Conceptual Analysis of Ethnicity and Politics,” West Africa Review: Issue 6, 2004.

Copyright © 2005 Africa Resource Center, Inc.