Partition or Perish: Restoring Social Equilibrium in Nigeria through Reconfiguration


PARTITION OR PERISH: RESTORING SOCIAL
EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA THROUGH

RECONFIGURATION

Okechukwu Oko"

I. INTRODUCTION

Ethnic identity is central to the life of Africans.' An individual's ethnic
identity helps to shape perceptions, political behavior,2 and even personal
relationships.3 Prospects of a better life, such as access to modem facilities,
adequate health care, and state appointments, far too often depend on an
African's ethnicity.4 Fear of exclusion from power, and by extension from
the nation's wealth, is genuine and remains a major impetus for aggressive
ethnic identification in most African countries.5 The fear of losing control
of the machinery of government to another ethnic group reinforces the

* LL.B. (Hons), LL.M. (University of Nigeria); LL.M., J.S.D. (Yale Law School);

Assistant Professor, Southern University Law Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I gratefully
acknowledge the useful comments and suggestions by Professor Q. Johnstone, Professor
Emeritus, Yale Law School. I also wish to thank Triscilla Taylor, J.D. '98, and Lakoshia
Roberts, J.D. '99, for their invaluable research assistance.

1. A. Selassie, Ethnic Identity and Constituional Design for Africa, 29 STAN. J. INT'L
L. 1, 12 (1992) ("Ethnicity tends to be more important to Africans than it is to individuals
elsewhere. In much of Africa, ethnicity is the hub around which life revolves."); GERHARD
MARE, ETlNICITY AND PoLmcs IN SouTH AFRICA 2 (1993) ("Ethnic identity is similar to a
story; it is a way of dealing with the present through a sense of identity rooted in the past.").

2. Rotimi Suberu, Comment, Federalism and Nigeria's Political Future, 87 AFR.
AFFAiRS 431, 437 (1988) (commenting that in spite of remarkable institutional and
constitutional reforms designed to reduce their impact on political life, ethnicity and religion
still provide the basis on which political values are defined, articulated, contested or
challenged) (citing Shehu Othman, The Triumph of Theater, W. AFR., June 15, 1987, at
1142).

3. Saro-Wiwa's Peril, ECONOMIST, Nov. 4, 1995, at 46 (noting that in Nigeria, as in
all of Africa, ethnicity, language and culture, but not nationality, are becoming the touchstones
of personal identity).

4. See J.O. IRUKwU, NIGERIA AT CROSSROADS: A NATION IN TRANSITION 284 (1985):
Africa has suffered so much greatly as a result of tribalism. Wars have been
fought and thousands of lives lost as a result of tribal and ethnic conflicts;
important economic institutions that would have transformed national economies
have been killed due to tribal differences; great African industrialists and
scientists have had their careers ruined or programmes frustrated or destroyed
because they belong to the 'wrong' ethnic group in relation to those in power
at the material time.
5. Jerome Wilson, Ethnic Groups and the Right to Self Determination, 11 CONN. J.

INT'L L. 433, 436 (1996) ("Ethnic identification seems to be driven by the desire, on the one
hand, for psychological security and self-esteem, and, on the other hand, for material gain.
The desire to have security, self-esteem, and material gain are strongest when common social
goods are threatened.").



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

masses' resolve to rally around the leaders of their ethnic groups. 6 Whether
motivated by fear or by a desire to dominate others, the resurgence of
ethnicity in the political process has destroyed many African nations and
mortally wounded others.7 Failed' and failing states, 9 internecine wars,
bitter and violent struggles for power, 0 and massive human rights violations
in Africa are in large part traceable to ethnic rivalries. I"

African nations' attempts to navigate through the thicket of ethnic
tensions and to promote national unity have been consistently undermined
and ultimately thwarted by political elites' inability to subordinate ethnic
sentiments to the overriding interest of the nation. 12 Ethnic loyalties impede

6. An ethnic group has been described as a group of persons who recognize themselves
as members of a group that has very particular characteristics, including: (1) persistence over
time, (2) shared religious, ideological, and other cultural features, (3) specific forms of
communication and interaction, and (4) mutual self-identification as a category distinct from
others. See Gwendolyn Mikell, Ethnic Particularism and the Creation of State Legitimacy in
West Africa, 4 TULSA J. COMP. & INT'L L. 99, 103 (1996) (citing FREDRIK BARTH, ETHNIC
GROUPS AND BOUNDARIES (1969)).

