An Evaluation Of Ethnicity And Issue Of Political Development In Nigeria

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

        The realm of politic is the field of greatest conflict in the  society. This is not surprising   since policies are the process whereby society arbitrates over power and allocation or score resource. However in modern western political dictionary political this ability  that been seen as characteristic  of the developing country  or countries in transition  in African  Latin American  and  Asia transition  in Africa  Latin America and Asia .

        The political disability in African countries could  be attributed to  many factors ranging from the frequently from the  frequency of militating coup to political violence and civil disorders, which are all as a result  of the  existence and dominance of social elenge such as religion,  regionalism tribalism and most especially  ethnicity. Ethnicity in our political life having proved uncontrollable deserves serious attention. It is evident that this Nigeria, which can be seen from the frequent changes of government and coup date in the country. This study is therefore going to concentrate on how the problem of ethnicity has affected the political development of Nigeria.

        Nigeria is a nation whose history is replete with numerous and varied existing and political threats to national political development. In colonial era till date, the sad yet unfortunate story has been that of one geo-ethnic group attempting to assert and, in the process, establish her hegemony over the other, perceived as posing a veritable   threat to its very existence. Consequent  upon this  alleged threat of  dominance  it has become  fashionable  to see a particular  sub national group treating  session  from  the  rest of  the federation unit  on the basis of   on from  of disaffection  or the  other. For instance in 1953 the Northern segment of the country called for session in the following year. It was  the west, therefore, secession  urges became  dormant  a determines   attempt  to out  of Nigeria  to constitute in self into  an independent  entity. It is necessary to state that these secession attempted his greatly affected the political development of Nigeria. How these various   secession attempted   has affected political development of Nigeria  will be   discussed in subsequent chapter.

1.1  BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY   

        Nigeria  by over four hundred  ethnic  group  with each having m it own language   and tradition  the dominant  ethnic groups as we have  noted  above  are the Hausa- Fulani   in the North,  the Yoruba’s  in the  and the Igbo’s in the East.

        Nigeria was formed  by the  gradual incorporation  of different areas and people  into which  empire  from 1861 onward   and  took it final  shape in 1914 the  Amalgam a nation of the Southern and Northern  protectorates  in 1939 the Southern   protectorate  was divided into  Eastern and Western regions there are yet other force  within each of these dominant regions. These were the  minorities are those  who are shadowed and discriminated  against by the three major ethnic groups in the  North, there is the  middle  belt, the west had mid-west  and the  Calabar  Ogoja river (COR) area in the  eat.

        From  above  analysis one is led  to  believe that the claims of separate  social  group  must   necessary  be incompatible  with the demands  of the  w hole social  group this  is not usually, the  case  for instance  there  are  French and English  speaking condition  in  Canada  Creak and Shovas in Czecholo Vakia, the French  Italian and German in Switzerland

        No doubt political instability affect the political as well as economic development of any   nation  but it consequence  are often  exaggerated. It  has  been  argued that political instability is inherent  in and country  but the ability of the  political system to certain  stress generated  within  it at any  given time  determines  political  instability. While  rejecting  this argument, it is   important to  note  that the British introduced ethnicity  into  Nigeria polities  during the  colonial period  and what  they did  at  independence  was  to create a political system hat was  unable  to contain the  stress generated  by this  ethnicity

Thus a British colonial governor characterized  Nigeria as a collection of Self contained and mutually independent native state. Separated  from  one mother and  tradition and by ethnological  racial, tribal political social and religion  Barrier’s (Clifford  1920)  it is not clamed hat hetegenous cultural background  does not  affect political  stability, the ability to weld the different  ethnic groups together  is the  process of nation building, which is  not  an easy ask. It involves  the transformation of the  pre-colonial political  entire  of the  societies with the Nigeria  temporary   into a virile  political culture  the would  sustain the Nigeria state. When the alien culture of Europe impinged on the existing societies is credited a problem of adjustment which required new technique and ideas to deal with the new order. Incidentally the instability as a result of ethnicity  and other  social colleagues  which permeated the Nigeria  political  scenes, this  has consequently affected the  political  development of  Nigeria.

What made ethnicity to assume  an  alarming proportion in the  polities  of Nigeria was  that  the focus of each of the dominant ethnic  group  was on equal  share of race-course.

The question was who get what, how and by how much. They wanted to maximize their individual security the control of the   lion-share of the country source resource 

Today the biggest threat to nation political development   is that of lack of unity. In the absence of duty of a kind to will became difficult to define common national  objective identification of a  common  economy. The greatest threat to unity today is ethnicity.

This  work  is therefore  throughout  a comitial review of the  problem  of ethnicity  and it  effect  on  the political development of Nigeria since independence till  date.

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