



































STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS


STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

1 
 

 

  

STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: 

Religion & Ethnicity 

AS IDENTITY  

POLITICS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INNOCENT-FRANKLYN EZEONWUKA  PhD, MHS 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

2 
 

 

© INNOCENT-FRANKLYN  EZEONWUKA  PhD, MHSN 

08033096134 

egbuacho@gmail.com 

 

VOL. 1, August 2018 

 
 

ISBN: 978-978-56834-6-2 

 

 

 

All Rights Reserved 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a 

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, 

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise 

without the prior permission of the copyright owner. 

 

 

Published by: 

 

Arise and Shine Press, 

C.M.O. Shopping Complex, Regina Ceali Road, 

Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria. 

08067561837, 08066671534 

 

 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

3 
 

 

 

 

DEDICATION 

In loving memory of my Dad, Chief I.A. Ezeonwuka  

(Your dreams are on course!) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

4 
 

 

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Along the course of my bumpy scholarly excursion, my 

gratitude goes to my God and creator, who is my all. J.C. and 

my mercurial children are not forgotten, while Pat, Chike and 

Chinwe remain strategically available. Noble lady Alice 

Ezeonwuka, already in your Nineties; thanks mum for your 

prayers! 

To my friends, though the roll-call is challenging, I must 

continue to wish you good!    

 

INNOCENT-FRANKLYN EZEONWUKA PhD, MHSN 

 

 

 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

5 
 

 

PREFACE 

From 1914 when the Nigerian project came into being, and up 

till the present, it has continued to subsist on a faulty 

conspiratory agenda. In a human body, auto-rejection 

becomes a life threatening course when there is practically no 

desire or will to tryout other reasonable alternatives. Humans 

are driven by interests, and the ambivalence of human 

interests is not questionable. Since the actualization of these 

interests are dictated by the chess game that is socialization 

and politics, the focal point must revolve on identity consult. 

Under identity, the persona, selfhood and socio-cultural 

appurtenances inextricably linked to issues of power, value 

systems and ideology revolve. Identity is undoubtedly a 

historically and socially constructed concept. Nigeria’s 

redundant mission in state craftry and development is 

cumulatively systemic, and the prognosis is simply poor. 

Clandestine external interests have continued to stoke the 

sharp edges of prebendal divisions domestically, thereby re-

enacting national discord, suspicion and acrimony. No true 

Nigerian identity and patriotism can emerge as long as 

religion remains the ‘opium’, that is made to run through the 

ethnic arteries of the disparate peoples occupying the 

innermost part of the Gulf of Guinea   

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

6 
 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

 

DEDICATION      3 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS    4 

PREFACE       5 

 

CHAPTER ONE:      

Introduction       7 

Conceptual Clarifications    13 

Theoretical Guide     19 

CHAPTER TWO: 

The Politics of ‘Hide and Seek’    27 

CHAPTER THREE: 

Structural Implosion      38 

CHAPTER FOUR:     

Implications (Reflections)    56 

CHAPTER FIVE: 

Conclusion and Recommendations    83 

 

 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

7 
 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE 
INTRODUCTION 

 

Some nations and sovereignties may have to pass through 

persistent, complex and terrible revolutionary challenges 

before attaining cohesion and development, while a few 

others may not. The complexities and dimensions manifested 

by the litany of crises and disturbances within the Nigerian 

polity points to deep-seated lack of trust, suspicion and an 

eclipse of fraternal confidence amongst the diverse cultural 

and religious entities inhabiting the area. These discordant 

tunes have continued to exert its toll considerably on human 

and material resources, hence a deadly threat to the 

functionality and structural existence of the country. Ethno-

religious divide remain the identified issue, fanned by 

indoctrinated stereotype and primordialism. Unfortunately, 

Nigeria has remained one of the most controversial plural 

societies in the world today. Pre and post-independence in 

1960, the annals of Nigeria’s history is replete with ethnic-

oriented disturbances. Ethnic chauvinism, in addition to many 

ethical crises are created, setting off multiple ripples. The 

‘one Nigeria’ mantra has become nothing but a pure sarcasm, 

just as unity and peace in Nigeria appears dead. Ethnic 

politics and polarization along primordial cleavages is not 

new in Nigeria, but the dilemma is the momentum with which 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

8 
 

 

it is unfolding, day by day. Fairness, equity and meritocracy 

have been banished on the altar of faulty federalism. All these 

have bequeathed on the nation incongruous and inept 

leadership with myriads of negative implications. There is 

practically no Nigerian in Nigeria, and this is daily stringently 

propelled by the challenges of massive population growth, 

unimaginable rate of unemployment and insecurity, added 

with the ever rising debt profile.  

Most scholars are of the view that British imperial presence 

had been felt in the area that later became Nigeria as from the 

middle of the 19th century. The same set of scholars also 

accent to the fact that despite the above, British colonial 

administration officially commenced in Nigeria on 1st 

January, 1900 vis a vis the eventual termination of the Royal 

Charter previously granted the Royal Niger Company to 

administer the area on behalf of the British government. To 

effectively secure administrative convenience, imperialist 

Britain not only adopted the policy of divide and rule, but 

went deeper into the colonial scheme by applying the 

marriage of convenience of primordially independent 

nationalities. Thus Britain deliberately placed some ethnic 

nationalities at vantage positions over the existing groups, 

since this lopsided arrangement was done without 

consultations from involved groups. Such was the 

amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates in 

1914. It may be poignant to note that prior to this incident, 

through the Land and Native Rights Ordinance of 1910, the 

British Colonial Power not only tried to separate the Northern 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

9 
 

 

ethnic groups from their Southern compatriots, but went 

ahead to discourage the migration of Southerners to the North 

(International IDEA, 200:23). This policy gave birth to the 

Sabon Gari System that became prevalent in many Northern 

Nigeria cities as from 1911. Such divisiveness aided British 

perpetual grip and manipulation of Nigeria.  

Nevertheless, ample historical evidences show that 

‘Nigerians’ have fairly interrelated harmoniously for 

centuries, before being brought together in a new modern 

nation state, but the caveat is not on the basis of ethnicity or 

religion. Expatiating on this, Usman stated that: 

The privacy source of our history showed 

that the fluid boundaries of the ethnic divide 

were very rarely conterminous with the 

boundaries of the polities, intensive 

migration, extensive networks of division of 

labor and commerce did not allow for the 

emergence of ethnically monolithic polities. 

(Usman, 2002:17). 

Ethnicity, ethnic politics and religious bigotry became lethal 

weapons purposely to create evidence-based fruits of the 

divisive and discordant seeds sown by imperialist Britain 

which emphasized cultural and linguistic differences 

(Hamman, 2003:10), hence condensing and raining socio-

political upheavals in Nigeria. Cultural and linguistic 

differences were glaringly emphasized, while communal 

sentiments got encouraged (Nnoli, 1978:113); mistrust and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

10 
 

 

suspicion came to the fore, leading to the poisoning of inter-

ethnic relations within and between Nigeria’s regions. It was 

therefore the colonialist that created Nigeria’s ethnic 

consciousness through the use of local authority structure of 

divide and rule, and as the indigenous political class 

intensified their struggle to inherit power from the departing 

colonialist, ethno-religious cleavages got aggravated. 

Nigeria’s political history is replete with British and self-

inflicted errors and anomalies which got willfully absorbed 

into its pathology overtime. In its more than 58 years of 

existence post its pseudo-independence, Nigerians have had 

to contend with the vicious vissititudes of the 1960s political 

unrests, a 30 months genocidal civil war, miss-rule, 

suppression and oppression under the almost 30 years military 

administration, terrorism, human rights abuse, poverty and 

classical underdevelopment. The ambitious military in their 

ignoble incursion into governance on the platform of their 

spurious claims, ended up heightening and fuelling ethnic 

polarization and democratic agitation in the country. Ethno-

religious identity became the footstool of these Generals; 

hence a scholar was irked to lend credence to this noting that; 

  The escalation of ethnic and regional 

symbolism can also be connected to the 

patronage of sectarian, ethnic and religious 

organizations and the extension of largess to 

their leaders by the regimes of General 

Babangida and Abacha, which went around 

in circles looking for legitimacy even at the 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

11 
 

 

expense of undermining national unity. They 

made ethno-religious basis relevant in the 

recruitment of their agents (Kazah-Toure, 

1999:144). 

Amidst myriads of absurdities and national governance anti-

thecal to internationally acceptable human standards, Nigeria 

has staggered into its fourth republic all the more dazed with 

unprecedented level of ethno-religious altecation, violence 

and mayhem. The Boko Haram continuous depredations 

mostly in Nigeria’s North-East is turning out to be a child’s 

play vis a vis the emerging trend of ethnic and culture-group 

oriented killings and cleansing enveloping certain parts of the 

nation’s Middle belt region, including some parts of the core 

Northern States. It is sad to observe that this scenario is 

hatched and executed over an atmosphere of grave state 

silence and non-intervention. Nigeria is bleeding profusely, 

and sentiments are emotionally feeding fat from the daily 

butchery of fellow paternal relations and religious adherents 

in cold blood.  

In the midst of this squalor, Nigeria’s democratic aberration 

has continued to midwife the nation’s political challenges to 

grow in leaps and bounds so much so that apart from the 

military imposition of the 1979 Constitution on the populace, 

the emergent political parties post 1979, have continued to 

tow the ethnic angles (Unity Party of Nigeria-West, Nigeria 

People’s Party-East, National Party of Nigeria-North). While 

hinging on this development, it may be recalled and asserted 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

12 
 

 

that post-independence in the 1960s, Nigeria’s nationhood 

took the slippery political road of nepotism, ethnocentrism 

and primordial inclinations, hence this polarity vehemently 

became manifest in the Igbo Union from the East, the Arewa 

group from the North and the Omo Oduduwa from the West, 

among others. Suffice it to say that the existing political 

parties then, either by design or coincidence, ended up towing 

these ethnic colourations. This bad sequel ended up creating 

an atmosphere of distrust. Presently, in the year 2018 to be 

precise, Nigeria could boast of harbouring 91 registered 

political parties, a population of more than two hundred 

million citizens and a prospective economic base; but the 

drawback on its developmental strides is its stereotyped 

ethno-religious inclinations, hence the political class, the elite 

and the leadership steering the ship of state have largely 

remained retrogressive, disoriented and incongruent to the 

needs and demands of 21st century nationhood. When 

leadership impunity remains widespread, the judicial and 

legislative caution, control and regulation appear a mirage, an 

atmosphere of political apathy and hopelessness is bound to 

dominate the land, moreso where the polity appears over-

policed, but simply under-secured.  

The citizenry are bound to react in various ways, either 

through political dejection and apathy or organized agitations 

and demands for better alternative conditions in the face of 

perceived abject state marginalizations. These agitations have 

grown over the years in both complexities and sophistication, 

from passive to violent formats in almost all parts of Nigeria 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

13 
 

 

– from the terror-laden approach of the Boko Haram in the 

North East, to the threat-based strategy of the Indigenous 

People of Biafra in the South East and the melodramatic 

approach of the Odua People’s Congress of the South West to 

mention but a few; Nigeria’s political environment is simply 

in a combustible mode. In the midst of this agitations, 

consultations still engage the many polarized ethno-religious 

groups operating within the Nigerian environment – 

AREWA, OHANEZE, PANDEV, AFENIFERE, MEND, The 

Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Supreme 

Council for Islamic Affairs.When many groups agitate and 

clamour for self-determination or restructuring at the same 

time within a particular political polity, the problem must be 

endemic and terminal, hence the dire need for sincere 

observation and proportionate attention. Stereotyped Nigeria 

factually is wallowing in the challenges of ethnicity, religious 

inclination and primordialism, hence lacking in a clear-cut 

political identity, since the interactive currencies are fear, 

prejudice and discrimination.  

 

 

 

 

CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS 

Stereotype 

The term ‘stereotype’ was first introduced by a journalist, 

Walter Lippmann, who referred to it as ‘the picture in the 

head’ that you have of a particular group of people (Smith: 

1998). Once aware that a person belongs to a particular group, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

14 
 

 

one tends to ascribe to him behaviour considered in the 

common group. A stereotype is a set of characteristics 

attributed to all members of same group, which characteristics 

that departs from ‘reality’ through restructuring, curtailing 

and deforming it (Preiswerk et al: 1978). The user of the 

stereotype often believes he is giving a straight forward 

description, infact, he places a mold over a reality, which that 

mold cannot contain. (Preiswerk et al: 1978). There are both 

negative and positive stereotypes. It helps people predict the 

behavior of the person, group or community they are 

observing. The importance of predicting or informing 

someone’s behavior could be one of the reasons why a 

stereotype maybe maintained despite evidence of its 

inaccuracy. Whether positive or negative, stereotypes are 

considered to be very harmful, because it takes away one’s 

ability to treat each member of a group as a distinct 

individual. (Inweregbu, 2006). Whereas historians are of the 

opinion that stereotypes spring from past events, from the 

political point of view, it could be a means by which groups 

in power come to rationalize war, religious intolerance and 

economic oppression (Sharon et al: 1979).   

Religion 

Religion maybe explained as a cultured system of designated 

behaviours, practices, supplications, world views, texts, 

sanctified places, prophesies, ethics or organizations that 

claims to relate humanity to certain powers above him, 

including the supernatural, transcendental or spiritual 

elements (Ezeonwuka, 2018:15). An elusive and imprecise 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

15 
 

 

concept, religion lacks objectivity and is largely driven by 

emotion (Egwu, 2001, Agarwal et al, 1994). Adeniyi (1993), 

attempted a contribution to this concept when he defined 

religion as a body of truths, laws and rights by which a man is 

subordinated to a transcendent being. Drawing similar 

conclusions, Peter (1998), conceptualized religion as a system 

of symbols which act to establish powerful, pervasive, long-

lasting mood and motivations in men, by formulating 

conceptions of a general order of existence, and clothing these 

conceptions with such an aura of factuality that moods and 

motivations seen uniquely realistic. Alanamu (2004), prefers 

seeing religion as involving both the material and the spiritual 

context; exhibits institutions and officials on the one hand, 

while undertaking the spiritual engagement on the other, 

thereby claiming to be characterized by supernatural and 

sacred transcendalities simultaneously.  

Though there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely 

constitutes a religion, one thing is clear; faith plus reason 

enmeshed in sacred histories and narratives, accompanied by 

prayer patterns, rituals, sacrificial ways, commemoration and 

veneration of deities, all aim to give meaning to life. This 

bond between man and higher beings elicits virtue and awe 

vis a vis the individual’s broad social obligations to family, 

neighbours and then God. Religion, just like nationality, race 

or ethnicity, creates and involves a distinct identity built and 

sustained by doctrines. Emotions, expressions, anxieties and 

misfortunes, including the unknown bedeviling human 

existence are easily accommodated and packaged into ideals, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

16 
 

 

and such utopian imagery remains the pivotal force, strongly 

convincing and embellished with euphoric assurances of 

superfluous rewards, mostly under extreme application, 

beclouds rational thinking, hence could comfortably drive and 

determine individual or group actions. Most world religions 

demand total compliance and obedience to certain dogmatic 

principles. Of great importance are certain lofty mundane 

observances and promises which equip devotees with the 

singular conviction that theirs is the ultimate, hence every 

other religion is a farce. Religion is the end product of not 

only man’s fear of the unknown, but his acknowledgement of 

the ‘possibility of a superior being’ that could be involved in 

deciding or relatively manipulating not only his earthly life, 

but his eternity. Sequel to the selfish and exploitative 

tendencies imbued in man, religion provides the platform for 

not only a pyramidal leadership, but the smooth and pervasive 

indoctrination and control of followership by a select few 

through stipulated dogma, preserved and protected with 

‘invoked awe’. 

Religious intolerance is blind refusal to understand, respect 

and [accommodate] views or positions that are opposed to 

one’s cherished religious views (Alanamu, 2006:607). Along 

the same pedestal, Ekwunife submits that, religious 

intolerance is a blind and fixated mental and psychological 

negative attitude towards religious beliefs and practices 

(Ekwunife, 1993:20). Such negative attitudes exhibit 

themselves in situations whereby leaders or groups in any 

society blindly refuse to understand and respect contrary 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

17 
 

 

religious views and practices, except the ones they consider to 

be true. Intolerance could degenerate further and deeper into 

series of violence and utter destruction of lives and properties, 

when driven by extremism or fundamentalism. At this 

juncture, action becomes deliberate, accompanied by suicidal 

recourse most especially when a particular individual or 

group selfishly and dangerously manipulate this ‘opium’ with 

their wand, after all, the available raw materials (the ignorant 

and uneducated poverty-stricken gullible masses are in 

abundance (Ezeonwuka, 2014:46). In the context of this 

study, with due reference to place and time, militant Islam 

with its contemporary global resurgence and sectarian 

depredations presents a perfect picture.  

Ethnicity  

Ethnicity has a common meaning, though various analysts 

and scholars on the subject have approached it through 

various schools of thought: Instrumentalism, Essentialism, 

Constructivism and Institutionalism. The instrumentalists are 

of the view that ethnic differences are manipulated by the 

ambition of individuals to attain their selfish interests. 

Essentialism refers to the principle of primordialism, which 

implies that ethnic identities are unchanging. The third 

intends on having knowledge of the origins of ethnic groups, 

and has linked this identity ‘constructs’ or ‘invent’ to the 

activities of colonialists, missionaries, among others. 

Institutionalists, states the pivotal roles of political institutions 

and policies in the shaping of ethnic relations. The concept of 

ethnicity is undoubtedly a social phenomenon associated with 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

18 
 

 

certain levels of distinctiveness, communal segregation and 

competition among members of different ethnic groups. It 

draws a significant picture of belonging to and having 

sentimental loyalty to a group, and in drawing and exercising 

such attachment, identity and exclusiveness would easily 

provide distinctiveness and sacrosanct pride. Laying more 

credence to this, (Sanda, 1972:32) posits that an ethnic group 

consists of interacting members who define themselves as 

belonging to a named or labeled social group, with whose 

interest they identity, and which manifests certain aspects of a 

unique culture, while constituting a part of a wider society. 

