Since the inception of the Nigerian nation, the governments, past and present, have made serious efforts to propagate policies and programs that are geared towards national integration. Despite such well-intended and unity-oriented programmes and policies, Nigeria’s unity has continued to be plagued and threatened by embedded socio-cultural, religious and political dichotomies. Nation-building or national integration has long been seen as an important focus for postcolonial African governments. As some researchers and journalists noted, upon African decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s, social scientists were concerned about the need for what was then called “national integration” in societies with multiple ethnic, religious and racial cleavages.
Nigeria’s efforts at achieving national integration have remained largely unrealised. In their words, the history of democratisation in Africa, in general, and Nigeria, in particular, has remained the history of national disintegration. Thus, the integration crisis facing Nigeria is manifest in the minority question, religious fundamentalism and conflicts, ethnic politics, indigene-settler dialectic, resource control, youth restiveness and militancy and the clamour for a (sovereign) national conference or conversation about the terms of the nation’s continued unification.
While it is easy and very tempting to blame the colonialists for all of Nigeria’s woes, history and recent events in the country have revealed the covert selfishness, hunger for power and primitive accumulation exhibited by the political elite. Much worse than this, many political leaders exploit ethnicity for personal advantages. Consequently, the first hurdle in the path of national integration in Nigeria has been a regenerative breed of selfish and greedy political gladiators who seize power through the barrel of the gun or through stolen electoral mandates. As they competed for power, prestige and associated benefits, the political elite in a bid to secure the support of members of their own ethnic groups accentuate ethnic differences and demonize members of other ethnic groups. The brutal killings of the people in the North speak volumes of the naked motif of shambles in the nation’s security.
Secondly, corruption has so permeated the entire fabric of state that the issues that cause disaffection among ethnic nationalities in the country such as poverty, hunger, illiteracy and its attendant limited opportunities, unemployment, marginalization, infrastructural decay, homelessness and lack of access to quality health are products of corruption. Rather than look to the West to find solutions for corruption, Nigeria should begin to look to the East (Asia) where capital or severe punishment is meted out on corrupt state officials. Skewed federal system as it is being practiced in Nigeria today is another challenge for national integration. Studies have shown the failure of the federal system to address the question of unity, local rule and development in the country, federalism as it is presently practiced in Nigeria suffers because of lack of fiscal federalism, over-centralisation of power at the centre, laidback or non-viable states, absence of state police, among others. More importantly, federalism in Nigeria has failed to guarantee national integration on one hand and yet fails to guarantee local rule on the other hand. According to them, although Nigeria does not have a better option for democracy, it cannot continue to administer the polity based on the existing federal arrangement.
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The fear of losing control by the ruling class is another issue standing in the path of national integration in Nigeria. For many years now, the people of Nigeria have continuously canvassed for an opportunity to hold a national conversation to address the present political configuration called Nigeria all to no avail. That the ruling class in Nigeria inherited a state structure and has left it without any form of modification or moderation up until now.
Another hurdle to realizing national integration in Nigeria is the existence of weak institutions of the state. It seems these institutions are kept weak to feather the political and economic fortunes of the ruling class.
Whereas, Nigeria is a multicultural society, a conglomerate of nations with different peoples and cultures, a basket of different religions and world-views and a country with the diverse expectations of its people. As a recipe for Nigeria’s growth and development, and by extension cohesion, there must be the need to recognize that none of the ethnic groups, big or small, shares a uniform dream about Nigeria. This is because the ethnic groups’ worldviews are completely different such as their expectations from their leaders, their notions of government, their moral standards, their perceptions and understanding of religion, their ideas of how to live and regulate their lives and their goals and missions as ethnic nationalities.
Nigeria’s heterogeneity can be seen in this wise: whereas one group would want their children to go to school, some others would want theirs to go to the farms and mosques; while a group could relate with men of another faith without any friction, another is odiously intolerant; while some are willing to move along with the twenty-first century and be a part of the world, others want to bask in the bliss of the blind Stone Age. These choices are not wrong in themselves, ethnic groups must be allowed to make their different choices, being different people with different cultures, dreams, hopes and aspirations.
In order to achieve national integration, therefore, not only must the government reel out fantastic policies and programmes, it must begin to build enduring institutions bigger and more powerful than the leadership. The leadership must become more accountable to the people and those members of the ruling class who fan the embers of hate, exploitation, ethnicity, marginalization and underdevelopment must be made to face the full wrath of the law. Corruption which has become endemic must be fought until it is either eradicated or forcibly punished so that those who engage in it do so at their own risk. Mass mobilization of the hoi polloi is necessary to reorient them with the right values consistent with a modern and emerging economy.
Nigeria’s diversity is not the problem, the managers of the state are. Nigerians must arise from the ashes of fear, wrongly inspired awe for political leaders and timidity and begin to make demands on the political leadership on what they want. For instance, the recent outpouring on topical issues sent an eruptive message to the ruling class that the people would no longer sit idly and watch them ride the country aground. The time to question the artificiality of Nigeria and to demand for a tinkering of this mammoth political edifice in line with the expectations of the Nigerian people is now. To claim this victory, the people must lead this vanguard of change.
Felix Oladeji wrote from Lagos
