Ethnic structure, inequality and governance of the public sector in nigeria

Abstract

"Nigeria is a country characterized by intense ethnic polarization and conflict. This is apparent from the submissions by various ethnic and regional groups to the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC), set up in June1999 as the country returned to democratic politics after many years of military dictatorship. Complaints of genocide, political, economic and social strangulation and marginalization of the Igbo were made by the leading Igbo elite organization, Oha-Na- Eze Ndi Igbo [Oha-Na- Eze, 1999]. This drew sharp rebuttals and counter allegations of Igbo political and economic domination and political violence from the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the leading ethno-regional organization of the elite of the former Northern Region [Arewa, 2001a; 2001b]. Similar counter allegations came from the ethno-regional organization of the ethnic minorities in the south of Nigeria, the South-South People’s Conference [South-South, 2001]. Other ethno-regional groupings were also drawn into the claims and counter-claims of ethnic domination and marginalization [Afenifere, 2001; Jacomb, 2001]. These relatively recent developments only confirm the fact that ‘inter-ethnic rivalry for domination’ is a ‘fatal affliction’ of the Nigerian political process [Afigbo, 1989, 4]. But how has ethnic mobilization and confrontation manifested itself in the multi ethnic setting of Nigeria? The estimated population of Nigeria in 2001 is 116.6 million [FRN, 2001, 123], making the country the most populous in Africa. The common myth is that Nigeria has 250 ethnic groups. Some estimates put the number at over 400 [cf. Bangura, nd]. The sociologist, Onigu Otite, has provided an authoritative list of 374 ethnic groups [Otite, 1990]. This confusion over numbers has as much to do with problems of classification and data gathering as with the tendency for ethnic segments to coalesce or differentiate in the face of economic or political developments. It is not unheard of for groups known under an accepted ‘umbrella’ identity to fragment into their composite identities as a result of political and administrative developments [Mustapha, 2000]. There is common agreement, however, that these ethnic groups are broadly divided into ethnic ‘majorities’ and ethnic ‘minorities’. The numerically – and politically - major ethnic groups are the composite Hausa-Fulani of the north, the Yoruba of the southwest, and the Igbo of the southeast. These three ‘hegemonic’ ethnic groups are popularly referred to by the generic term ‘wazobia’. Centres of large population concentrations coincide with the homelands of these three majority ethnic groups who constituted 57.8% of the national population in the 1963 census [Afolayan, 1978; 147 & 155]. That census has the Hausa at 11,653,000 (20.9%), the Yoruba at 11,321,000 (20.3%), and the Igbo at 9,246,000 (16.6) [Jibril, 1991, 111]. All the other ethnicities constitute different degrees of ‘minority’ status. There are ‘large minorities’ like the Ijaw, Kanuri, Edo, Ibibio, Nupe, and the Tiv. Eleven of such large minorities constituted 27.9% of the population in the 1963 census [Afolayan, 1978; 155]. However, since minority status is both a numerical and a political category, often underlined by administrative and economic disadvantages, the bulk of the over 200-odd minority groups shade into different degrees of ‘minoritiness’."(pg 1)