An ethnic group could refer to a set of people who share one 

or more of the following characteristics; race, religion, 

paternal origin, language and cultural traditions. Omu 

(1992:170), further expatiates that ethnicity applies to the 

consciousness of belonging to, identifying with, and being 

loyal to a social group distinguished by shared cultural 

traditions, a common language, in-group sentiment and self-

identity.It may be observed that the concept of ethnicity 

changes status or acquire passionate and aggressive attributes 

when new elements enter into the relationships. These 

elements include: socio-economic and political competition, 

fear of domination and closer group interaction, fostered by 

the logic of urbanization and internal migration. This 

development leads to the explosive interplay of inter-group 

relations to certain notational characters and features, such as 

ethnocentrism, prejudice and discrimination. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

19 
 

 

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to assume that one’s culture 

or way of life is superior to another’s. It is the tendency of 

human groups to judge external phenomena with reference to 

attitudes and values that are specific to the group, hence 

(Akinwumi, 2004) opine that ethnocentrism is an outlook in 

which one’s own group is the centre of everything, and all 

others scaled and rated with reference to it. It usually takes 

the form of a wariness and distrust of outside groups and a 

belief in the unquestionable superiority of one’s own people. 

Prejudice on the other hand is a negative attitude towards an 

entire category of individuals who have characteristics in 

common that is not shared by all people; as such it results in 

three components: affective, cognitive and behavioral. The 

affective component concerns how much the person likes or 

dislikes the attitude-object, person, group, things or situation; 

the cognitive component consists of the persons beliefs about 

the attitude/object, while the behavioral component concerns 

the way a person feels that he or she should act towards the 

attitude/object (Encyclopedia Americana 545a). 

Discrimination could be seen as any behavior that excludes 

members of a group from certain rights, opportunities or 

privileges resulting from prejudicial attitudes. It is assumed 

that in most instances, prejudice creates discrimination and 

people tend to associate better and easily with individuals 

who possess similar beliefs, attitudes and values. Dislike for 

members of another group is not merely on ethnic or group 

dissimilarities, but rather on perceived-belief dissimilarity. In 

ethnocentrism, both prejudice and discrimination hibernate 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

20 
 

 

and provide accelerative fuel and direction. Suffice it to say 

that the danger with ethnocentrism lies in the fact that an 

assumption often becomes a conviction; that the values and 

culture of one’s group are superior to those of others, while 

those of others are looked upon with disapproval, scorn and 

even contempt (Summer, 1955:10). On its positive side, 

ethnocentrism keeps a group together, while on the negative 

angle, it is the root of inter-group prejudices and antagonism. 

A group exaggerates its good qualities while deriding others, 

hence stimulating disharmony and altercation between 

groups. Eyo identifies psychological fear as the cause of 

ethnicity when he said: 

...at the root of ethnicity’s fear, fear of the 

unknown, fear of losing the predictability of 

one’s way of behavior..., fear of having one’s 

established values changed, thus cutting one 

adrift in a wider and more uncharted sea 

called Nigeria that seems to lack and 

articulate goal and value system, fear of 

competition for scarce resources and a lot of 

other fears that maybe explicit or implicit 

(Eyo, 1980:8). 

Tracing and highlighting one’s indigenous identity has 

continued to be a major priority amongst Nigerians, just as 

the anticipated unity and elasticity of nationhood has been 

buried, long gone and forgotten, hence ethnicity has given 

rise to ethnocentrism. Identity politics requires one to descend 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

21 
 

 

and highlight his primordial attachment which include 

thought pattern, language, laid down values, including 

biological affinity, which introduces once more the issue of 

ethnicity. Primordialism assumes ethnic identity as fixed, 

once it is constructed. To a large extent, belief in the 

primordialist argument of kinship, historical traditions and 

homeland accounts of several ethnic groups not only 

encourages, but creates an enduring strength and a lasting 

elastic commitment to an ethnic identity, hence it is more 

endearing than the ethnic theories of constructivism and 

instrumentalism. In the arena of identity politics, 

primordialism goes a long way in establishing the ‘dangerous’ 

and irreconcilable cultural differences between ‘us’ and 

‘them’. 

THEORETICAL GUIDE 
Since challenges could come in the form of discrimination, 

inhibition and antagonism, it pre-supposes that it could 

degenerate to violence (physical and psychological). The 

relevance of Marx’s class struggle, Frustration/Aggression, 

Interdependence/Mutual Aid, including the Hobbesian natural 

anarchy theories to this exposition is not in doubt, but it 

should be noted that consensus and conflict maybe polar 

opposites, but neither alone can offer full explanations for the 

changing nature, pattern and scope of inter-group relations in 

21st century Nigeria. Violence could be structurally 

rationalized on the basis of greed, grievances and the 

correction of prevailing social injustice and inequalities. 

Painting a picture simply based on the behavioural patterns of 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

22 
 

 

human societies with other groups, not only appears 

stratificatious in structure, but could end with limited 

perspective sequel to its myopic gaze on human relations 

based on role and statutes.  

Unarguably, this study falls within the armbit of Social 

Conflicts theories, and specifically closest to the 

Frustration/Aggression and Conflict Trap analytical fields. 

The subsisting ‘state of order’ in Nigeria is not only fragile, 

but cumulatively negates universally genuinely acceptable 

common standards, hence abundant vestiges of, and sustained 

evidence of ‘state terror’ on the citizenry have continued to 

create a psychopolitical chasm in the minds of the populace. 

Ill-motivated and uncared for, and with common expectation 

continuing to be distanced from attainment and actual need – 

satisfaction, the tendency and greater chances that anger and 

violence will result (Gurr, 1970:24). Aggression in which 

ever form it manifests, appears to always be the product of 

frustration, rather than a mere natural instinct or biological 

reaction, moreso where and when legitimate desires are for 

long directly or indirectly denied due to certain structural 

discrepancies within a society. This is apparently clear since it 

is known that the disparate culture groups within the Nigerian 

geographical space were selfishly lumped together in an 

imperialist ‘Pax Britanicca’ colonialist programme devoid of 

any indigenous awareness or consultations. The importance 

and place of socio-economic factors and forces in the 

contentious issues of politics, governance, religion and 

ethnicity, in many post-independent plural sovereignties 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

23 
 

 

remains a running sore. This becomes apparently trivial when 

evaluated with the stagnating identity of such economies, the 

former colonizing power is still allowed to exploitatively 

maintain a domineering influence through the imposition of 

preferred ethno-religious cleavages on the particular polity. 

Reactions to such could either be passively aggressive or 

locally violent, as a let out of prolonged feelings of 

frustration. One cannot easily ignore the recurrent emergence 

of the many ethno-religious inclined pressure groups whose 

antics and statements sometimes tend to challenge the 

structural fabrics of Nigeria’s nationhood and federation, just 

as the Boko Haram elements still remain focused on their 

violent strategy. Such groups as earlier mentioned include – 

AREWA from the North, Odua group (OPC) from the West, 

PANDEV from the Middle Belt, MEND from the South-

South, IPOB and MASSOB from the East, including the 

Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and the Christian 

Association of Nigeria. The Shiite and the Miyetti Allah  

imbroglio are not left out. 

Be that as it may, this study is fully anchored on Conflict 

Trap Theory. It is considered a functional apparatus criticus 

precisely because of its conceptional elasticity and heuristic 

coherence in the examination of a complex and multi-

dimensional phenomenon as ethno-religious challenges in a 

stereotyped colonially-contrapted bottled cultural diversity, 

moreso in a tactile and tangled 21st century global 

developments. Exponents of the Conflict Trap Theory include 

Harvard Hegre, U.L. Flliot, P. Collier, Aikle Ikeffler, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

24 
 

 

Reginald-Queroluid and Nicholas Sambanis. They opine that 

once a conflict has erupted, it tends to develop a momentum 

of its own. Peace seemingly becomes elusive and hard to 

restore. Even when peace is restored, it often does not endure 

(Collier et al. 2003). Conflict Trap exponents ascribe the 

lengthy pattern of typical conflicts to a number of 

interlocking factors, most especially, they believe that 

conflicts in multi-ethnic societies endure as a valuable tool for 

massaging, rallying, mobilizing and galvanizing ethnic 

sentiments for both the warring groups and the government. 

Moving on, they still contend that where the population has 

significant grievances, conflict serves as an effective political 

strategy towards the pursuit of their goal, objectives and 

interests, though the seeming difficulty for those in authority 

and power to concede to the demands of the group may not 

always be assured, since such may encourage the flowering, 

proliferation, mushrooming and radicalization of other 

groups, which often have opposing objectives. 

Again, a lengthy conflict is determined by the response of 

state institutions and apparatus, availability of fund for 

sustaining the conflict and accessibility of arms to the warring 

parties. When weak state institutions – security and legal 

departments prove incapable of deterring, apprehending, 

reforming or containing violators of the laws, belligerents 

tend to be emboldened and imperious, thereby widening and 

taking the conflict to the next level. A poignant referral to the 

lengthy pattern of conflict lies in the fact that such a conflict 

has occurred, a template is raised and established, hence 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

25 
 

 

making it difficult to return to status quo. In buttressing this 

view, Collier et al observed thus: 

Violence entrepreneurs, whether primarily politi

cal or primarily commercial may gain from 

conflict to such an extent that they cannot 

credibly be compensated sufficiently to accept 

peace. Those who see themselves as political 

leaders benefit from war because they can 

sustain their organization in hierarchical 

military style with power concentrated in their 

own hands (Collier et al, 2003:12). 

When violence leaders already perceive their selfish 

economic loss and redundancy when peace is arranged and 

achieved consciously or otherwise, their tantrums and 

cooperation may actually negate real peace. The strategic 

importance of, and the ontological demands of inter-group 

relations to Nigeria’s corporate existence and development vis 

a vis the sustained contemporary ethno-religious challenges 

and its wholesome implications to aspired nationhood can 

only be fully appreciated and evaluated with due recourse to 

underscoring and offering deep insight to the myriad of 

interlocking factors that sustain conflict. Conflict Trap Theory 

presupposes that once conflict has occurred, it lengthens and 

becomes challenging to restore peace on account of religious 

pluralism, proliferation of arms, existence of income 

disparities, weak state institution and the activities of criminal 

entrepreneurs. This tool, through its viable perspectives 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

26 
 

 

would help this study to appreciate the sustained stereotyped 

ethno-religious challenges in Nigeria as either perfunctory, 

deficient, restrictive, illuminating or contemporary. In so 

doing, the implicit fallouts would apparently become bare. 

 

REFERENCES 

Adeniyi, M.O. (1993) “Religion and Politics: A Birds Eye 

View of Development in Nigeria” in Akannmidu, 

R.A et al (eds.) Religion and Politics in Nigeria. 

Ilorin: Nigerian Association for the Study of Religion 

(NASR). 

Akinwumi, O. (2004) Crisis and Conflicts in Nigeria: A Politi

cal History since 1960. USA: Transaction Publishers 

Collier, Paul et al (2003) Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil 

War and Development Policy. Washington: the 

World Bank.  

Egwu, S.G. (2001) Ethnic and Religious Violence in Nigeria. 

Jos: St. Stephen Inc. Book House. 

Ekwunife, A. (1993) “Politics and Religious Intolerance: The 

Nigeria Situation” In Abubakre, R.D et al (eds.) 

Religion and Politics in Nigeria (Ilorin: NASR). 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

27 
 

 

Encyclopedia Americana (2015) Washington D.C.: Webster 

Publications Inc.         

Eyo, I.I. (1980) Article in Readings in Social Sciences 

(Amucheazi, E.C. Edition) Enugu: Fourth Dimension 

Publishers. 

Ezeonwuka, I.F. (2018) “Ethno-Religious Challenges in 21st 

Century Nigeria.” Practicum Psychologia. Journal 

Publication of the Department of Psychology, Nnamd

iAzikiwe University, Vol. 8 No. 1. 

Ezeonwuka, I.F.  (2014) Indoctrination: The Psycho-

Pathology of International Terrorism and Insurgency 

(The 5th Generation Wars) Practicum Psychologia 

Journal, Vol. 4. 

Gurr, T.R. (1970) Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton 

University Press. 

Inweregbu, A (2006) ‘Stereotypes and Inter-Ethnic 

Interactions in Nigeria: A Psychological Perspective’ 

in Akinwumi et al (eds.) Inter-Group Relations in 

Nigeria During the 19th and 20th Centuries. Makurdi: 

Aboki Publishers. 

Kazah-Toure, T. (1999) The Political Economy of Ethnic 

Conflict and Governance in Southern Kaduna, 

Nigeria: De-Constructing a Contested Terrain. Africa 

Development.Vol. xxiv, Nos. 1 & 2. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

28 
 

 

Nnoli, O. (1978) Ethnic Politics in Nigeria. Reverse Edition 

Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers. 

Omu, F. (1992) “Ethnicity, Nationalism and Federalism in 

Foundations of Nigerian Federalism1900 – 1960 vol. 

2 .J.I Eliagwu and R.A. Akindele (eds.) Abuja: 

National Council on Intergovernmental Relations. 

Peter, V.V. (1998) “Religion” in Barnard, A. et al (eds.) 

Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. 

NewYork: Routhedge. 

Preiswerk, R. and Penot, D. (1978) Ethnocentrism and 

History. New York: NOK Publishers. 

Sanda, A.O. (1972) ed. Ethnic Relations in Nigeria, Ibadan: 

The Caxton Press Ltd.  

Sharon, S. B. and Saul, M.K. (1979) Social Psychology. USA: 

Houghton Mifflin  

Usman, Y.B. (2002) “The Violent Communal Conflicts in the 

Central Nigerian Uplands and the Middle Belt Basin 

in a Historical Perspective” Paper Presented at the 

Presidential Retreat on Peace and Conflict Resolution 

in some Central States of Nigeria Institute for Policy 

and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Nigeria. 24th January, 

2002. 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

29 
 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO 
THE POLITICS OF ‘HIDE AND SEEK’ 

 

The greater challenge to the world community 

in this century is how to promote harmonious 

relations between peoples of disparate 

histories, languages and religions, who find 

themselves intertwined in a single state 

(Augustine, 2003). 

Starting from the colonial period, Nigeria has not only been a 

bad brand in homogenous plurality, but an item of display in 

ethnic rivalries; mainly between the Hausa-Fulani in the 

North against the Yoruba in the West, and the Igbo in the 

East. These ethnic polarizations from the beginning led to the 

creation of political parties which inevitably were polarized 

along stereotyped culture lines, hence divisiveness got 

entrenched in the political geography of the country. 

Possessing one of the highest number of political parties in 

the world, Nigeria’s developmental economy is repulsively 

retrogressive even with an estimated national population of 

above a hundred and eighty million in the first quarter of the 

twenty-first century. One may not be wrong to say that from 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

30 
 

 

on start, the contrapted effigy termed ‘Nigeria’ in 1914 had 

already started manifesting clear signs and symptoms of 

pathophysiological auto-rejection, even as it went through the 

political baptism of 1960 independence, onwards to the 

depredations of the ‘wild wild West’ in the western parts of 

Nigeria, the 1963 national census imbroglio, the emergent 

intractile corruption and nepotism, the January 15th 1966 coup 

d’etat, the penultimate Igbo pogrom, including the three years 

genocidal war against the Easterners of the 1960s. It may be 

recalled that Nigeria has along its course of history flirted 

with the Unitary System of governance, romanticized with the 

Parliamentary, while solemnizing with the Presidential 

system in its strides as a portent federation. Fully and 

odiously aware of its endemic problems and challenges, and 

ominously poised strategically towards entertaining and 

dislodging any potential proactive solution, the melodrama 

has been that of deceit and delay through the application of, 

and reliance on half measures. 

Even before 1960, Nigeria’s faulty physiognomy did create 

and stir worrying questions from many elites in the country’s 

North and South, but the British amoral and vaulting 

machinations and interests cocooned it. Separatists demands 

and yearnings got reclined, readjusted and fixated, opting 

rather to meander out as pacification from above in the form 

of ‘state creation’. Undoubtedly, this policy would have 

helped the nation’s democratic setting, by lending voice to the 

minority culture groups, but was later hijacked by the powers 

that be. Towards dousing fulminating tensions, emanating 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

31 
 

 

from perceived further political marginalisation, and geared 

towards maintaining Nigeria’s stability, the following 

technocratic prescriptions were administered as remedies – 

Federal Character Principle, Quota System and Resource 

Derivation Policy, among others. 

Dotted in the pages of pre-independence Nigerian history are 

the many ‘separatist’ musings and rantings, quelled and re-

packaged as ‘state creation movements and vanguards’. At 

the beginning of 1952, the following groups became 

vehemently occupied with this quest: Benin – Delta Peoples 

Party (BDPP), Calabar – Ogoja – Rivers Movement (COR), 

and by March 6th 1956, one Mallam Ibrahim Imam tabled a 

motion, requesting that the issue of the creation of Middle 

Belt State be officially considered on the floor of the Northern 

House of Assembly (Ekanade; 2015:158). In August, 1959, 

some Anioma Communities in the present day Delta and Edo 

States were carved out of the core Igbo heartland, despite 

protests from the Anioma traditional rulers then to the British 

Colonial authorities, while a large chunk of Ezza Community 

in the present Ebonyi State was allotted to the present day 

Benue State. 

