ETHNIC POLITICS AND FEDERALISM IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Ethnicism in Nigerian politics according to analysts dates back to the colonial politics of “divide and rule”. This was later reinforced by the 1954 McPherson constitution which has regionalism as its operational model.

Emphasizing this ethnicity in Nigerian politics has its genesis in British colonial politics which through the obvious divide and rule policy encouraged the use of different application of colonial’s politics on the traditional institutions and structures of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria. With it’s over 120,000,000 people (UN estimates) and over 250 tribe, Nigeria is a land of great climatic territorial and ethnic variety. From the four hundred miles long coast of tangled swamp and mangrove, a bell of dense rain forest ran in hand to a depth of between a hundred and a hundred fifty miles. This area known as southern Nigeria was split into Eastern and western parts at lokoja.

In the western part of south, the predominant group was the Yoruba, a people with a long history of highly developed kingdoms because of the British penetration through Lagos, it was acclaimed that western culture first reached Yoruba and the other tribes of the west.

Similarly, in the eastern part of the south lived a variety of peoples, predominant among them are the Igbos who are found on both banks of the Niger, but mainly east of the Ironically, in view of their later rapid development and progress which finally enabled then to overtake the other ethnic groups in Nigeria in terms of European styled development, the Igbos were formally regarded as being the most background of the major ethnic groups in the earliest part of the 20^th century.

In the other hand, north of the Niger River lay the forest line and woodland, varying into savannah grass and prairie (wide area of land with grass but not dress) and finally to semi-desert and scrub. Along the southern fringes of these enormous areas runs the middle belt, inhabited by numerous non Hausa people mainly pagan and in the words of Frederick Forst “the animist in religion” were believed to be vassals of the Hausa/Fulani Empire. The north proper was the land of the Hausa, the Kanuri and the Fulani, the later having originally come from the south Sahara in conquest bringing with them Islamic religion. The afore mentioned three ethnic groups (Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba) found in the east, west and north respectively form the biggest and major ethnic group in Nigeria.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Amid the have and cry from individuals cooperate bodies and international communities on the devastating potentials of ethnic based politics on any federal structure. The problems the research has set out to investigate are

1. To what extent has ethnic politics contributed to industrial, social and economic development of Nigeria?
2. What are the negative implications of ethnicity to Nigerian federation?
3. What is ethnic politics?
4. How do we tress the origin of ethnicity in Nigeria?
5. Does ethnic politics encourage unity in diversity in Nigeria federal arrangement?

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The researcher has the following purpose in mind for embarking on this research

1. To establish that the ruling classes indirectly encouraged and sustained dominate the minority groups.
2. To establish that Nigeria was colonized by Britain and were ruled indirectly this made them to influence ethnicity in Nigeria.
3. To examine the extent the ethnic politics has led to under development of the nation.
4. To improve that the purpose of democracy in any given nation is to enforce free participation of the citizens in the affairs that concerns each tribe or those minority groups which expresses equity and fair judgment.

1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This research project is concentrated in the three major operation tribes in Nigeria namely Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa including the Efik, Tiv etc.

However, the researcher encountered such limitations of most of the required resources, materials, much stress from other academic obligation and inadequate financing.

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