ETHNICITY AND NIGERIAN POLITICS

ETHNICITY AND NIGERIAN POLITICS
By Sam Onimisi
This piece will commence by assuming that we all know what ethnicity means and by way of introduction, the word ‘ethnic’ relates to a group of people having a common national or cultural tradition and denotes origin of birth or descent rather than by present nationality. It denotes a large group of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic and or cultural origin and background. According to an authority, to understand ethnicity, it has to be “related” to self-identity systems, stereo-typing, class systems, systems of resource competition, and systems of political and economic domination and change.”
If politics is the art or science of guiding or influencing governmental policy and; of winning and holding control over a government, then ethnicity which seeks self-identity cannot be separated from politics. Competition for power and the quest for economic advantage and socio-cultural dominance by each ethnic group in a polity are legitimate expectations in a plural or heterogeneous country such as Nigeria. In this competition for power and if it is to be democratic, no ethnic nation is expected to be restrained by artificial or arbitrary rules, except those natural restraints imposed by numerical strength and the most accepted ideology.
In order to attain an ideal equal access in the competition, there ought to have been an agreement by all ethnic nations in the polity with regards to the terms of: co-habitation, terms of efforts and reward, rules of competition and engagement and penalties for breaches etc. In all these, it is taken for granted and most times, expressly so – that each ethnic group in the polity was and remains autonomous, to some extent. In the absence of any agreement accented to by all ethnic groups in the polity, political practice tends to be characterized by ethno-centric attitude, which suggests that one’s own group is superior.
Nigeria is a country coupled together by foreign powers whose hundreds of ethnic nationalities never really sat together to agree on how to co-habit. What passes for dialogue were the so-called London constitutional conferences of 1957/58. Neither the constitution emanating from those conferences or subsequent ones answers to this basic agreement. This is because the various ethnic groups were under foreign subjugation and so had no free will to resist or contest the provisions of those constitutions. This implies that the existing Constitution is not only imposed, it has proved inadequate and unacceptable to the extent to which it has failed to address or mitigate our differences.
It means that our democratic experiment or experience may never come of age if the various ethnic groups have no acceptable agreement on co-habitation – given the pretence that now goes for Constitution. Whatever the National Assembly comes up with as amendments to the Constitution will only worsen the worthlessness of the 1999 Constitution and not improve it. And why not? A Parliament is not the same thing as a Constituent Assembly, and the current Parliament is a product of the imposed 1999 Constitution and a fraudulent 2007 election. They therefore lack the mandate to make or amend fundamental laws such as the constitution. But this is only a necessary digression, if only to underscore the fact that no concrete steps has been taken to make a nation out of Nigeria.
This country exists only in name and as a geographical expression. The quest for relevance by many ethnic groups has given rise to mutual distrust and disharmony. Labels such as the ‘North’ or the ‘South’ are meaningless and deceitful diversion from the defects afflicting Nigeria. As a non-nation but a mere country, Nigeria is a nation only to foreigners or while one is abroad; but inside the country, everyone knows to which ethnic nationality he belongs.
Even the nebulous National Assembly is a congregation of strangers the moment the alien language of English is removed as a means of discourse. Which is why they often resort to fisticuffs to settle (more often unsettle) issues among themselves. Law-making is reduced to pool-betting rather than resolution of problems. On their jumbo allowances, they don’t disagree. On their privileges and allocation of offices and positions to their kin, there is little disagreement. How could they even make good laws when they represent only themselves? Beyond their individual gains, there is no consensus on how Nigeria should be developed. Such is the fate of a nationless country.
When you hear people fighting for the North or the South, it is a push of their ethnic agenda and an evidence of ethno-centrism and a vote of no hope in Nigerian ‘nationhood’. A nationless state lacks the patriotism to sustain common values, create and maintain commonwealth and so, adopts ad hoc method or solution to lingering problems. In a nationless country, citizenship is meaningless, for you don’t even know the nation ‘Nigeria’, not to talk of being one of her citizens.
Because no one owns Nigeria, no one is loyal to her. Everyone looks for what he/she can take out of her, take it to his/her family and ethnic nation for enjoyment. In such political clime, patriotism is meaningful only when it leads to your stomach –which is that each person is patriotic to his/her interest only, not to an entity called Nigeria.
No one is obliged to maintain or secure public infrastructures, for they belong to no one in particular. No one keep faith with another, except when they are of the same ethnic nationality. This is why public officials’ breaches public trust and official oath at will.
When it is said that Nigeria could become a failed state, it is not a death wish by an enemy. It is the result of the mass failure in all areas of development and the fact that nothing is on-going by way of public policy implementation that is capable of reversing the tide to extinction. Right now, Nigeria is ranked as the 14th most likely to-fail country in the world! Think of it. The last civil war was fought and ended 40 years ago. Yet, visitors from other countries often asked whether our roads were bombed in a recent war, given their deplorable condition.
Where there is no discussion, there can be no agreement. If there is no agreement, harmony cannot be achieved. Where there is no harmony, there can be no unity and in the absence of unity, disunity and chaos reign supreme. Power is sweet, but it has to be shared to be enjoyed, since no one ethnic group owns the whole of Nigeria. Let each retain its internal autonomy and let us agree on how to run the whole. Assumptions and pretentions only hasten the ruin. Must we ruin Nigeria?