The frenzy and incipient apprehension such moves stirred 

amongst the populace greatly generated dangerous passionate 

feelings of marginalization and domination in most minority 

culture groups, hence the Colonial government set up the 

Willinks Commission to ascertain the feasibility and strength 

of such agitations. Apart from acclaiming certain levels of 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

32 
 

 

credibility to these agitations by this Commission, coupled 

with the outright rejection of the Willink Commissions 

Boundary Adjustment Report by these agitators, it was 

observed that in the bizzare contests between the regions in 

the First Republic, politicians used ‘self-determination’ as a 

bait to attract minority voters away from the regional majority 

party (Peil; 1976:85). Since ‘rights’ drives the vehicle of 

justice, and since the issue of rights connote the unobstructed 

ability to choose or decide for oneself from a series of 

alternatives, chief amongst these rights just as the political 

discourse in the aftermath of the second World War put it, 

was the right of diverse people to self-determination. In 

Nigeria, issues of self-determination have been a perennial 

accoutrement of the country’s political architecture since the 

onset of the colonial state, hence in the immediate aftermath 

of the Amalgamation Act of 1914, a notable Northern 

nationalist, Ahmadu Bello, had insisted that; 

Lord Lugard and his Amalgamation were 

far from popular among us at that time. 

There were agitations in favour of secession, 

we should set up on our own, we should 

cease to have anything more to do with the 

Southern people, we should take our own 

way. (Tamuno: 1970). 

It has remained a proven fact that the sword of separation and 

self-determination have been brandished by the many 

minority groups in Nigeria early enough and by the bigger 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

33 
 

 

ethnic nationalisties – the Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, 

throughout the Colonial and immediate post-colonial era, 

(Dudley, 1982: 63; Ayoade, 1973:68; Suberu, 1999:391). The 

law of self-preservation spurs man to apply all his strength to 

abhor what will destroy him. This basic tendency towards 

securing life, its survival and flourishing are encapsulated in 

self-determination, and a tendency towards breaking away; an 

instinct of self-preservation, triggered by the fear of forces 

against human life. 

Shortly after Nzeogwu’s January 15th bloody coup, separatist 

demand assumed a militaristic, not an outright rebellious 

dimension. On February 23rd 1966 Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw 

former student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and an 

indigene of the Niger Delta Area, hastened to arms against the 

Nigerian State on the account of the deprivation of the region. 

Boro sought for the outright secession of the Ijaw nation from 

the Nigerian body politic, charging his men to ‘fight for your 

freedom’ (Kalu; 2008:175). By the same token, taking into 

cognizance the litany of events that cascaded the country 

eventually into a bloody civil war, and the resultant Igbo 

attempt to actualize their right to self-determination, rather 

than heed to the plain need for proper solution, the Gowon 

regime clandestinely complicated the problems through a 

nefarious state creation exercise. Apart from the creation of 

the twelve states imbroglio while hostilities raged on between 

the Eastern Region and the Nigerian government, a deliberate 

designated partitioning programme was strategically 

embarked on even as the war ended, to remove the Igbo 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

34 
 

 

advantage of posing as the highest oil producing region 

hence:- In 1976, Ahoada, Obigbo and Port Harcourt were 

ceded to Ijaw dominated Rivers State (Thus separating oil 

rich Obigbo in Aba division of old Imo State from their 

Ndoki and Azumini kith and kin); Olugbu an oil and gas rich 

Ndoki Community was ceded to Akwa Ibom State, the 

Egbema Community of old Imo State was balkanized into 

three parts, with the highest oil producing area ceded to 

Rivers State, whereas Ndoni who are kiths and kin to Ogbaru 

Community of Anambra State was carved out of Aboha, and 

ceded to Rivers State. 

Just as the ghost of self-determination and separation have 

been held down from Nigeria’s pre-independence period 

uptill the present twenty-first century, through the chess board 

of state creation and massive realignment of paternal 

affinities, the Quota System and Federal Character Principle 

became handy as veritable tools for domestic equity. This 

frenzy was fed by Northern fears, having been warned by the 

British ‘not to lose the Federal Civil Service in its anxiety to 

Northenise its own Service’, and afraid of Southern 

domination in an independent Nigeria (Albert, 1998). It may 

be recalled that in 1950, the North had at the Ibadan 

Constitutional Conference, through the Emir of Zaria, 

seconded by the Emir of Katsina raised the issue of equal 

representation for the North in the forthcoming central 

legislature, or in the alternative, the secession of the North 

(Osuntokun, 1979:101). Under the threat of Northern 

secession, the colonial government, the Eastern and Western 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

35 
 

 

regions quickly capitulated to the Northern demands of 

parliamentary equality to the South, hence other areas soon 

fell, to the quota system, like in the army (Adekanye, 1998; 

Adejumobi, 2002), and in office distribution (Orji 2008; 

Osaghae 1989). By the turn of the seventies, quota 

was being used actively for admission into tertiary federal inst

itutions (Mustapha, 2004:34). The overwhelm-ing Southern 

despondency with the quota was without doubt, but it was 

bound to remain largely helpless in the face of an 

overwhelming Northern Political strength, homogeneity and 

determination to prevent Southern political hegemony over 

the ‘Caliphate’. Despite its lack of motivation and spirit of 

competition in the sphere of national development, the 

military regime under Murtala Muhammed went on to garb 

and enshrine it into the Nigerian Constitution, under the guise 

of the Federal Character Principle.  

Since the Federal Character Principle oscillates on the 

pedestral of equitable resource distribution and 

representation, and since such does not necessarily translate 

into operating from the national ‘commanding height’, 

overtime, same minority groups vehemently instituted a 

sustained agitation (passive and aggressive) towards re-

addressing revenue distribution vis a vis resource derivation. 

In the unfolding eco-terrorism, many Niger Delta militants 

took up arms against the Federal Government and many lives 

and properties were lost. A rapprochement was adopted 

which not only allotted certain percentage to the source of the 

revenue, but granted a presidential amnesty and other 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

36 
 

 

motivational engagements to the youths of the Niger Delta 

region (oil producing communities). 

In discussing anything that has to refer to ethno-religious 

discrimination, marginalization, state creation movements, 

self-determination and separatist agitations in Nigeria, 

without prior and proper mention of the part played by the 

Igbo ethnic nationality, would simply be a ‘high sounding 

nothing’. The dramatic events starting from the failed January 

15th Nzeogwu Coup, the counter coup, the Igbo Pogrom in the 

North, the genocidal manifestations of the three years 

Nigeria/Biafra debacle, the post-war years of hardship and 

lack of inclusion, coupled with the painful unfolding game of 

marginalization and ‘holding the Igboman down syndrome’ in 

all fronts by the rest of the country, through a whole lot of 

discriminative organogram enshrined covertly into the 

Nigerian functional body politic, simply bear witness to the 

faulty federalism operating in Nigeria. Perhaps the most 

marginalized ethnic group in Nigeria, who have lost both 

identity, form and freedom may not be the Igbo, but the pure 

Hausa stock under the depredations of the marauding and 

subtle Fulani. Be that as it may, the many unfolding bizarre 

security challenges within the Nigerian nation in the 

contemporary twenty-first century have continued to query 

not only the supposed homogeneity of the Northern part of 

Nigeria as a viable political entity, but the puzzling doubts on 

the Nigeria project’s ability to sail securely through the 

troubled waters of international politics.  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

37 
 

 

Separatists and secessionist agitators have largely evolved, 

grown and solidified into portent destabilizing vanguards, as 

terrorists, extremist groups and passive/cocercive pressure 

groups. The actions and continued activities of the dreaded 

Boko Haram Islamic sect in Nigeria’s North East appears 

larger than life. Simply attacking and destroying lives and 

properties within the Nigerian enclave is not its mere 

ambition, but to establish and sustain an independent Islamic 

Caliphate, carved out of the country remains their mission and 

vision. One cannot equally lose sight of the prolonged and 

widespread depredations of the Fulani Herdsmen in Nigeria. 

Its continued socio-economic implication on Nigeria’s 

developmental gait remains deleterious. The immediate 

fallout of this Fulani Herdsmen imbroglio is the high 

rendition in the discordant ethno-religious tunes amongst the 

diverse primordial demarcations subsisting in the Nigerian 

environment, hence vehement reactions from the Plateau 

Peoples Development Association (PANDEV), Movement for 

the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and the Igbo 

Umbrella Socio Cultural Organization (OHANEZE). Against 

this backdrop, one must call into focus the sustained 

reactionary campaign conducted by both the Movement for 

the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) 

and in particular that by the Indigenous People of Biafra 

(IPOB) bent on Biafran self-governance through a United 

Nations organized referendum.  

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

38 
 

 

 

REFERENCES 

Adekanye, T. (1989) “The Quota Recruitment Policy: Its 

Sources and Impact on the Nigerian Military” in P.P. 

Ekeh. Federal Character and Federalism in 

Nigerian.Ibadan: Heinemanu. 

Augustine, Jean. (2003) The Canadian Secretary of State in 

an Opening Address, Delivered at a Conference on 

Aboriginal and Diversity Law Enforcement Respect 

in Service, Winnipeg, Manitoba, June 5th, 2003. 

Ayoade, J. (1973) “Secession Threat as a Rectressive 

Mechanism in Nigerian Federalism” Publius. Vol. 3, 

No. I (Spring). URL: https:jstor.org/stable/3329565. 

Dudley, B. (1968) Parties and Politics in Northern  Nigeria. 

London: Frank Cass. 

Dudley, B. (1982) An Introduction to Nigerian Government 

and Politics. Nigeria: Macmillan. 

Ekanade, O.V. (2015) “Nigerian Leaders, Proliferation of 

States and Federal Finance in Nigeria: 1955 – 1996” 

in Babatunde Sofola et al (eds.) Nigeria at 50, 

Politics, Society and Development. Ibadan: John 

Archers Limited.  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

39 
 

 

Kalu, N.K. (2008) State Power, Autarchy and Political 

Conquest in Nigerian Federalism. United Kingdom: 

Lexington Books. 

Mustapha, A.R (1986) “The National Question and Radical 

Politics in Nigeria”.Review of African Political 

Economy, 13(37). 

Mustapha, A.R (2004), “Managing Ethnicity in Nigeria: 

Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the 

Public Sector” Draft Report (UK University of 

Oxford). 

Orji, N. (2008) “Power Sharing: The Element of Continuity in 

Nigerian Politics” Ph.D  Dissertation. Budapest. 

Central University Budapest. 

Osaghae, E. (1989) “The Federal Cabinet 1951 – 1984” in 

P.P. Ekeh and Eghosa Osaghae (eds.) Federal 

Character and Federalism in Nigerian. Ibadan: 

Heinemanu. 

Osuntokun, J. (1979) “The Historical Background of Nigeria” 

Federalism in Bolaji Akinyemi et al (eds.) Reading 

on Federalism. Lagos: Nigeria Institute of 

International Affairs.  

Peil, O. (1976) Quoted in Alapiki, H.E. (2005) State Creation 

in Nigeria: Failed Approaches to National 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

40 
 

 

Integration and Local Autonomy. African Studies 

Review, Vol. 48 No. 3. 

Suberu, R. (1999) “Ethnic Minorities and the Crisis of 

Democratic Governance in Nigeria”. In D. Olowu, et 

al (eds.) Governance and Democratization in West 

Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA. 

Tamuno, T. (1970) “British Colonial Administration in 

Nigeria in the Twentieth Century” in O. Ikime (ed.) 

Groundwork of Nigerian History. 

Tamuno, T.N. (1970) “Separatist Agitations in Nigeria Since 

1914” Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol. 8, No. 

4 URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/159090. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/159090


STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

41 
 

 

CHAPTER THREE 
STRUCTURAL IMPLOSION 

 

This study couldn’t have come at a better period than now – a 

time of great distress and deep eclipse of hope and fraternal 

confidence in the body politic of Nigeria: the Presidency is 

subtly melancholic; the judiciary not just compromised, but 

steadily oozing out contradictory pronouncements and bench 

warrants that threaten the national redline; unimaginable level 

of youth unemployment and poverty in the land; the national 

economy and political terrain in a quagmire; the educational 

sector, visionless and missionless; the Nigerian citizens over-

policed but under-secured. Several works have been done on 

the subject of identity crisis as a product of ethno-religious 

challenges in Nigeria, and some have expectedly generated 

development debates. Though the present scope revolves 

within the 21st century, a deleterious historical damage would 

be created if this study fails to situate the contemporary 

ethno-religious challenges in Nigeria as a bonafide product 

traceable back to the 20th century. Post-independence, the 

horrendous experience of negative politicking as portrayed by 

the actors of the first, second, third and fourth republics, 

shows that no political party can be exonerated from the 

awful political ineptitude inherent in the practice of politics in 

Nigeria. Regardless of the many catalytic reasons feeding the 

orgy of ethno-religious conflagrations, selfish elites and 

ethno-religious entrepreneurs easily stoke the sentimental 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

42 
 

 

embers of ethnicity, religious schism, selective illusions and 

inferences largely lacking in balanced historical acuity to 

mobilize support and unleash mayhem on their perceived 

opponents. The twin problems of rigid identities and 

excessive religiosity remains a cancerous running sore in the 

survival gait of the Nigerian project, hence an observant 

analyst  reacted thus: 

A large proportion of able-bodied Nigerian 

youths are idle, unemployed, frustrated and 

aggrieved with the social system, and so 

remain willing and ready to be recruited 

and mobilized to engage in destructive and 

ethno-religious conflicts, because such offer 

them opportunity to break into public and 

private property and cart away whatever 

they can find (Imobighe, 2003). 
 

Much of these problems trace back to the post-colonial 

Nigerian State which is neocolonial, hence not focused 

towards solving the domestic problems (socio-economic), and 

by implication not poignantly and eloquently poised to 

reconcile conflicting claims between and betwixt the peoples 

of Nigeria, having been silenced and hounded with a ‘political 

unity’ by colonialist Britain. Indeed, at the twilight of the 20th 

Century, the preponderance of intra and inter-ethnic 

squabbles and inter-religious conflicts seriously diminished 

the sanctity of the state in Nigeria. Succumbing to the weight 

of these centripetal and centrifugal forces, sequel to lack of 

autonomy, as its legitimacy withered, the State promoted and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

43 
 

 

intensified primordial dispositions in the contestations 

amongst co-habiting groups for scarce resources and 

commanding positions; wild spread disenchantment, and 

feeling of alienation and cynicism for the government in its 

policies grew. When primordial loyalties became the defining 

variables for belonging, social chaos and anarchy cascaded 

the country to the 1967-70 civil war, the ethno religious 

mayhems of the 1980s and 1990s. Disturbingly, the state has 

responded to its loss of legitimacy by fragmenting the country 

into more states and local government areas to appease rival 

groups (Falola, 1998: 50).  

Nigeria is reputed to be the most crowded African country 

with a population of above 201 million, (World Population 

Prospects, 2019:21). The Demographic and Health Survey 

certify 53% as Christians, 45% Muslims and 2% as other 

religions. Similarly, as controversial as the following report 

could be, Afrobaro Pew forum declared 46% Christians, 52% 

Muslims and 1% for others in 2009 (Pew Research Center, 

2010). Whatever the exact percentage are, it is clear that 

Nigeria is a country with very large Christian and Muslim 

population. This situation makes Nigeria a potential fault line 

between Christians and Muslims. In this sense, Nigeria can be 

defined as a ‘Cleft Country’ and then a ‘test case’of 

Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations Thesis (Paden, 2006; 

Olojo, 2014:7).  

It is noteworthy that, within the wide Christian and Muslim 

categories, there lie many sub-cleavages and denominations 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

44 
 

 

potentially active politically as occasion demands. Among the 

Christians, potentially under – the Christian Association of 

Nigeria (CAN), the Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) 

and the Catholic Bishops Conference, salient intra-group 

disconnect remain. Amongst the Christian group are –

Anglican 10%, Baptist 8%, Methodist 5%, Lutheran 5%, 

(Protestant) the Catholics 15%, the Pentecostal Churches 

30%, and the Evangelical Church of West Africa 2%, 

Jehovah Witnesses 5%, Aladura, Cherubim and Seraphim, 

Celestial Church of Christ 20%. (Osaghae and Suberu, 

2005:11). However, these figures may appear controversial to 

some people, but it is not the crux of this study. Among other 

issues, it should be noted that Protestant – Catholic cleavages 

have continued to play an important role in elections among 

the Igbo communities living in the South East of Nigeria 

(Osaghae and Suberu, 2005:11). This is not only stereotype in 

action, but a serious psychosocial challenge. It is 

disheartening to reflect on the high level of nepotic and 

sectional discrimination subsisting amongst the Igbo States in 

the Nigeria’s South East blatantly brought to the fore by the 

antics of predominantly Imo and Ebonyi States.   
 

Potent Muslim sub-cleavages in Nigeria include Ahmadiyya 

12%, Sanusiyya 5%, Tijaniyya 3% and Quadiyya 8%. While 

the fundamental global historical polarity remains between 

the Iranian –backed Shiites, and the Saudi Arabian backed 

Sunni groups, one could helplessly observe a rising wave of 

new sentiments based on waahabi and salaafi ideologies vis-

à-vis sectarianism, Islamic theocracy and extremism, have 

evoked dangerous and suicidal orthodoxy in the largely 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

45 
 

 

Muslim North, at least promising to provide and console in 

eternity what the state has utterly denied them physically, 

hence the emergence of Boko-Haram, and allegiance of other 

groups to other international terror groups like the Taliban, Al 

Qaeda, Al Shabab, among others.  
 

Beside the dominant Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo ethnic 

groups, more than 250 smaller ethnic or culture groups exist 

in Nigeria. These populations operate under the religious 

identity of Christianity, Islam and traditional religions. 

Underlying the North-South cleavage in Nigeria is the 

problem of the inter and intra ethnic and religious divide and 

suspicion. This is obviously the problem of identity, and the 

manifest dimension since the beginning of the 21st century 

appears challenging to certain designated textbook analysis, 

hence Rothberg’s Nigerian stable identities and identity 

formation treatise (Rothberg 2002: 88) may have to be re-

examined. Nowadays, in such conflicts occurring along the 

convergence of ethno-religious lines, ‘it’s rather often very 

difficult to tell the differences between religious and ethnic 

crises, because the dividing line between them is slimmer 

than thin’. (Osaghae and Suberu 2005: 19; Enukora 2005: 

633). Ethnicity and religiosity have emerged as the most basic 

and politically ‘salient’ identities in Nigeria. Though both 

cleavages may sometime run parallel, religion remain deified 

and as an amplifier for mobilization, may be relevantly 

handy. 

