AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECT OF ETHNICITY ON POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

An evaluation and understanding of the political development in Nigeria requires a consideration of the impact of ethnicity. Without doubt, one can say that ethnicity influences political development in Nigeria as several events and activities such as the civil war, creation of states and the formation of political parties can best be explained from the ethnic perspective. The questions which arises from this include; what are the factors that encourage ethnicity in Nigeria? What are the effects of ethnicity in Nigeria? And in what practical ways can ethnicity be best contained in Nigeria? The framework of analysis adopted by this study is the group theory which holds that in the society there are no effective individual interest, that every group has its interests, that these interests always result in group action and that there is no one group interest that includes everyone in the society. Furthermore, the primary and secondary methods of data collection were employed, administering questionnaires. The hypotheses of the research were formulated to determine whether the opinions about the relationship between ethnicity and political development were influenced by sex, religion or educational qualification. The test was conducted using the Chi- square method and findings reveal that there is a relationship between ethnicity and political development, but this opinion was not influenced by sex, religion or educational qualification and lastly the study arrived at the following recommendations: that leaders should look beyond ethnic differences and formulate unifying goals which will put ethnic sentiments as second place; Nigeria should discard the belief and notion of three main ethnic groups (Hausa, Igbo & Yoruba) in order to give the other numerous ethnic groups identity; and that federal character commission should be scraped so that employment or appointments should be based on merit and not based on quota system

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Nigeria is a multi-ethnic nation-state with socio-cultural differences among its component ethnic groups all of which have resulted into cultural dissimilarities. These cultural dissimilarities have been manifested by, the differences in culture which may include language, diet, dress and type of social system. The ethnic virus has been one of the most important causes of social crisis and political instability in Nigeria; and ethnicity has been perceived in general as a major obstacle to the overall politico-economic development of the country (Otite1990: 145). Unarguably, Nigeria is a country that is blessed with enormous human and material resources, but ironically, the same country has become the bastion of inequitable state policies, injustice, barefaced corruption, social decay, poverty-ridden, etc., where ethnicity has pervaded every facet of the Nigerian life, and more fundamentally determines who gets what, when and how (Lassswell,1950). Ethnicity has been considered to be the cause of the 1967-1970 Civil War in Nigeria, elections which have been rigged and those which have failed can be blamed on ethnicity, the manipulation of census figures can only be understood from the ethnic dimension. Therefore, this study seeks to provide answers to the following questions: What are the effects of ethnic politics in Nigeria’s political development?; why has ethnicity persisted in Nigerian politics?; what factors encourage ethnicity and ethnic politics in Nigeria? And in what practical ways could this ethnic coloration be contained. The objectives of this research work include: to assess the impact of ethnic politics in Nigeria’s political development; to investigate and recognise the role of ethnicity in Nigerian politics; to proffer possible solutions to the menace of ethnic politics in Nigeria. To achieve these objectives, the primary and secondary methods of data collection were employed. A total of 100 questionnaires were administered to collect data. The simple percentage and Chi-square methods were employed to arrive at the conclusion.

hypotheses:

1. Ho: The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is not influenced by sex in Nigeria Hi: The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is influenced by sex in Nigeria
2. Ho: The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is not influenced by religion in Nigeria Hi: The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is influenced by religion in Nigeria.
3. Ho: The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is not influenced by educational qualification in Nigeria.
   HI The opinion about the relationship between ethnicity and political development is influenced by educational qualification in Nigeria.

CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

Just like every other concept in the social sciences, some concepts such as ethnicity, development, and political development have attracted several definitions from different scholars. These definitions are needed for proper understanding of the subject matter. Ethnicity Cox (1970: 317) sees ethnicity or ethnic group generally as a socio-cultural entity “while inhabiting the same state, country or economic area, consider themselves biologically, culturally, linguistically or socially distinct from each other and most often view their relation in actual or potentially antagonistic terms” Azeez (2004: 329) sees ethnicity as a sense of people hood that has its foundation in the combined remembrance of past experience and common aspiration. Development Development means the process by which people become better off. It can also be defined as the process of improving the quality of all human lives. One of the three important elements often emphasized in the consideration of the concept of development and which is relevant to us in this paper is the creation of conditions conducive to the growth of people’s self-esteem through the establishment of social, political and economic systems and institutions. Development has been defined as the widely participatory process of social and material advancement (including greater equality, freedom, and other values) for the majority of the people through gaining greater control of their environment (Rogers; 1976; Rodney; 1974: 3). Political development Political development refers to the development of the institutions, attitudes, and values that form the political power system of a society. Political development enhances the state’s capacity to mobilize and allocate resources, to process policy inputs into implementable outputs. This assists with problem-solving and adaptation to environmental changes and goal realization.

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