SOME CASES OF ETHNO-RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN 

NIGERIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

46 
 

 

April 14th, 2000  Nassarawa-Agyaragu 

Crisis  

Over 150 persons killed, 

properties worth millions 
destroyed  

May 2000  Kaduna Sharia roits 

(Muslims and 
Chrsitains) 

Over 1,500 persons killed, 

properties worth millions 
lost  

October 2000  Lagos –Kano (Idi 

Araba/Oko-Oba  

Over 1000 persons killed, 

many properties destroyed  

June 28th, 2001  Azara Crisis  Over 80 persons killed  

June 2001  Zaki-Biam Many people killed  

September, 2001  Plateau (Tiv –Jukun)  1,180 people killed  

October, 29th 

2001  

Plateau (Tiv –Jukun)  79 people killed, many 

properties destroyed  

June 1st, 2002  Yelwan-Shandan 84 people killed  

May 2002  Kaduna 
(Christians/Muslims)  

Over 200 killed  

Nov. 2002  Kaduna 

(Christians/Muslims)  

Over 600 killed  

June 2004  Numan Crisis  17 persons killed, worship 
centres destroyed  

May 2004  Yelwan-Shandan 48 people murdered via 

church  

May 12, 2004  Kano mayhem  Uncountable people killed, 

many Churches burnt 

May 2005  Sokoto (Shia-Sunni 

Muslims)  

Many people killed  

Source: Author’s records from Newspaper low-case reports 

*Those committed by Boko Haram, Zamfara and Kaduna Bandits 

and Fulani Herdsmen terrorists which still remain a novel case, 

and still on-going are not included in this chart. 
 

Recurrent features of traditional, regional and state 

illegitimacy have continued to breed hardship, poverty and 

social disharmony in the country, hence manifest as rancorous 

war of words and high intensity contestations. The on-going 

Boko Haram atrocities and mayhem, including the novel 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

47 
 

 

Fulani herdsmen asymmetric onslaught has turned and 

relegated the 1966 Igbo pogrom and the subsequent three 

years genocidal civil war (ethno-religious crisis) as a fore 

play.  

Having considered and weighed the myriads of challenges 

emergent from Nigeria’s ethno-religious crisis, this study 

situates that the problem is not merely the unfolding of 

Anderson’s inevitable character of heterogeneous nation-

states, but the problem of deliberate infusion of manipulative 

Caliphate colonialism, stringently and strategically employed 

to sustain British imperialist intentions, far from the 

developmental demands of 21st century Nigeria. The 

unemployed, young and vibrant in the North today appear to 

prefer the option to poverty by taking to kidnapping, drug 

abuse, ransom-taking, raping and banditry.  

The many continued horrifying ethno-religious carnages 

appear to have negatively affected the psyche of majority of 

the citizens; hence they are largely politically disenchanted, 

apathetic and cumulatively unpatriotic to state affairs. Driven 

by the atmosphere of rancor, ethno-religious discrimination, 

impunity, corruption and injustice, violence remains a 

recurrent resort since intolerance presents as a preferable 

option. This is simply a drag on proper democratic ethos and 

practices, most especially when law and order remain elusive. 

The citizen may not only see democracy as irrelevant (Wada, 

2001: 62), because of the system operators’ inability to 

safeguard their lives and properties, but equally when it 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

48 
 

 

becomes obvious that the leadership is out-rightly 

manipulating primordial loyalties -ethnicity, region, religion 

and personalities in order to keep the opposition divided and 

divert attention from its own failing (Ihonvbere, 1994: 48).  

Ethno-religious discrimination is basically a social problem, 

and it is alarming and disheartening to observe that a high 

degree of discrimination is exercised against one another in 

Nigeria today. This disposition is evident in all spheres of 

life-politics, sports, education, economic, including other 

social endeavors. Dominant feelings and roles engage the 

dominant three ethnic groups [Igbo, Hausa-Fulani and 

Yoruba] on the national stage, moving with this experience 

amongst the smaller groups in the states and regions, 

currently deepening in aggression, identity-reclause and 

discrimination. Discriminatory influences have seriously 

pervaded the psyche and behavior of Nigerians that 

organizations, institutions, the civil service, including 

appointment into positions in governance have all lost the 

natural technique of honoring meritocracy and value. Just as 

fair competition is relegated to the background, incompetency 

is harvested abundantly through low national productivity, 

inefficiency, poor performance in academic field, 

international sports and governance; hence the call for 

national integration remains a mirage. It is heart-rending to 

observe the extreme level of ethno-religious discriminatory 

practices openly practiced in the admission of students into 

higher institutions, Army/Police, Prisons, Immigration and 

the Federal Road Safety recruitment sessions. When 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

49 
 

 

mediocrity receives accolades, natural motivation for proper 

useful engagement and mindset dulls. Besides, such incidents 

and developments create and leave in its trial bizarre 

experiences in the minds of Nigerian youths, with a tendency 

for uncontrolled anger and reprisals. The perturbing question 

would be, how far would this emergent Nigerian populace go 

with these negative experiences and stereotypes in the cause 

of nation-building?  

On a daily basis, it is disheartening indeed to observe the way 

and manner the violence quotient of Nigerians, especially 

those in the far North is rapidly growing. Apart from the 

wanton destruction of lives and properties and incalculable 

harm to the socio-economic and political life of the country, 

disregard for the value of life is fashionably fanning the 

embers of ethno-religious intolerance. Issues and problems 

which would have easily been handled and orderly resolved 

through legal adjudication and redress are rather impulsively 

and hastily handled through biased mob-mentality and ethno-

religious sentiments. Today, in Nigeria, fear, anxiety, 

suspicion and curiosity remain widespread, most especially 

from the Middle belt up the core Northern enclave. The 

global information highway though quite informing, is not 

helping matters. Target news, target audience and media trial 

leaves no time for verification and confirmation; so long as 

such information is in tandem with subsisting sentiments and 

ethno religious stereotypes, reprisals remain justified and 

automatic. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

50 
 

 

Subsequently, this has affected adversely labor and 

employment migration; hence while some core Northern 

states remain in dire need of qualified and enabling non-

Northerners in the Civil Service, the Southern states ever 

remain congested and over-supplied. On the other hand, 

migrant workers from the core Muslim North who traverse 

the South, including the ravaging Fulani herdsmen, stealthily 

move in columns, calculating and digesting every step.  

Consider the existing scenario prevalent in the country at this 

stage, when the Nigerian army remain actively involved in the 

assistance and provision of domestic security in every state of 

the federation, rather than remain resolutely committed to 

defending the nation against external threat. This is so 

because the Police and other sister security agencies either 

appear to be overwhelmed or are deeply compromised, 

resulting in gross incompetence or deliberate in- action, hence 

aiding violence and terror. Moreover, the army in most places 

and at various occasions has been accused of high handedness 

and ultimate disregard for laid down rules of engagement, 

human rights violations and the erroneous application of force 

multipliers. Nigeria has apparently inherited the social 

problems of internally displaced persons, accompanied by its 

attendant psychosocial maladies and gender-related 

challenges. The complexities generally manifesting and 

massaging ethno-religious atrocities and challenges in 21st 

century Nigeria appear not only overwhelming, but beyond 

objective expectation. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

51 
 

 

Constructive demands and agitations remain corporate and 

important part of internationally acceptable democratic 

etiquette, but not in Nigeria. Over the years, consistent and 

persistent complaints of ethnic discrimination, political 

marginalization and lack of political inclusiveness have 

coalesced into the adoption and use of the word restructuring, 

as a somewhat veritable panacea for equitable sustenance and 

management of the endemic Nigerian complexities. To 

maintain clarity while addressing the implications of these 

agitations in the developmental economy of twenty-first 

century Nigeria, this study opts to first evaluate the dictates of 

International Law on the issue of the procedural steps 

undertaken by a political entity towards obtaining the status 

of self-determination from an existing mother entity or 

sovereignty. It is only when this is done, could it be realistic 

to properly evaluate the restructuring option in the same 

political entity, as a sort of equitable rapprochement for 

fairness, understanding and trust. 

The right to self-determination, secession and separation are 

different things and as an ongoing right of all peoples, are not 

strictly confined to colonial peoples. In the non-colonial 

context self-determination is an entitlement to democracy and 

the right of participation in democratic process. Self-

determination under international law classifies different 

ethnicities in their territories within the population of states as 

constituting minorities (Mullerson, 1994:91). Furthermore, 

since ethnicities do not live in isolation, in clear-cut units or 

territories, ethnically-based claims and agitations for 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

52 
 

 

autonomy practically always conflict with those of others and 

interests. Issues of separation and self-determination, as in 

many politically sensitive entities in world affairs present 

varying political, humanitarian, economic and contextual 

complexities that defy definite set of rules for every particular 

situation regardless of the backing of international law to the 

demands of self-determination in separation. The underlying 

factor is whether separation or unification would best promote 

security and facilitate effective shaping and sharing of power 

and of all other values for most people, hence a proper 

balance between freedom of choice and the viability of 

countries must be maintained. The right to secession is simply 

out of question here, because it is similar to the ‘right to 

revolution’. In the case of gross violation of human rights by 

a state, the population may overthrow the government and 

liberate itself from tyranny; while in the case of gross 

violation of minority rights, (as obtained during the Igbo 

Pogrom), the minority may either overthrow the government 

or secede from the oppressive regime. It must be noted that in 

both cases, (and they usually go hand in hand as democratic 

states would hardly grossly violate the rights of minorities), 

such a state is in flagrant violation of international law, and 

the world community has the right to intervene (through 

economic sanctions, humanitarian interventions, among 

others), and in the case of utter violation of minority rights, 

such interference may consist interalia, in the recognition by 

the world community of the right of the oppressed minority to 

secession (Mullerson, 1994:91). The stipulations of the 

Nigerian Constitution on this matter remain obvious, and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

53 
 

 

since Nigeria has domesticated, ratified and signed the 

African Charter through the official engagement of the 

National Assembly, by implication, all its citizens are liable 

to enjoy the provided fundamental rights of freedom of 

expression, association and assembly.    

Be that as it may, by all intents and purposes, restructuring 

depending on which ever angle one decides to approach it, 

could be seen in the perspective of a change, though it could 

be soft, hybrid or hard restructuring. Restructuring vis a vis 

content and nature in the perspective under study, would 

classify soft restructuring as thinkering with certain 

amendments of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution; while hybrid 

would entail negotiating a new Constitution with sufficient 

regional autonomy within the federation; and hard 

restructuring grants outright confederation or independence 

for any desiring part of the country (Soludo; 2018:2). 

Cognisance of the overriding momentum noticeable in 

Nigeria presently, there seems to be a preponderance of main 

stream opinion around the hybrid option centred on the 

political and ethno-religious agitations and disturbances. This 

study is at peace with this view, considering the level of 

Nigeria’s decay and degeneration as a sovereign entity, 

evidenced by a plethora of ills-inept leadership and civil 

service, salary arrears, exchange rate collapse, inflation, 

output stagnation, import dependency, soaring poverty and 

unemployment, institutionalized insecurity in all spheres, 

among others. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

54 
 

 

Unequivocally, the Nigerian Constitution has proved to be an 

inappropriate trajectory for a prospective developing 

democracy right from independence. Sequel to its 

pathophysiological deficiencies, even as peripheral efforts 

were made one time or the other to reform, reinvent and re-

energise it with a better and clearer focus proved abortive, 

Nigerian developmental economy remains held down by its 

extremely weak institutions. Since the economic realm of any 

sovereignty cannot progress in isolation from that of the 

political, and coupled with the fact that one cannot give what 

one lacks, it’s not absurd why the Nigerian nation has 

continued to retrogress. Political governance, property rights, 

rule of law, speedy and fair dispensation of justice, fiscal 

structure management and distributional arrangements for 

investment and entrepreneurship, over-policed but under-

secured citizenry among others – the management of all these 

remain within the ambit of strong and powerful institutions as 

sustainable base of democratic checks and balances. In 

driving home this point most especially on the part of 

economic development, Acemoglu and Robinson in their 

seminal paper tersely stated thus: 

...we argue that the main determinant of 

differences in prosperity across countries are 

differences in economic institutions. To solve the 

problem of development will entail reforming 

these institutions. Unfortunately, this is difficult, 

because economic institutions of a society 

depend on the nature of political institutions and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

55 
 

 

the distribution of political power in society. As 

yet, we only have a highly preliminary 

understanding of the factors that lead a society 

into a political equilibrium which supports good 

economic institutions.... Nevertheless, some 

countries do undergo political transitions, 

reform their institutions, and move onto more 

successful paths of economic development. We 

also can learn a lot from these success 

stories....Making or imposing specific 

institutional reforms may have little impact on 

the general structure of economic institutions or 

performance if they leave untouched the 

underlying political equilibrium.... A piecemeal 

approach may be dangerous (Acemoglu and 

Robinson, 2012:7). 

It is fundamental at this juncture to remember that context and 

history matter, just as the building of progressive institutions 

is a continuum, consequently, issues concerning the economic 

development of Nigeria can never be a cut and paste affair. A 

good institution unleashes and maximizes the creative 

energies of the citizenry for the promotion of the highest 

possible security, prosperity and happiness of the populace. 

Just as no universal template exists through which political 

and economic institutions are synchronized, suffice it to state 

that each entity must be spurred to galvanize and spurt 

through its peculiar channel of uniqueness (past experience 

and agreed formula). The global economy is already in the 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

56 
 

 

fourth Industrial Revolution or digital age, dominated by 

Robotics, Artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual 

reality, augmented reality among others, hence an economy 

basically oscillating on most aspects of the old economy can 

only stagnate. The annals of Nigeria’s governance are filled 

with wonderful and insightful politico-economic blueprints 

brandished here and there, but never implemented, hence the 

problem is apparently beyond mere theory. When the 

leadership and a nation’s civil service are streamlined by the 

dictates of primordialism and stereotyped quota system, 

‘when oil revenue accounts for more than 90 percent of 

Nigeria’s export and foreign exchange earnings and more 

than 65 percent of government revenue’ (Soludo; 2018:4), 

when at above 58 years and in the 21st century, Nigeria 

continues to subsist on oil dependant/entitlement mind-set (oil 

structural disease), in a country where the clamour for and 

creation of new states and local governments have turned to a 

patronage and political tool for elite buyout and political 

balancing allowing indolent loafers to make it with effortless 

ease thereby discouraging hardwork and competition; when 

‘the national rentier system is fashioned in such a way that 

leaders are not people with best ideas and talents, the 

component states rather than unleash their creative abilities 

through competition in a synergistic boom, (Soludo, 2018:6) 

(leading to more than 30 states governments finding it 

incapable of paying salaries without allocation from Abuja), 

poverty continues to grow in the land, supported by 

unbelievable unemployment, population thrust and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

57 
 

 

disenchantment. By the latest United Nations data, Nigeria’s 

population is now 201 million.  

These have continued to support heightened survival 

challenges and affected criminality, social misdemeanors and 

insecurity, including Nigeria’s low life expectancy. Once a 

large number of a given population remains immersed in such 

malady, violence quotient increases, coupled with political 

agitations for redress, restructuring and self-determination, 

moreso, when the Federal government through several 

notable incidents has continued to maintain complicity in 

compromising one ethnic nationality over another. This 

creates and nurture discordant tunes in Nigeria’s body politic, 

especially considering the country’s diverse inclinations. 

Unfolding developments continue to challenge domestic food 

security sequel to both the Boko Haram atrocities in Nigeria’s 

North East, the Zamfara banditry saga, and the widespread 

Fulani Herdsmen and farmer’s attritious clashes, the Shiites 

imbrioglio, the Kaduna and Jos recurrent mayhem. From 

insurgency to terrorism and onwards to banditry – what next? 

In the same vein, from inflation to recession, onto depression 

– what next? Where lies the attraction and motivation for the 

foreign investor to be spurred in engaging his capital and 

resources in a country lacking even the basic requirements for 

proper economic investment – Electricity, balanced transport 

system, security, infrastructural development, among others. 

Rather than spend quality time thinking about innovative 

ways to attract and sustain productive activities, the Nigerian 

leadership is simply concerned with the monthly Federal 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

58 
 

 

Accounts allocations. Through clandestine state operations, 

specific enterprising indigenous entrepreneurs are 

discouraged and frustrated, merely due to their ethno-

religious alignments. Today it is Ibeto and Innoson Groups!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

59 
 

 

 

 

REFERENCES 

Acemoghi, D. and Robinson, .J. (2012) Why Nations Fail: 

The Role of Institutions in Growth and Development. 

United States: Crown Publishing Group. 

http://sen/wikipedia.org. 

Alemika, E.E. and Okoye, F. (eds.) (1990) Ethno-Religious 

Conflicts and Democracy in Nigeria: Challenges. 

Kaduna: Human Rights Monitor. 

Falola, T. (1998) Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious 

Politics.Amazon.com 

https://www.amazon.com.violence.Nig. 

Ihonvbere, J. (1994) Nigeria: The Politics of Adjustment and 

Democracy World cart.org 

Imobighe, T.A. (2003) Nigeria’s Defence and National 

Security Linkages. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational 

Books. 

Imobighe, T.A. and Bassey, C.O. and Asuni (2002) Conflict 

and Instability in the Niger Delta. Ibadan: Spectrum, 

Academic Association Peace Works. 

http://sen/wikipedia.org
https://www.amazon.com.violence.nig/


STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

60 
 

 

Mullerson, R. (1994) International Law, Rights and Politics. 

London: Routledge. 

Paden, J.N. (2006) Mushin Civil Cultures and Conflict 

Resolution: The Challenge of Democratic Federalism 

in Nigeria E-book 

(https://johnpadenwww//jstor65841). 

Pew Research Center – A United States Privately Owned 

Global Research Outfit Based in Washington D.C. 

Google Pew Research and Data. 

Rothberg, R. (2002) ed. Vigilance and Community, 

Integration and Stability in Multinational Societies. 

https://www.praetorianism.edu.jstor.   

Saghae, E. and Suberu, R. (2005) A History of Identities, 

Violence and Stability in Nigeria. London: University 

of Oxford https://www.worldcat.org. 

Soludo, C.C. (2018) “The Political Economy of Restructuring 

the Nigerian Federation”. Unpublished Paper 

Delivered at the Maiden Lecture Organized by 

Ndigbo Lagos Foundation on 1st August, 2018 at the 

Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria 

Island, Lagos. 

 

 

https://johnpadenwww/jstor65841
https://www.worldcat.org/


STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

61 
 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR 
STRUCTURAL IMPLOSION 

 

The story of, and the unfolding scenario with regards to 

Nigeria’s institutional dysfunction and incipient circular 

stagnation has continued to be enigmatic, considering its 

population advantage, (manpower and consumer strength), 

abundant material and mineral resources. The naked truth in 

this 21st century is that: 

Every penny of capital spending by the 

Federal Government of Nigeria is borrowed 

and its fiscal position is precarious. Put 

starkly, not one kobo of oil money is 

invested in infrastructure by the FGN, it is 

all consumed by the obtuse Federal 

bureaucracy (Soludo; 2018:8). 

Since the current system tilts the balance in favour of 

distribution and consumption, thereby creating a near 

permanent dependency on the life support of the oil rents, it is 

simply an anachronistic economic adventure. If after more 

than twenty-six years of existence, more than 30 states 

(Federating units) cannot meet even their minimal running 

costs without the handout from the Federation Account, then 

one could conclude that the existing structure may no longer 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

62 
 

 

be in tandem with the time sequence. Everything in life 

remains exposed to change, and such change can either be 

peaceful or violent, depending on both human factors and 

natural phenomena. Beyond mass mobilizations for change, 

restructuring and self-determination, lies the articulate 

realities of the looming national catachilism that lies ahead of 

Nigeria, a hopelessness and a daily growing frustrated 

majority whose candour is fast exhausting. Nigerian politico-

economic edifice is webbed in incompetence and lack of 

fairness, and this study remains deeply convinced that both 

anomalies drives corruption against democracy and 

development. When the terrain is bedeviled and bequeathed 

with underdevelopment, dictated by the dysfunctional values 

of corruption, nepotism and wholesome impunity, a tangible 

dialectical platform emerge, engaged with promoting the 

wrong principles of governance under Nigerian democracy. 

This is simply a painful façade to federating principles, 

devolution of powers, fiscal federalism, private-sector 

participation and equitable representation. It is painful that 

Nigerian politicians have formed a habit of taking the 

advantage of the ethno religious chasm existing in the county, 

to selfishly enrich themselves.    

When Rule of law, Freedom of the press and association, the 

operational modicum of the domestic security operatives, and 

the rules of engagement guiding military operations (which 

remain encapsulated in basic United Nations guidelines on the 

ruses of war), are discarded and trampled on by the 

government of a Third World democratic experiment like 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

63 
 

 

Nigeria, where then lies the hope of the ordinary citizenry 

towards obtaining desired attention. One is apt to pause and 

wonder what the reactions of many Nigerians would be in a 

situation where the dreaded Boko Haram activities in 

Nigeria’s North East appears reclined into insignificance in 

comparison with the atrocities of the Fulani Herdsmen 

throughout the country; one may equally want to know what 

the outcome would be when some respected, revered and 

retired army generals and national elders descend into the 

dangerous frustrated rhetorics of encouraging and urging their 

ethnic alignments to take up arms and defend themselves, 

since the Nigerian government has been found wanting and 

compromised. Frustrated and in a quagmire, some Nigerians 

have taken recourse and solace through diverse ethno-

religious cleavages demanding for national restructuring and 

even separation from the Nigerian entity. On daily basis, 

Nigerians are butchered through the Zamfara and Kaduna 

terror infernos. Kidnapping, raping and ransom payments are 

now part of the national value system.    

Unfortunately, 21st century Nigeria has inherited a terrible and 

unimaginable all-round structured failure system that could be 

identified in these spheres – Economy, Politics, Governance 

and social sectors. The danger of Nigeria’s patented 

stereotype lies in the fact that – it is still firmly attached to the 

apron strings of Britain, its former colonial master after more 

than half a century of independence. The nation still oscillates 

solely on an import-dependent economy, and a mono export 

of oil, which all started since the 1960s.With a blind eye on 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

64 
 

 

the trending global haze of diversification; the country 

continues to creak and sob under a primordial monolithic 

conservative political system which is totally allergic to 

proactive dynamic change, rather opting towards maintaining 

an encumbered preference of driving contemporary Nigeria 

with the dictates of the beleaguered and anachronistic 

Caliphate mentality of the old. How can one explain the fact 

that a nation which could boast of having a great bunch of the 

best of technocratic heads and policy experts in statecraft 

continues to take preference in wallowing in the recycling of 

designated past political and military ‘rulers’ whose grey 

matter negates modernity in developmental nationhood. The 

consistency of incomprehensive planning and implementation 

has continued to remain a national mirage, leaving on its trail 

an economy which could be best described as a Pandora’s 

box, full of many paradoxes. 

Lack of dynamism, coordination and the enticement of 

globally accepted principles and best practices in both the 

domestic and external transactions have continued to 

marginalize the country’s development. Successive 

governments have cumulatively made Nigeria a bad brand – 

prolonged economic brutality sustained by a moribund energy 

sector operating behind civilization; inequality in wealth 

distribution, political emasculation and nepotism, 

indiscriminate human rights violation; a penal and judicial 

process that has allowed its ‘rule of law’ pathology to be 

overtaken by the impunity of political leaders. These 

condenses, impoverishes and marginalises the life span of 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

65 
 

 

many Nigerians, giving a voice to eco-terrorism in the 

nation’s Niger Delta areas, including the many separatist and 

restructuralist agitations within the country. In desperation, 

aguish and pain, many Nigerians, especially the youths in 

their hopelessness continue to flee the country at the slightest 

opportunity, while some handful resort to an easier escape of 

the rot that is Nigeria, through classical suicide. Nigeria is an 

economic power house, whose strength lies in its diverse 

people and variegated natural endowments (Ezeonwuka, 

2014:70). Profligate and inept leadership have post-

independence continued to spread poverty and pain; fenced 

and protected by stereotyped ethno-religious sentiments 

feeding fat from the populous ignorant indoctrinated 

‘talakawa’ ever-ready to kill and burn perceived infidels as a 

shortcut road to martyrdom and blissful paradise. The 

Nigerian quagmire is not only an invitation for, but a hatchery 

for insecurity and extremism. Nigeria is under siege from 

fraud, stemming from the higher to the lower places. It has 

almost become a bi-monthly routine, raising alarm over 

missing or looted funds from the state coffers. What of over 

invoicing in collaboration with multinationals; foraging 

through that of the notorious fuel subsidy issue would reveal a 

‘cesspit of smelling darkness’. The challenges in Nigeria’s oil 

sector have continued to draw a battle line with deliberate 

acceptance of and recourse to viable options – or else how 

could one explain the issue of the continued lack of local 

participation, policy inconsistency, the delay in the passage 

and signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill, international 

market shift and poor financing.  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

66 
 

 

Nigeria is at war with itself. For an economy that often goes 

with the paucity of an annual spending plan, retrospective 

implementation could even be more damaging when 

statistical fiscal plans are uncertain. Consider the political 

malfeasance evidenced in the yearly long-drawn budget battle 

between the Executive and the Legislature over inflated or 

deflated budget, including high recurrent expenditure over 

that of capital. Against this backdrop, one time speaker, 

Nigeria’s House of Representatives tersely confirmed that 

‘Budget implementation is the sole point of governance in 

Nigeria’ (Tambuwal, 2013); the nation has continued to 

groan, and its throes are as a result of home-grown enemy 

leadership. 

Nigeria’s health and educational sectors still remain not only 

archaic, but a drag on national development. Historically, no 

nation is known to have progressed and developed with 

lackadaisical approach to national health policies and 

practice. Nigeria can never get it right checkmating the 

increasing and debilitating medical tourism on its national 

economy, if the foundational and operational challenges of its 

primary healthcare is not interrogated and improved on. The 

country continues to grapple with the lack of realistic 

statistical data that maybe fluke-proof, since helpful surveys, 

and even death and birth recordings, including the national 

census-project figures are often manipulated to massage 

ethno-religious sentiments. Moreover, purposefully avoiding 

and expunging History from the national educational 

curriculum persisted as an ethno-religious selfish intent 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

67 
 

 

myopically implemented without due consideration of the 

cumulative national underdevelopment outcome. Any nation 

that is afraid of, or wary of its past at any given time, and 

goes forward to erase it, deserves sympathy and ultimate re-

awareness. History must continue to interrogate the many 

loose ends and bizarre condiments, of Nigeria’s chequered 

past.Who actually were the signatories of the 1914 

amalgamation pact? Who were the main actors of the 1966 

coup d’etat? What actually led to the Nigeria/Biafra War? 

Was there genocide against the Igbo? How was the war 

prosecuted, including the war’s aftermath: Is Nigeria truly a 

federation? Who authored the 1999 constitution? Why is 

Lagos the only functional seaport in Nigeria; at the detriment 

of Calabar, Port Harcourt and Warri Seaports? Why has 

Akanu Ibiam International Airport for more than 8 years since 

its status was lifted from local to International, continued to 

be marginalized in such a way that only Ethiopian Airlines 

have stubbornly stuck to sustaining its services there amongst 

other international airlines, regardless of the incriminating 

federal government imposed taxation on it? When 

sectionalism and ethnicity remains the compass of the 

government in power at the center, in a supposed federal 

structure, fairness would always remain a far cry, while 

conspiracy would ultimately remain the manifest destiny of 

the favored in Nigeria. Otherwise how could one ever expect 

a proper positive solution to the perennial Lagos Port 

congestion, whereas the government policy of not re-opening 

the viable alternatives of Port Harcourt, Warri and Calabar 

Ports is deliberately meant to marginalize the Igbo interest. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

68 
 

 

Apapa gridlock must then remain a recalcitrant national 

embarrassment.   

Considered, viewed and weighed from another perspective, 

this study situates that stereotyped Nigeria is not merely 

suffering from the unfolding scenario of Anderson’s 

inevitable character of heterogeneous nation-states as has 

earlier been noted, but the problem of deliberate infusion of 

manipulative ‘Caliphate Colonialism’, stringently and 

strategically employed (oozing out from London’s chatam 

House) to sustain British imperialist weblink, moreso with the 

challenging emergent consequences of Brexit vis a vis the 

European Union.   

It is a pity that conflict has permeated into the Nigerian land 

space as a result of ethnicity, ethnocentrism, primordialism 

and stereotyping, hence punctuating seriously the country’s 

drive towards achieving democracy; attaining a high level of 

neutrality in its polity, and at the same time a fluctuation in 

her development. Beginning from the colonial period, Nigeria 

has been an item of display in ethnic rivalries; mainly 

between the Hausa-Fulani in the North against the Yoruba in 

the West, and the Igbo in the East. These ethnic 

discriminations have led to the creation of political parties 

which inevitably was dominated by one ethnic group. Just as 

political parties got polarized along stereotyped culture lines, 

divisiveness got entrenched in the country. 

To understand the psycho- political implications of ethnicity 

in Nigeria’s political and national development, a brief 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

69 
 

 

background of the history of Nigerian politics is required. 

Political party as we know it today surfaced in the 18th 

century, but slowly and with time gathered pace with the 

electoral reforms in England in 1832 (Lapalombara and 

Weiner; 1972:71). The major aim of a political party is to 

gain access to political power. It is an organization in which 

its members share similar ideologies. The present political 

parties in some parts of the world today are characterized by 

inept leadership and present platforms for anarchy, with the 

aid of ardent adherence to ethnicity as a tool of state craft and 

ethnic mobilization towards the attainment of state power. 

Theories pertaining the origin of political parties include; the 

Historical Situation Memories, which insists that the systems 

may have encountered some certain issues during its 

development; the Institutional Meeting, which focuses on the 

inter relationship between early parliaments and the rise of 

political parties; and finally the development that links the 

parties to modernization (Ojo, 2000:65). The birth of political 

parties in Africa nay Nigeria began with congresses or 

organizations that were concerned with fighting for the rights 

and liberation of the African in all British colonies. The 

Peoples Union (PU) for instance was formed by Obasa and 

Randle, with the basic aim of protesting against the increase 

of water rates, and other costs of living (Olusanya, 2004:553). 

There was also an Aborigines Rights Protection Society 

(ARPS) involving some important personalities like: Bishop 

James Johnson and J.P Jackson (Olusanya. 2004:553). 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

70 
 

 

A major party during this period (after the amalgamation of 

1914) was the National Congress of British West Africa 

(NCBWA), founded in 1918 by Joseph Casely Hayford and 

Savage Akinwade. They agitated for a constitutional reform 

in the Anglo-West-African territories in other to gun for 

African representation in the legislative council, (Oliver and 

Fage, 1962:240). These early political parties laid a foothold 

of inspiration to men like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ernest Ikoli 

among others, who were equally inspired by Marcus Garvey. 

In 1922, the Clifford Constitution was officially adapted in 

Nigeria, making Nigeria to be the first country to have 

elective principle in West Africa (Olusanya; 2004:519). 

Election into the Nigerian legislative council was based on 

voting franchise which was extended only to Lagos and 

Calabar (Ojo, 2006:65). Prior to the events that took place, in 

1916 the Nigerian council was set up to legislate the whole 

country. The 1922 legislative council nearly returned the 

country to its status quo. Isolated politically, the North was, 

removed from whatever influence which shaped the political 

attitude of southern politicians (Dudley. 1982:18). With time, 

under these colonial ideological actions, the North grew 

“more conservative, suspicious, and resistant to western ways 

of life, education, as well as other forms of universalistic 

religions”, ‘thus the British were responsible for the 

South/North dichotomy that led to different modernization 

(Otite, 1990:96). 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

71 
 

 

Subsequently, the development of modem political parties in 

Nigeria, began in the early l920s, with the formation of the 

Nigerian National Democratic. Party (NNDP)’ in 1923 to 

counter the elective principle of Clifford’s Constitution of 

1922. In 1934, the reign of NNDP was brought to an end by 

the National Youth Movement (NYM) that metamorphosed 

from the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM), and managed by 

young intellectuals who were vibrant. The establishment of 

the NYM, marked the beginning of the second generation of 

political parties (Ujo 2000). It paved way for the formation of 

the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) 

in August 1924. The groups included tribal unions, social and 

literary clubs, Professional associations (Turdoff, 1984:63; 

Olusanya, 2004: 560). Prior to the breakup of the Cameroon’s 

in 1959, it was renamed to National Council of Nigerian 

Citizens (Olusanya, 2004). 

There, the first stage of divisiveness began; NNDP joined but 

the NYM refused as a result of the political quarrel (Ujo, 

2000). No one suspected that the withdrawal marked the 

sowing of the first seed of ethnicity which had been 

consecrated and sown in Nigerian politics. Olusanya (2004) 

posits that this withdrawal provided lots of thought to other 

ethnic groups, who saw it as a plot by the Igbo to continually 

dominate the politics and affairs of the country. 

However, this helped create more regionalism in the NCNC, 

more so through the actions of the Action Group Party. 

(Olusanya, 2004). The Action Group (AG) emerged from the 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

72 
 

 

political wing of the cultural association of Yoruba elites, the 

Egbe Omo Oduduwa. The NCNC was seen as the Igbo Union, 

while the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) was founded by 

the Fulani aristocracy, whereby the smaller ethnic groups 

relied on the local political parties for their voice to be heard. 

More significantly, the division of the country into three 

regions for administrative convenience by the Richard’s 

Constitution of 1946 led to the development of strong 

regional feelings. The consequence of this was such that by 

1953, the major political parties in Nigeria-NCNC, AG and 

NPC were associated with the major ethnic groups and the 

three regions; Western, Eastern and the Northern regions. To 

further reveal the tripartite ethnic stereotyped and primordial 

cleavages the party leaders were viz; the Sarduana of Sokoto, 

Sir Ahmadu Bello led the NPC of the North: Dr. Nnamdi 

Azikiwe led the Igbo NCNC, while Chief Obafemi Awolowo 

led the AG Yoruba West, each representing the polarised 

ethnic groups. Thus, “while the AG and the NPC were born 

with ethno-regionalist philosophy, the NCNC moved from its 

initial nationalist ideological position to full ethno-regionalist 

stance” (Orji 2009:22). 

The Action Group (AG), became a political party dedicated 

solely to Yoruba nationalism. According to Awolowo; the 

Action Group (AG) had been formed primarily to meet the 

political needs of the Yoruba’s first, before attending to the 

rest of the country (Olusanya, 2004: 566). “Thus, the AG 

became the first party of Nigerian nationalism to be inspired 

by, founded on and nourished by ethnicity. For the first time, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

73 
 

 

a nationalist group desirous of wresting power from the 

colonialists, associated itself with the destiny of one ethnic 

group, considering itself to be merely the political wing of an 

ethnic group’s cultural association (Nnoli; 1995:67). 

Awolowo considered that the performance of the Yoruba at 

the Regional and General Conferences towards reviewing the 

Richard’s Constitution had shown that they were unorganized 

and lacked a concerted programme and effective leadership. 

The primary function of the AG was, therefore to provide that 

much needed leadership (Anifowose; 1982:176). The AG on 

the other hand was able to fully develop all manners of 

extremist ethnic tool; such as its call for political vigilance in 

the West so that region would not be excluded in the post-

colonial scheme of things (Nnoli; 1995:67). 

To worsen matters; in December 1949 at one Igbo state 

conference, Dr. Azikiwe debased his status forever when he 

openly declared that 

“...it would appear that the God of Africa 

has specifically added the Igbo nation to 

lead the children of Africa from the bondage 

of ages. The marital prowess of the Igbo 

nation at all stages of human history has 

enabled them not only to conquer others but 

also to adapt themselves to the role of 

preserver. The Igbo nation cannot shirk 

from its responsibility”. (Coleman; 

1958:347)” 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

74 
 

 

Though many of Azikiwe supporters and friends believe that 

he wasn’t a conscious tribalist, “yet his objectives, ambition 

and motives acted contrarily to his nationalistic inclination 

(Coleman; 1958: 343). Meanwhile with the advent of the 

Richards Constitution which was a token to the political life 

in the North, things however began to change. In the 1920s, 

with the appearance of such perceived challenge, many 

people became drawn from all parts of North with the slogan 

of “one north, one people, and one destiny”. Irrespective of 

religion, rank and tribe, the NPC was formed for Northerners 

and by Northerners to fulfill objectives and aim limited to the 

North (Nnoli 1995:67). “The NPC was formed to ensure that 

the inevitable movement for self-government in the North 

would be led by moderate northerners rather than radical 

southerners, who were feared by the traditional and educated 

elites of the North as a potentially oppressive alien power 

(Anifowose, 1982;47). With all these settings, it was obvious 

that the politicization of ethnicity, which had been proved 

with the appearance of ethnic parties and the regionalization 

of politics, was given a firm tooting with the promulgation of 

the Macpherson Constitution. By 1953, the three major 

political parties of the main major ethnic groups were 

entrenched in the once principal geographical regions of the 

country, (Nnoli, 1995:69) and the alignments that would 

characterize Nigerian politics after independence had already 

solidified North against the South, East against West, and the 

minority groups in each region against their respective 

dominant communities. These splits shaped the history of 

modern Nigeria. (Rabushka and Sheple, 1972:192).The 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

75 
 

 

regionalists in the three major ethnic groups, Yoruba, lgbo 

and the Hausa had successfully created the impression that 

they were champions of the people and carefully linked the 

struggles and travails of their respective parties to the 

ambitions and future of their ethnic groups (Nnoli, 1995:84) 

Consequently, the first competitive elections among these 

ethnic group made it clear that it was an ethnic game of “Win 

Win” or “loose-loose”. The First Republic was characterized 

by series of ethnic rivalries. Uwazurike in summarizing the 

first republic noted that 

“...the Nigerian pattern of party politics has 

exhibited virtually the worst terms of an 

unstable democracy; most parties were 

narrowly based, tied to some “great and 

unassailable” leader who tended to stamp 

the organization not with any grand 

ideological vision but his personal biases. 

Besides, each was ethnically based, mass 

mobilizing, and confrontational in 

orientation” (Uwazurike 1990:65). 

In the Second Republic, the legislation in the 1979 elections, 

gave room for only five parties which were accredited by the 

Federal Electoral Commission. (FEDECO): NPN, NPP, 

GNPP, UPN and PRP (Oyediran, 1981), and all these parties 

had ethnic configurations (Joseph, 1981:17). The NPN had its 

followers majorly from the Hausa-Fulani, the NPP constituted 

of the Igbo, the UPN that of the Yoruba while the PRP and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

76 
 

 

the GNPP were offshoot of the radical NEPU with a base in 

Kano state, and among the Kanuri ethnic group (Joseph, 

1978:92,93:Otite, 1990:97). After the untimely end of the 

Second Republic, attributable more to corruption than ethnic 

rivalry, the federal military government saw it necessary to 

aid, through the National Political Bureau to collate the views 

of Nigerians on the political fixture of the country. 

Meanwhile, some prominent Nigerians had advocated the 

urgent adoption of zoning as a panacea to ethnic rivalry 

(Suberu, 1996). 

The Third Republic which was punctuated by series of 

military rules saw a Constitution that was drafted in 1989 by 

General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB), the military 

Head of State, who promised to end military rule in 1990. It 

was in this period that the National Republican Convention 

(NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), came on 

board, as an intriguing part of the ‘evil genius’ miasma 

towards selfish political perpetuity and camouflage. 

The advent of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which 

can be traced to a civil society organization (NADECO), 

germinated in late 1997 with the aim of enlightening the 

citizens about their rights. Unfortunately, the PDP equally got 

polarized and became unfocussed. This separation and in-

harmony however led to the emergence of a single authority 

that produced Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the President (The 

unwholesome product of a Yoruba/Hausa Fulani arrangement 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

77 
 

 

doctored by the American CIA, as pacification for the 

intriguing demise of both General Abacha and Chief Abiola).   

Starting from 1999 (Fourth Republic), the political parties 

include: the Peoples Democratic Party, which zoned the 

Senate Presidency to the South East, the post of Speaker of 

House of Representatives to the North-West, the Deputy 

Senate Presidency to the North-East and the post of Deputy 

Speaker of the House of Representatives to the South-south. 

The AD chose Obasanjo instead of Olu Falae, despite his 

apparent incompetence, and extravagant lifestyle. His 

ethnicity was the advantage he had- “Yoruba man” (Tell, 

August, 12, 2002). Bola Tinubu, the Governor in Lagos and 

member of the AD, promised to give 5 million votes to the 

PDP to aid him in the election (Tell, Jan, 20, 2003). 

Ultimately, the People’s Democratic Party zoned the 

presidency to the South and this thereby led to a fight 

between the two southern rivals – Alex Ekwueme and 

Olusegun Obasanjo, and at the same time, two northern. 

“Outsiders” (Tell, Jan. 13 2003). Obasanjo easily sailed 

through. This scenario of intra party political chess game 

continued even into the Presidency of  Umaru Yar’adua. 

Prior to the illness suffered by the late President Umaru 

Yar’adua in the middle of his administration on November 

2009, the principle of zoning was not just awakened, but it 

revitalized a sense of ethnic variations, increased the intensity 

of ethnicity within the political party structure in not only the 

local, but also on the national sphere. The North, South, East, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

78 
 

 

and West got into political turbulence and out of control. 

There was a sudden split into two major groups in 

North/South, and this was as a result of the conflict for 

succession. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who by right should be 

the successor was dragged into the ethnic dilemma (The 

News, May 17; Nov; 15 2010). The Northerners who were in 

control both in the Executive and in the Legislature even 

verbally played and challenged all ethnically-variant interests 

with dangerous primordial and stereotyped vituperations and 

interpretations. They personalized the term and offices, and 

were anxious to take over the mantle of leadership; which 

they saw as “their turn”. While the vice-president was being 

denied of power, a motely group which consisted of majority 

of the Northerners, usurped power and the country began to 

drift dangerously towards ethnocentrism. (The News, Jan 18th 

2018). This infamous group of people were led by the wife of 

the President, Hajia Turai (the News, Jan 18th 2000). While 

the country faced all these chaos, it didn’t just end there, there 

was the portent hatching of the Boko Haram insurgency 

which began in 2011; the National Security Adviser Patrick 

Aziza saw this crisis as a power struggle in the ruling PDP 

between the North and the South. Rather than espousing the 

national ideal into prominence, the country continued to pride 

itself in the idea of party zoning. This portrayed how debased 

the political terrain has become. Adamu Ciroma, the former 

Minister and Central Bank Governor, insisted that zoning was 

far more than “a gentle manly agreement, as its spirit was 

captured in Article 6 section 2(3) of the PDP constitution”. 

Till today, the national caucus of the party has not met to 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

79 
 

 

review the decision on zoning of public offices within the 

party. Even if they have met, nobody can change the decision 

because it is in the party’s constitution (The News, Sept. 20th  

2010). 

The PDP still stock with their zoning policy. Meanwhile, it 

gave room for Jonathan to contest” (The News, Sept. 20th 

2010) and his major opposition was a northerner, Muhamadu 

Buhari. The 2015 general elections experienced a bazaar of 

hate campaign detailed on ethno religious divide. Muhamadu 

Buhari was castigated by the PDP as an ethnic warlord, a 

hater of southern culture and lifestyle, while on the other 

hand, the sitting President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was said 

to have turned himself into an ethnic leader of the Ijaws, 

thereby leading to the marginalization of the North and other 

regions of the country. The spread of these ethnic diatribes by 

the opposing parties did permeate into the News media for 

instance. The PDP produced an advert which was displayed in 

several newspapers, calling on the INEC Chairman Attahiru 

Jega as “General Buhari Jega” signaling ethnic connections 

(Guardian, Feb. 18: 2015). This little display or action 

brought about a high level of suspicion and triggered the 

Human Rights Commission in the post-election period to call 

for an investigation and possible prosecution. 

The 2015 election was characterized by outright indication of 

ethnic, primordial and stereotyped cleavages. The country’s 

peace and security was disturbed, the campaigns were violent 

in many ways, some persons got abused and a campaign 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

80 
 

 

ground got bombed (Guardian Newspaper, Feb 12th 2015). 

The unpredicted failure of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-

election bid had many ethnic-oriented articles written 

emphasizing on why he failed woefully. With the 

unprecedented defeat, despite the outcome of the elections, 

the two contestants conducted themselves in such a way that 

the nation was put to awe. The predictions of global crisis and 

wars that were to take place were proved wrong and this 

made a remarkable event in the history of Nigeria. 

Devoid of all positive expectations, the 2019 elections in 

Nigeria have gone a long way in exposing the level of 

degeneration and decay in the nation’s democratic experience. 

Participating political parties, lacking ideologies, completely 

dwelt on the deification of individuals and all sorts of election 

manipulation to capture and retain power. Be that as it may, 

Olagunyi cautions thus; 

The day the fool gains wisdom is the day the 

wise loses his power. Nigeria just had an 

election conducted by a President from the 

North, an INEC chairman from the North, 

all Security Chiefs from the North, [the 

acting Chief Justice of the Federation from 

the North], the two presidential candidates 

from the North (Nigerian Tribune, 4th 

March, 2019). 

The vehement effort and intention to allow the Nigerian 

electoral laws to remain moribund is apt by the blunt refusal 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

81 
 

 

of President Muhamadu Buhari to sign the 2019 Amended 

Electoral Laws into use prior to the election.When not 

designed to be accountable, how can one expect the 

unbundled Independent National Electoral Commission 

which has been diagnosed to be structurally defective to give 

what it doesn’t have. It is sad that elections have remained a 

force and a farce in Nigeria, hence the 1964 elections which 

threatened national unity, was boycotted in the East, partly 

held in the West accompanied by certain levels of deadlock; 

though the President had to invite the Party with the largest 

wining candidates to form a cabinet, while advising the 

complainants to ‘go to court’. Since the 1960s, Nigerian 

political electioneering has been subjected to the courts, with 

the exception of that of 2015 because somebody deliberately 

chose to be a fool for peace to reign. Since no constitutional 

additives have been made from the 1999 constitution till date 

to better this condition, the fact remains that obtaining justice 

on the political arena in the Nigerian Courts would always 

remain a feat. Violating the peaceful conduct of elections in 

Nigeria and the militarization of this process could 

comfortably be traced back to the 1963 ‘Operation Harmony’. 

Nigerians are good and ingenuous at circumventing the law, 

but when lawfully established and designated institutions like 

the Independent Electoral Commission prefers to manipulate 

the psyche of the electorate through inconclusive elections; 

Joseph Stalin would be right in stipulating that the power of 

who would win in any election is simply bestowed on those 

who count the ballots, and never the voters.  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

82 
 

 

The Nigerian federation remains under political and 

developmental lockdown since independence sequel to 

persistence on stereotyped rigidity. Mental slavery is the 

worst form of slavery. It creates in one an illusion of freedom, 

trust, and love to the extent of defending your oppressor, 

while making an enemy of those who are trying to free or 

positively enlighten one. Nigerian historical annals are replete 

with bizarre political oddities which have continued to 

challenge the borders of internationally accepted standards 

and etiquette. Efforts at functional democratization and 

application of the basic tenets of federation have painfully 

marginalized freedom of choice and fairness, hence 

promoting mediocrity and what Kalu referred to as ‘reciprocal 

distrust in inter-personal relations, mutual suspicion and 

frictions in trans-ethnic transactions, and the eventual 

conception of electoral contest as inter-group warfare or battle 

(kalu, 1986:23). 

In their pains, Nigerians are proving to be good managers of 

poverty; in their dilemma they feel betrayed by the ever-

growing terror infernos and insecurity, all apparently 

encapsulated in a dysfunctional strategic silence in the 

national political behavior, even when the Presidency 

habitually and blatantly refuse to obey court directives and 

judgements. Rather than attract outright condemnation, 

Nigeria remains so ethno-religiously polarized that incidents 

that would have served as platforms for equitable assessment 

on individual leaders and political office holders in each 

political dispensation are often beclouded with ethno-



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

83 
 

 

religious identities/conflagration, hence divisiveness of the 

highest depth. This dulls constructive criticism from sound 

minds, and rather recruiting dullards, praise singers and 

sycophants towards swaying national assessment and mood. 

In the absence of a portent opposition or checks and balances, 

one wonders how Nigeria’s democratic experience would 

improve. It is even odiously most dangerous when the 

Nigerian leadership brazenly tend to stroke the embers of this 

macabre dance forgetful of the fact that; ‘inciting and 

unleashing the horrendous hordes of the many unemployed 

and uneducated poor Northern Youths against the 

Southerners, based on cooked up ‘domination perception’ 

would not continue to sell always, since a good number of 

them appear to be getting better informed. To make things 

worse, the many fallouts and challenges emanating from the 

2019 elections have gone a long way in proving how 

structurally defective the Independent Electoral Commission 

has been as an institution. Be that as it may, sequel to the 

moribund nature and contemporary deficit of the Nigerian 

electoral laws, it has practically been difficult for the 

Independent Electoral Commission as an institution to 

smoothly operate. The government’s refusal towards signing 

the new electoral laws into law has simply not only 

marginalized it, but has incapacitated it towards exposing and 

checkmating electoral mischiefs. All along Nigeria’s 

chequered history, one may not be wrong to conclusively say 

that the Nigerian electoral process is not designed to be 

accountable. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

84 
 

 

Nigeria’s descent into anomie is not far from its age long 

social instability, erosion of standards and democratic values. 

Education adds value in any developmental economy, but 

when one’s idea of paradise, in a multi-cultural entity is the 

dictionary definition of hell for another hoodwinked into such 

entity, disorderliness and anarchy remains the outcome. 

Undoubtedly, good diagnosis aids prognosis and treatment. A 

persistent Northern fever has not only remained a systemic 

marasmic problem which few northerners have managed to 

escape, but occupies the epicenter of Nigeria’s developmental 

paralysis. Like the reeds of the desert, Nigeria’s Northern 

population, appear short in growth, abrupt in promise and 

wholesome in support. Out of the above 13.2 million out-of-

school children in Nigeria today, one may not need to hire the 

United Nations data unit before concluding that 70 percent of 

that figure belongs to the Northern part of Nigeria (Daily Sun 

Newspaper, 3rd June, 2016). Beyond harvesting these children 

on election season by their adroit and bestowed morally 

degenerate elites as a captive electoral audience, in their 

Plato’s cave, they remain ready markets for terror 

recruitment, so much so in their social nakedness and 

repugnant vagrancy. The Almajiri Saga is no more a 

‘Northern’ problem, since in their steady influx to the 

Southern parts of Nigeria, it’s simply scary to witness the 

increasing security concerns too. It is quite incredible to 

observe that since the periods of 1931 and 1952, when the 

British Colonial Master allegedly assigned a preponderant 

population number to the North, matters have mischievously 

gotten worse, in that the core North has not only continued to 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

85 
 

 

relish on such census figures, but has vehemently equally 

made sure that all that has to do with census and elections 

follow the British unverifiable figures. 

The British application of divide and rule in their colonial 

administration of Nigeria, injected elements of divisiveness 

into the figured polity, hence ethno-centric instead of Nigeria-

centricism remains dominant.Laying credence to this Eyo 

asserted thus:  

Today, state creation has two driving forces 

behind it; one open and the other, hidden. 

The open force is the much touted one of 

spreading socio-economic development 

laudable in principle. The hidden or 

subconscious force is the movement back to 

the living reality of the pre-colonial 

nationality (Eyo, 1997:229).  

Since 1960, and even into the first quarter of the 21st century, 

it is practically painful to observe that there is nothing like the 

Nigerian identity. Rather, beyond the glaring farcade is a 

stubborn ethno-religious personality, proudly flouted and 

driven by impunity, hence very much detrimental to national 

interest and cohesion. In the midst of abundant human and 

material resources, there is enormous economic downturn, 

endangering saving and solidifying deepening hardship, 

poverty and high death rate.  

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

86 
 

 

Eyo reiterates further by observing that; 

We delude ourselves into believing that if we 

fight for ethnic and our religious supremacy 

hard enough and long enough; if we stay in 

power and defraud the nation long enough, 

we will be acceptable to Nigerians and the 

international community, and our suffering 

will end (Eyo, 1997:236). 

The 2019 elections have opened glaringly the dangerous 

depth of Nigeria’s ethno-religious divide. It officially marked 

the official collapse of Nigeria’s moral veins, hence no 

foundational support to its monumental edifices. The Nigerian 

factor is simple-Abnormal is the normal!, hence the 

Independent National Electoral Commission had to recline so 

backwards as to challenge the borders of impossibility in its 

vehement effort to defend the many undemocratic plots. How 

could one explain the political gag planned and executed 

against the Nigerian of Igbo extraction in Lagos State by the 

leader of the ruling national party, which practically 

disenfranchised them from enjoying their democratic rights. 

When the enabling authorities, including the different security 

apparatus of governance deliberately allowed such to happen 

in the world of the 21st century, one wonders the chances or 

prospects of peaceful co-existence that may still remain. What 

of the government projected Fulfulde radio station? Nigeria is 

simply on the road!! 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

87 
 

 

The elections in Nigeria have witnessed ethnicity being 

expressed fully and robustly through electioneering. With the 

crave for growth and development in Nigeria, the political 

system needs to be readjusted, hence the ethnic antagonism 

within her political system needs restructuring. 

Political ethnicity in Nigeria has solidified corruption, 

impunity and nepotism from the high quarters. 

Professionalism is daily being sacrificed on the alter of ethnic 

mediocrity and inefficiency, hence the purely educated have 

continued to relegate the political terrain to the untutored and 

disorganized political thugs and pundits, who are largely 

psychopaths. The cumulative effect is that proper democratic 

process remains a mirage in a consistently stereotyped 

Nigeria, where old age, ill health, illiteracy and inefficiency 

are easily over-looked in all aspects of developmental strides, 

so long as one is from a preferred culture group. Constructive 

criticisms from sound minds are dulled by the louder 

acclamation and chant of recruited praise singers and ethno 

religious dullards, thereby liquidating portent opposition and 

watchdogs who give vent to national consciousness and 

growth. For the Nigerian State to classify IPOB passive 

agitators as terrorists, while protecting and pampering armed 

Fulani herdsmen as peace agents is simply absurd. Recent 

developments in the country may have given more credence 

to the fulanization and islamisation speculations and 

proclamations. Self help is a cousin to vigilantism and it may                                             

offer dovetails into anarchy, most especially where and when 

deliberate government silence or inactivity feeds on the 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

88 
 

 

speculative curiosity of the haunted. No single ehnic group 

has a monopoly of violence! 

 

REFERENCES 

Anifowose, R. (1982) Violence and Politics in Nigeria: The 

Tiv and Yoruba Experience. New York: Nok 

Publishers. 

Coleman, P. (195f) Cited in Giovanni, S. (1968) Political 

Development and Political Engineering, Public 

Policy No. 17. 

Dudley, B. (1982) An Introduction to Nigerian Government 

and Politics. London: Macmillan. 

Ezeonwuka, I.F. (2014) “Transforming Nigeria’s Economy 

on the Path of Sustainable Development in the 21st 

Century: Challenges and Reflection.” Mgbakoigba 

Journal of African Studies.Vol. 3. 

Joseph, R. (1978) “Political Parties and Ideology in Nigeria” 

in the Review of African Political Economy, 13. 

Lapalombara, J. and Weiner, M. (1972) Political Parties and 

Political Development. Princeton: Princeton 

University Press. 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

89 
 

 

Nnoli, O. (1995) Ethnicity and Development in Nigeria. 

Aldershat: Avebury. 

Ojo, A. (2000) Understanding Political Parties in Nigeria. 

Kaduna: Klamides Communication. 

Oliver and Fage, L. (1962) Quoted in Politics in Plural 

Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability by 

Rabushaka, A and Sheple, K. (1972). Columbus: 

Charles E. Merril. 

Olusanya, G. (2004) “Constitutional Development in 

Nigeria,” 1861 – 1960 in Obaro Ikime (ed.) 

Groundwork of Nigerian History. Ibadan: Heineman. 

Olusanya, G. (2004) “Nationalist Movements”, in Obaro 

Ikime (ed.) Groundwork of Nigerian History. Ibadan: 

Heineman. 

Orji, N. (2009) Parties and Electoral Politics in Nigeria: 

Before and After Power-Sharing Enugu: Glory 

Publishers. 

Otite, O. (1990) Ethnic Pluralism and Ethnicity in Nigeria. 

Ibadan: Shonesen Publishers. 

Oyediran, O. (1981) The Nigerian 1979 Elections. Lagos: 

Macmillan. 

Soludo, C.C. (2018) “The Political Economy of Restructuring 

the Nigerian Federation”. Unpublished Paper 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

90 
 

 

Delivered at the Maiden Lecture Organized by 

Ndigbo Lagos Foundation on 1st August, 2018 at the 

Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria 

Island, Lagos.   

Suberu, R.T. (1996) Ethnic Minority Conflicts and 

Government in Nigeria. Lagos: Spectrum Books. 

Tell Magazine (August 12th, 2002). 

Tell Magazine (Jan. 13th, 2003). 

Tell Magazine (Jan. 20th, 2003). 

The Guardian Newspaper (Feb. 12th, 2015).      

The Guardian Newspaper (Feb. 18th, 2018). 

The News Magazine (Jan. 18th, 2000). 

The News Magazine (Jan. 18th, 2018). 

The News Magazine (May 17th and Nov. 15th, 2010). 

The News Magazine (Sept. 20th, 2010) 

Ujo, A. (2000) Understanding Political Parties in Nigeria. 

Kaduna: Klamides Communication. 

Ujo, A.A (2000) Cited in Suberu, R. and Diamond, L. (2002). 

Institutional Design, Ethnic Conflict, Management 

and Democracy in Nigeria. Ibadan: Spectrum.  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

91 
 

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE 
CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATIONS 

 

Literatures abound both in Nigeria and abroad centered on 

ethno religious altercations in Nigeria starting from the 

colonial period till date. Regardless of this, this study has 

ventured into side lining and understudying the implications 

of a religio-ethnically polarized Nigeria before and after 

independence, up to the contemporary time. It is quite 

important to do this and carry out this research succinctly, 

since Nigeria “is” and continue to claim to be a democratic 

federalist state. In most developed countries, the political 

culture follows internationally-acclaimed and established 

ethics and norms, hence creating a psychologically balanced 

atmosphere, which is not only citizen oriented, but 

progressively developmental in approach. As a democratic 

nation, Nigeria is simply bereft of equitable leadership; the 

political platform is serviced by ethnic cleavages and 

chauvinism; the citizenry are wallowing in suspicion- culture 

bound discrimination, disunity and disorganization. Political 

ideologies with regards to political party in Nigeria, have 

continued to be sacrificed on the altar of ethnocentrism. This 

political polarization has created widespread political apathy 

and disenchantment among the citizenry; it has equally in 

most aspects allowed unqualified and indolent loafers to make 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

92 
 

 

it with effortless ease. When mediocrity is honored, 

meritocracy is sacrificed, underdevelopment, widespread 

corruption and ingenuity remain unwelcome. Today, Nigeria 

could boast of having the greatest number of political parties 

in the world. This simply shows disharmony, dishonesty, 

disorderliness, and political anarchy. The political psyche of 

Nigerians appears all the more weakened, and seriously 

challenged, since positive prospect on the horizon appear 

vague. 

It may seem like the whole country needs to be re-started 

from the scratch, the myriad of economic and social problems 

cannot just go away. The 21stcentury Nigeria is in dire need of 

“restructuring”. With regards to Federalism, powers are 

meant to be shared between the government and the regions, 

at least this will reduce the rate and campaign for secession, 

and at the same time the political parties should be less zoned. 

There is no doubt that Nigeria is destined to be a great nation, 

let’s not say it but rather act on it. The thought of Nigerian 

developmental economy in the 21st century taking a clue from 

the many advancing economies of the world may forever 

remain mere hallucinations if adequate attention is not paid to 

the several agitations for restructuring and the total 

reorganization of the country’s federalism and economic 

myopia is not interfaced. One of the biggest gains and 

achievements of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) 

group in not only the South Eastern part of the county, but 

throughout Nigeria and even beyond, is the raising of 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

93 
 

 

awareness and the designated pressure mauled on the 

Nigerian government on the need for either restructuring or 

the granting of referendum for Biafran self-determination. 

Along the lines of running battles, broken and damaged lives, 

properties and portent ‘sit at home’ declarations, the Nigerian 

government have largely applied extreme strategies and rules 

of engagement in quelling and containing the tantrums of this 

pressure group. In its spread and possible acceptance as not 

only the heart of progressive politics and excellent economics 

in contemporary developing economies, restructuring has 

really permeated beyond political parties debates and 

pedestrian manifestos into a tsunami force whose time has 

come in the Nigerian environment that has been left behind 

amongst the comity of nations. 

In recalling several historical hiccups littered along the 

contours of Nigeria’s turbulent evolutionary history, this 

study ventured towards pointing at the many foundational 

mistakes, pre and post-independence subtle maneuvers, which 

were largely cumulatively antagonistic against the will and 

demand of the several culture groups and ethnic nationalities 

inhabiting the Nigerian environment. Since freedom and the 

right to exist remain part of the internationally accepted 

global etiquette accruable to humanity, and so long as a 

people cannot be tricked and subdued forever, the need for 

restructuring is now. 

One could always easily, with direct reference to the 

persistence and rapacity of these agitations, evaluate and 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

94 
 

 

conclude that Nigeria’s stability as a sovereignty is queried, 

moreso considering the rising debt profile, infrastructural 

decay, overdependence on oil/gas and food insecurity. It 

remains quite understandable that all these and more continue 

to affect and weigh down the collective inertia to act beyond 

mere mass mobilization for change, into articulate actions. 

This is not to say that continued organized political agitations 

is not helpful towards igniting reforms. When incentive 

systems are freed through a new versatile Fiscal 

Responsibility Act, irresponsible fiscal behavior which could 

trigger a wholesale bailout of state governments 

(Consumption hinged on unsustainable public finance) would 

be contained. Nigeria’s Tax-to-growth domestic ratio 

constrains flexibility in deploying fiscal instruments for 

development. (Soludo, 2018). When all corporate taxes and 

value added Tax are paid into the federation account, where 

lies the incentive for states and local governments to attract, 

sustain and promote industrialization? Economic 

development would become an attractive decimal when 

federating units have the flexibility to deploy taxation as a 

veritable instrument to attract and promote enterprise, and 

also an independent revenue. By the same token, does it not 

negate commonsense and contemporary political-economics 

to operate a uniform salary scale/common minimum wage 

scheme across the country in a federalism? (Soludo, 2018). 

Moving at the same speed for the different components of the 

Nigerian Society negates sensitization, innovation, ingenuity, 

entrepreneurship and appears incendiary to national 

development. A people’s constitution is advocated which 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

95 
 

 

would not only address resource derivation/control, the 

separation of religion from the state, but institute the much 

needed political identity of Nigerian citizenship in place of 

that of cultural identity.    

With due reference to the European Union Charter which 

opined thus: 

Subsidiarity means that Public 

responsibilities shall generally be exercised, 

in preference, by those authorities which are 

closest to the citizen. Allocation of the 

responsibility to another authority should 

weigh up the extent and nature of the task 

and requirements of efficiency and economy 

(European Charter, 2000).                                                                          

Standing firm on this premise, this study strongly advocate 

that the federal government should loosen its hold on 

policing, electricity provision, railways, ports, aviation, 

business incorporation, taxation powers, regulatory functions, 

among others. A politico-fiscal arrangement in tandem with 

explicit devolution of powers is not only advocated, but 

section 162 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution desires to be 

urgently expunged to create a bazaar for hardwork and 

innovation. Since restructuring demands dismantling and 

recoupling, the country should be guided by the economics of 

scale and high investment rates to dictate the viability of 

either maintaining the thirty-six state structure or harmonizing 

into six regional partitions hence six vice-presidents and one 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

96 
 

 

president dictated by the principle of equality of regions; 

multivariate judicial systems among others (Soludo; 2018:8). 

A competitive federation is required to unleash the creative 

energies of all the component parts into a synergistic boom.  

Weak institutions can never provide veritable checks and 

balances to an evolving functional democracy destined for 

growth and development, moreso in the African context. 

Suffice it to say that, a hybrid restructuring program should 

be initiated forthwith, from mere declarations to action, 

encompassing the negotiation of a new constitution with 

sufficient regional autonomy within a federating Nigeria. This 

is tantamount to sweeping away the old order with its 

pathological ingredients of neo-colonialism, ignorance, 

tyranny, savagery, corruption, negative values, primordialism 

and conservatism. Faith in Nigeria from Nigerians is the only 

way patriotism, hardwork, ingenuity and healthy competition 

could promote public wealth rather than individual wealth. 

Developmental economics is driven by faith, benevolence, 

commitment and ingenuity, since belief in ones country 

grows from inside, not impacted.       

Nigeria is a country where principles and ideals collide, ideas 

and dreams strike against commonsense, fairness, practicality 

and expediency. Inundated daily with the orgy of violence, 

large- scale killing of citizens, kidnapping, bombing, amidst 

massive destruction of properties coupled with the attendant 

displacement of people, like a ‘drunk giant’, Nigeria is 

staggering on. Though this condition dates back to the 1960s, 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

97 
 

 

this cankerworm elicits immediate attention sequel to the 

increase, persistence, rapacious dimension, national spread, 

and classical execution playing out recently. Deeply inept and 

parochial as the leadership continues to be, bad policies 

continue to create and replicate an endless spiral of 

unimaginable uproar of poverty and aberrations in Nigeria. 

Ethno–religious stereotyped sentiments easily provide a 

perfidious indoctrinable recourse for this gap. Sparks and 

upheaval from global resurgent Islam appear to not only 

threaten internal balance, national unity and development in 

Nigeria, but tends to increase the fragility of the national 

fabric. Once hard work is neglected, mediocrity and 

corruption receive accolades; the majority vulnerable poor are 

inevitably intimidated, blackmailed, deceived and 

manipulated by the imperious comprador few that benefit 

from this orgy of violence. Surprisingly, all identified 

domestic ethno-religious trigger factors are not Nigeria-new, 

but the pervasiveness and complexities of each new incident, 

somehow portend how close the country is to the precipice. 

So long as ‘Nigerian federalism’ remains a mere theory, the 

agitative mind must continue to beckon and invoke the 

cherished goals of re-structuring, self-determination and 

actualization, hence re-enacting the misfortunes of a nation 

whose indigenes live in critical emergency. In view of the 

raison d’eter of this study, efforts were made to examine and 

proffer solutions to the litany of psychosocial fall-outs of 

ethno-religious challenges facing the contemporary Nigerian 

identity. 

 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

98 
 

 

In today’s world order, ran through the dictates of strategic 

importance and the developmental dialectics of economy and 

security, the desire for nation-building demands more than 

mere tantrums of orientation and psycho-social grease. In the 

pursuit of the theory of nation-building, socialization when 

awakened, must be heated, melted and sieved through the 

dangerous waters of suspicion and the ambivalence of human 

interests. Subsequently, secularism, law, patriotism and 

ideology would always galvanize integrative forces. In 

hosting proper political federation, Nigeria should stop its 

deliberate irrationality at overriding the many traditional and 

social norms, which has continued to plague it with crises of 

values, moral relativism, nihilistic and even Machiavellian 

traditions. While restructuring remains the major exercise that 

would bring out the full latent potentials embedded in 

Nigeria’s component parts, such also would grant and aid the 

much required solid avenue towards building common trust 

and complementary relationship amongst the diverse cultural 

entities in Nigeria. It is not by closing the physical distance 

that real closeness emerges, and a sense of unity established 

for socio-cultural exchange and interaction, but by the closing 

of psychological distance signified by shared modes of 

conceptualizing issues, events, peoples, including nationhood. 

(Eyo, 1997). A true Nigerian identity remains highly elusive 

so long as people prefer to operate and engage from their 

individual psycho-cultural habitat. Even though no particular 

ethnic group realistically opted for the 1914 amalgamation, it 

could rather be taken as a Felix culpa- a happy fault, which in 

encouraging peaceful competition and cooperation for 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

99 
 

 

socialization and development, trigger the much needed 

integration. Once the small seeds of patriotism starts 

germinating at the peripherals, national and formidable 

regional glaciers must be guided by proactive human 

consciousness to checkmate the ambivalence of human 

interest, coupled with the perception of ‘the other’ in the 

present Nigerian quagmire. Quite aware of the intricacies 

involved in achieving proper integration; moreso in a much 

polarized environment like Nigeria, Dukor cautioned that the 

process of integration is that of building a new society and a 

new social order based on justice and fair play. He went on to 

emphasise that integration requires that socio-economic 

progress be made within the democratic framework and 

sharing of power with minorities (Dukor, 2003:195). It is a 

naked fact that national unity and cohesion cannot simply fall 

from the sky and forcefully impact on Nigerians; the country 

must not only work for it, but create the enabling environment 

for its take off and sustainability. In giving credence to this, 

Babangida asserted thus; 
 

The creation of national unity is an infinite 

process in which identities gradually 

partialize and coalesce. There is no doubt 

that given statements and actions by many 

leaders of opinion in Nigeria, we have not 

yet transcended the fears which made our 

founding fathers to opt for federalism. 

Federalism provides a unique medium for 

coping with certain problems in our 

association as ethnic groups which form a 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

100 
 

 

new political community. (Babangida, 

1993:9). 
 

Interesting and insightful as this contribution and observation 

maybe, it is simply paradoxical and anachronistic, and only 

passes for scholarly exposition in textbook analysis if some 

time is spent in reviewing the antics, depredations and 

contributions of the former president Babangida’s 

government to Nigeria’s existence.   
 

This work explored and highlighted the dimensional 

condiments of the psychosocial implications of the persistent 

ethno religious challenges ravaging contemporary Nigeria. 

While peaceful co-existence and interaction has remained 

highly elusive, the disparate groups and entities appear to be 

retreating back to pre-colonial primordial status, while utterly 

disregarding enabling constituted laws that promoted nation-

building, social justice and equity. The current ethno religious 

discriminatory tendency in government appointments as 

exhibited by the President Buhari regime in a multi-cultural 

and religion-diverse entity reflects negative signals.  
 

Quite aware and concluded that ethno-religious challenges is 

conscienceless and incendiary to Nigeria as an entity, this 

work posits that the nation cannot continue like this, since no 

sovereignty can survive this sustained level of barbarous, 

unchecked sanguinary fury. To attempt a check on this 

endless cycle of reprisal and retaliation in order to place the 

federation on a sound footing, total re-structuring must 

accommodate sound devolution of powers from the centre to 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

101 
 

 

the federating units, hence anchoring citizenship rights on 

residency as obtained in other plural societies.  

Moreover, since intergroup relations remain ontological to 

Nigeria’s existence and development, inter-cultural and 

religious dialogue must be stimulated through emphasis on 

the histories of federating units. By so doing, ethno religious 

understanding, awareness, accommodation, tolerance and co-

existence would be achieved. As a logical sequence to this, 

the dialectics of existence ordinarily dictates that each human 

group must consciously and or unconsciously relate with 

other groups to be able to survive, after all, contact, 

interaction and interdependence remains a basic constant for 

life. (mutual aid).  

Due to the complexities inherent in intergroup relations as a 

social phenomenon with broad continuum, Behavior 

scientists must be able to soar above the mutational nature of 

the polar opposites of consensus and conflict, to 

conceptualize intergroup relations as states of friendship or 

hospitality, co-operation and competition, dominance or 

subordination, alliance or enemity, peace or war between two 

or more groups and their respective members. (Sherif and 

Sherif, 1969:88). Zoning of political offices though not a 

democratic ideal, may help most especially if constitutionally 

entrenched and sustained.  

Since no group of human community not withstanding its 

level of development can be an island entirely to itself, this 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

102 
 

 

work tersely contends that there’s always a light at the end of 

the tunnel, though the burning of tunnels between the diverse 

ethno-religious groups is only making such tunnels to be long. 

Historical narrative alone could constitute a source of 

ethnocentrism demonstrated in stereotyping cultures, whereas 

Psychologists remain more concerned on how they grow and 

operate in ‘individuals’ mind. A national orientation is 

advocated, purposefully deployed towards smoothening those 

edges that sharply distinguish and divide, in so doing 

promoting those that accommodate and unify. 

In politics, two emotions remain very strong-fear and greed. 

While greed leads to certain extremist tendencies like 

corruption, fear opens the door to certain excesses of religion, 

nationality and identity cult. This scenario directly introduces 

a hedge towards national integration and development. 

Undoubtedly, the Nigerian country as a product of the faulty 

foundation of 1914 has not only continued to prove the 

chemical law which shows the incompatibility of oil and 

water, but the terrible intrigues embedded in ambivalent 

nature of human interests. Though no normal individual 

willfully and knowingly seeks his own destruction, moreover 

since lack of knowledge could attract wrong choice, most 

especially when in a dilemma, for Nigeria, all exit routes are 

not yet blocked. In driving the rationality of human behavior, 

knowledge, intention and voluntariness are always handy 

towards distinguishing ‘human act’ from ‘the act of man’. 

The Nigerian society is suffering from the ambivalence of 

human interest, hence the upsurge and celebration of a litany 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

103 
 

 

of vices-embezzlement, mismanagement of public funds, 

election rigging, impunity among others. This situation is so 

widespread that it stands to be disproved that the Nigerian 

Civil Service is not the most corrupt in the world. To make 

matters worse, since the law of self-preservation in spurring 

one to avoid what would destroy him, attracts him rather into 

selfish interests rather than collective, a great number of the 

populace entangled in one way or the other in the sharing of 

these booties and loots, ignorantly remain implicated in 

encouraging and celebrating the underdevelopment of 

Nigeria. Human interest is ambivalent according to Asouzu, 

because it has a double capacity and as such can represent 

something negative and positive at the same time. When such 

interests has to mislead to unintended, yet willful and 

insightful actions and conclusions, lies the danger of its 

inherent ambivalence (Asouzu, 2003:5). 

All in all, Nigeria’s survival as an entity lies on its ability 

towards stimulating and instigating viable mannerisms and 

actions emanating from the various diverse culture groups 

aimed at downplaying group interests that is clearly 

detrimental to national good. Though the road towards 

attaining such really appears far, it is apparent that the first 

solid steps must come from the political class vis a vis the 

political parties, as major actors in the country’s 

developmental process. The journey to greatness is driven by 

dreams and ideas, but lofty ideas devoid of structured plans 

ends in mere mental hallucination. Patriotism is an anathema 

in the Nigerian context, simply because neither the political 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

104 
 

 

parties nor the country itself have ever ventured an attempt at 

a driving ideology. A country or society without ideology is 

like a family without focus, plan, vision and mission. 

Ideology gives support, and can validate action by giving 

meaning or explaining in details, and even bind society or 

people together amongst other things. Mullins states that, the 

significance of ideology in mobilization is not that it causes 

one to do, but that it gives one cause for doing, and so 

provides grounds or warrants political activity engaged in 

(Mullins, 1972:509). Since ideology conceptualizes the 

historical process, and orients human beings for shaping it, 

ideology in itself is an active agent for social change and a 

stubborn base for the evolutionary growth of strong 

institutions in human societies. Wherever strong institutions 

are lacking, strong personalities quickly grow and fill in the 

gap leading to the promotion of corruption, political 

redundancy and impunity. Strong societal institutions are 

propelled by certain ideologies which stream from national 

consciousness, empowering such institutions to remain as 

viable elements of checks and balances to politicians and state 

actors.  

However, since ideology sometimes may appear as an elusive 

essential condiment of society, one may easily equip and 

organize it through the following five attributes:-all inclusive, 

configurative, functional and compositional, distortive and 

pejorative and transformative. Mittleman goes further by 

stipulating that the elements of ideology are critique, activism 

and prescription. In order words, ideology includes a theory 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

105 
 

 

of history, a program of action, and a conception of a desired 

state of affairs. He sums up by observing that an ideology is 

operative in so far as behavior is structured, manipulated and 

justified in terms of its beliefs and values (Mittleman, 

1978:45). Ideology usually is for legitimation, rationalization, 

interpretation, solidification, communication and 

mobilization. Infact, ideas can become powerful forces, but  

INDEX

          A 

Aba division 31  

Abacha, General 70 

Abiola, Chief  70 

Aboha 31 

Aborigines Rights Protection 

Society  63 

Action Group Party 65, 66  

Adamu Ciroma 71 

Afenifere 12 

Affective 18 

African Charter  8 

Aggression 19 

Agitations 10, 12, 29, 

Ahmadu Bello, Sir 30, 66 

Ahoada 31 

Al Qaeda 41  

Al Shabab 41  

Aladura 40 

Almajiri 76 

Amalgamation 8, 30, 61, 63, 89 

Amalgamation Act, 8, 30, 61, 

63,  

Amended Electoral 

 Laws 73 

Anglican 40 

Anioma Communities 29  

Apapa gridlock 62 

Arewa 11, 12, 21  

Arewa Group 11 

Artificial Intelligence 51 

Attahiru Jega 72 

Auto-rejection,  

Pathophysiological 5, 27  

Azara Crisis 42  

Azumini 31 

 

 B 

Baptist 40 

Behaviour Scientists 13 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

106 
 

 

Behavioural 20 

Benin Delta Peoples  

Party (BDPP) 28   

Benue State 29 

Boko Haram 10, 12, 21, 34, 

 43, 52, 57  

Brexit 62 

 

 C 
Calabar Ogoja Rivers  

Movement (COR) 28, 61, 

62, 64, 97, 99  

Caliphate 43, 58, 62 

Catholic 40, 41 

Catholic Bishop’s 

Conference 40 

Celestial Church of Christ 40 

Chatam House 62 

Christian Association of 

Nigeria 12, 40 

Christianity 41  

Citizenship rights 91  

Civil War 24, 43, 100 

Cleft Country 40  

Clifford Constitution  

Nigerian 64 

Council 12, 21, 25, 64, 65, 111, 

113, 

Cognitive 17, 18 

Confederation 49 

Conflict Trap Theory 21, 23  

Constitution, 19, 79- 32 

Constructivism 16, 19 

Corruption 27, 44, 57, 69, 79, 

83, 87, 88, 93, 94, 96  

Criminal Entrepreneurs 23  

Criminality 52 

 

 D 

Debt Profile 8, 85 

Delta State 29 

Democracy 44, 47, 49, 54 

57, 62, 68, 82, 87, 99,102 

Democratic etiquette 47 

Devolution of Powers 57, 87, 

91 

Digital Age 51 

Discrimination 12, 17-19, 33, 

41-46, 62, 83  

Dogmatic Principles 17  

Domesticated Identity 95  

Drug abuse 43 

 

 E 

Eastern Region 31 

Ebonyi State 29 

Economic Sanctions 48 

Eco-terrorism 59 

Edo State 29 

Egbe Omo Oduduwa 65 

Egbema Community 31 

Elections, 2019  69, 72 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

107 
 

 

Electricity 52, 87 

Emir of Katsina 32 

Emir of Zaria 31 

Employment Migration 46  

Equity 7, 31, 91 

Ernest Ikoli 64 

Essentialism 16 

Ethnic Chauvinism 7 

Ethnic mobilization 63 

Ethnic Polarization 10, 27 

Ethnic Politics 7, 9, 25, 103  

Ethnicity1, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 

21, 25, 36, 38, 42, 44, 61-71, 

78-81 

Ethnocentrism 11, 17, 18, 19, 

25, 62, 71, 83, 92, 105 

Ethno-religious challenges 21, 

23, 24, 38, 89, 91, 101 

Ethno-religious  

discrimination 44 

Evangelical Church of 

West Africa 40  

Exclusion, politics of  96 

Ezza Community 29 

 

 F 

Faulty Physiognomy 28  

Federal Character Principle 31, 

32  

Federal Military 

Government 69 

Federal Road Safety Corps 45 

Federalism 7, 25, 33, 35, 36, 

54, 57, 84, 86, 88, 90, 97, 99, 

100-105 

Federation Account 56, 70, 86  

Felix-culpa 89 

Fiscal Federalism 57 

Fiscal Responsibility Act. 85  

Food insecurity 85 

Force Multipliers 46 

Fourth Industrial Revolution 51 

Fourth Republic 10 

Freedom of the Press 57  

Frustration/Aggression 

 Theory 20 

Fulani Herdsmen 34, 43, 46, 

52, 79 

Fulfulde78 

 

 G 
Genocidal War 28 

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan 71, 

72  

Gowon 31 

  

H 

Hajia Turai 71 

Hausa-Fulani 27, 44, 62 

Historical process 94  

Hobbesian Natural  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

108 
 

 

Anarchy 19 Theory 21, 23, 80, 

89, 95, 97, 100, 104 

Human Act  93 

Human Crisis 93 

Human Interest 93 

HumanRights10, 46, 48, 54, 59, 

52, 99 

Human Rights Commission 97 

 

 I 

Ibadan Constitutional 

Conference 31 

Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, 

General 69 

Identity 5, 10, 14, 16, 19, 21, 

38, 41, 86, 89, 93, 96 

Identity19  

Identity Cult 9  

Identity-reclause 44 

Ideology 5, 80, 89, 94, 95, 

96,102 

Idi Araba/Oko Oba Crisis 42 

Igbo 1, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 

41, 43, 48, 55, 61, 69, 78, 81, 

96 

Igbo Pogrom 33, 43 

Igbo Union 11, 65 

Ijaw Nation 30  

Immigration 45  

Import dependency 49  

Impunity 11, 44, 59, 57, 79, 77, 

93, 94 

Inclusion, politics of  96 

Inconclusive  

Elections 74  

Indigenous People of Biafra 12, 

34, 84 

Indoctrinated Stereotype 7 

 Indoctrination 15 

INEC Chairman 72, 73 

Inflation 52 

Inherent ambivalence  93 

Insecurity 8, 49, 52, 59, 75, 85  

Institutionalism 16 

Instrumentalism  16, 19 

Insurgency 25, 52, 71, 105 

Integration 36, 44, 55, 90, 93 

Interdependence/Mutual Aid 

Theory 19 

Intergroup Relations 17, 20, 23  

Internally displaced Persons 46 

International Law 47 

IPOB 21, 79 

Isaac Adaka Boro 30 

Islam 16, 41, 88 

Islamic Caliphate 34  

Islamic Theocracy 41 

 

 J 

Jehovah Witnesses 40 

Joseph Casely Hayford 63  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

109 
 

 

 

 K 

Kaduna Sharia Riots 42 

Kano Mayhem 69 

Kanuri Ethnic Group 69  

Kidnapping 43, 58, 88 

 

L 

Lagos Youth Movement 64 

  Land and Natives Right  

 Ordinance, 1910  81 

Law 30, 35, 44, 47, 76, 93, 100 

Linkage Politics 96 

Lutheran 40 
 

 M 
Machiavellian traditions 89  

Macpherson Constitution 86 

Marcus Garvey 64 

Marginalisations Theory 18 

MASSOB 21, 34 

Media trials 45, 72 

Medical Tourism 60 

Mediocrity 45, 74, 79, 83, 88 

MEND 16, 21, 34, 49, 73  

Mental hallucination 94 

Mental Slavery 74 

Meritocracy 7, 44, 83 

Methodist 40 

Middle Belt Region 10  

Middle Belt State 29 

Migration 89,17,45,46 

Militant Islam 16 

Minimum Wage 86 

Minority rights 48 

Mob-mentality 45 

Moral relativism 89 

Muhamadu Buhari 72, 73 

Murtala Muhammed 32 

 

 N 
NADECO 69 

Nassarawa-Agyaragu Crisis 42 

National Assembly 48 

National Congress of British 

West Africa 63 

National Consciousness 79  

National Council of Nigeria 

and the Cameroons 65 

National Council of Nigeria  

Citizens 65 

National Party of Nigeria 11  

National Rentier System 51 

National Republican 

Convention 69  

National Youth Movement 64  

Nationality 52, 77, 93 

Nation-building 89, 97, 100 

Nationhood 11, 19, 21, 23, 58, 

89, 97, 101 

Ndoki 31 

Ndoni  31 

Neocolonial 39  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

110 
 

 

Neo-colonialism 87  

Nepotism 11, 27, 57, 59, 79 

Niger Delta Region 33 

Nigeria Peoples Party 11 

Nigerian Army 46 

Nigerian Civil Service 93  

Nigerian Constitution 48, 49, 

87 

Nigerian Constitution, 1999 49, 

87 

Nigerian Identity 5, 89, 96 

Nigerian National Democratic  

Party 64 

Nigerian Project 5  

Nigerian Youths 39 

Nihilistic traditions 89 

Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. 64, 66, 

102 

Northern and Southern  

Protectorates 8 

Northern House of  

Assembly 29  

Northern Peoples Congress 65 

Nzeogwu 30, 33 

 

 O 

Obafemi Awolowo, Chief 66 

Obigbo 31 

Odua Peoples Congress 12 

Ogbaru Community 31 

Ohaneze 12, 34 

Oil Structural disease 51  

Olugbu 31 

Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief  70 

Omo Oduduwa 11 

Ontological 23, 91 

Ontological Demands 23 

Over-policed 38, 49 

  

P 
PANDEV 21 

Participation, politics of  60  

Paternal Relations 11 

Patrick Aziza 71 

Patriotism 5, 8, 9, 90, 94, 96  

Pax Britannica 20 

PDP Constitution 71  

Peaceful coexistence 78, 91  

Pentecostal Fellowship  

of Nigeria 40  

Peoples Democratic Party 69 

Peoples Union 63 

Petroleum Industry Bill 60 

Plural identities 96 

Plural societies 7 

Police 46 

Political Baptism 26 

Political Class 8, 10, 92 

Political Geography 26 

Political ideologies 81 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

111 
 

 

Political Parties 11, 27, 62, 63, 

64, 65, 70, 80, 84, 85, 94, 102, 

103, 104,106   

Political Psyche 83 

Political redundancy 94 

Port Harcourt 31, 61 

Prejudice 12, 13, 16 

Presidential Amnesty 33 

Primary Healthcare 61 

Primordial Attachment 19 

Primordialism 7, 12, 16, 19, 51, 

62, 87 

Prebendal boundaries 9  

Professionalism 79 

Pseudo-independence 9 

Psychopaths 79  

Psychosocial implications 91  

Pyramidal Leadership 15 

 Q 

Quadriyya 41 

Quota System 28, 31 
 

 R 

Race 14, 17, 38, 39, 69, 74 

Raping 43, 58 

Regional autonomy 49, 87 

Regionalism 65  

Religion 1, 5, 9, 13, 14, 15, 21, 

24, 25, 27, 40, 41, 42, 44, 64, 

67, 86, 91, 93, 95, 99, 101, 105 

Religious Adherents 11 

Religious Bigotry 9  

Religious dialogue 91 

Religious Pluralism 23 

Religious Schism 38 

Residency 91 

Resource Derivation Policy 28 

Resource Derivation/control 86 

Resurgent Islam 88 

Richard’s Constitution 65, 66 

Rigid identities 38 

Robotics 51 

Royal Charter 8 

Rule of Law 49, 57, 59  

Ruses of War, UN guidelines 

on Diversification 57 

Royal Niger Company 8 

 

  

 

S 

Sabon Gari System 8 

Salary Scale 86 

Sanusiyya 41 

Sarduana of Sokoto 64  

Secession 30, 32, 35, 47, 48 

Second Republic 67, 68 

Sectionalism  61  

Secularism 89 

Security 22, 33, 46, 48, 49, 52, 

54, 57, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 102 

Segregation 16  



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

112 
 

 

Self-determination 12, 29, 30, 

31, 33, 47, 88 

Self-Preservation 30, 93 

Sentimental Loyalty 16,  

Separation 30, 31, 47, 58, 69, 

86 

Shiite 41, 52 

Shiites 52 

Social Democratic Party 69 

Social justice 91  

South/North dichotomy  64 

Sovereignty 47, 59, 85, 91, 95 

State actors 93 

State Creation 28, 31, 33, 36, 

39 

State Terror 20 

Sunni 41, 43 

Supreme Council for 

 Islamic Affairs 12, 21 

 

T 

Taliban 41 

Target-audience 45  

Target-News 45 

Terror Infernos 75 

Third Republic 69 

Tijaniyya 41 

Tiv-Jukun Crisis 11 

Traditional Religion 41 

Tsunami Force 85 

 

 U 
Umaru Yar’Adua, President 70 

Underdevelopment 10, 57, 61, 

83, 93 

Unemployment 8, 38  

Unification 47 

United Nations Data 6 

Unity Party of Nigeria 11 

Urbanization 17 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V 

Violence quotient 45, 52 

 

 W 

Waahabi and Saalafi  

Ideologies 41 

Weak Institutions 87 

Wild, Wild West 27 

Willink Commission 29 

 

 Y 



STEREOTYPED NIGERIA: RELIGION AND ETHNICITY AS IDENTITY POLITICS 

 

113 
 

 

Yelwan-Shandan Crisis 42 

Yoruba 27, 41, 62, 65, 66, 69, 

70, 80, 99  

 

 Z 

Zaki-Biam 41 

Zoning 69,70,71,92 