7. For an account of troubled and collapsed states in Africa, see generally, COLLAPSED
STATES: THE DISINTEGRATION AND RESTORATION OF LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY (I. William
Zartman ed., 1995) [hereinafter COLLAPSED STATES].

8. Failed states are those whose governments have collapsed or have degenerated
towards anarchy. See Gerald Helman & Steven Ratner, Saving Failed States, 89 FOREIGN
POL'Y 1, 3 (1992). An example of a failed state is Liberia. In 1990, the country collapsed
following the attack of Samuel Doe's government by rebel forces led by Charles Taylor.
Others include Somalia, which collapsed in 1991 when rebel forces overran the government
of Mohammed Said Baire, and Rwanda, which collapsed in 1994 after the President Juvenile
Habyarima, a Hutu, was killed in a plane crash.

9. Failing states are those whose central governments lack sufficient authority to
maintain law and order within their boundaries. The legitimacy and authority of these states
have been considerably eroded by social, economic, and political upheavals. Failing states
include Nigeria, Sudan, Zaire, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Chad.

10. General Olusegun Obasanjo, former Head of State of Nigeria (1976-79), observed
that "the continent is a theatre for more endemic deadly conflicts than any other region of the
world. These have had devastating effects on African societies." CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN
AFRICA (Francis Deng & William Zartman eds., 1991).

11. For a discussion of civil strife, civil wars, and state collapse in Africa, see THE
FAILURE OF THE CENTRALIZED STATE: INSTITUTIONS AND SELF GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA
(James Wunsch & Dele Olowu eds., 1990) [hereinafter THE FAILURE OF THE CENTRALIZED
STATE]. For human rights violations under Nigeria's military regimes, see 1993 U.S. DEP'T
OF STATE DISPATCH, NIGERIAN HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES (1994) (setting forth an account
of human rights violations in Africa) [hereinafter NIGERIAN HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES].

12. Howard French, Can African Democracy Survive Ethnic Voting, N.Y. TIMES, Mar.
17, 1996, at E4 (stating that the emotional pull of allegiances based on tribe, language, and
religion remains far stronger than appeals based on policies and platform); LARRY DIAMOND,
CLASS, ETHNICITY AND DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA: THE FAILURE OF THE FIRST REPUBLIC 41
(1988) (noting that from the first significant elections in 1951, to the final fraudulent and brutal
confrontations in 1964 and 1965, the regional classes used ethnicity as an electoral weapon
against each other and against low class challengers from below).

[Vol. 8:2



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

the democratic process in two ways: (1) they often promote capricious
conduct by the dominant ethnic group, which often employs repressive
policies to retain political control; and (2) they heighten minority ethnic
groups' fear of exclusion and ultimately engender disloyalty to the nation.
Ethnic distrust has infested every aspect of the civil society, including
revenue allocation, education, and distribution of social amenities.' 3 The
political process inevitably turns into a squabble about which ethnic group
gets what reward. There are no reasoned debates or structured approaches
to national issues, just balancing ethnic concerns. Etlic hostilities will
continue to serve as a countervailing force to national unity unless Africa
devises a strategy that will meaningfully and effectively eliminate or relieve
the problems that promote ethnic rivalries. 4

Efforts at restoring social order in Africa have focused almost
exclusively on the establishment of constitutional democracy. The calls for
democracy as a panacea to Africa's problems proceed on the assumption that
a democratically elected government will observe the rule of law, respect
citizens' rights, and, more fundamentally, make governments accountable to
the masses. A cursory examination of Africa's political landscape reveals
that most attempts at setting up a constitutional democracy have succumbed
to powerful destabilizing centrifugal ethnic forces, thereby creating a
continent without any real prospects of peace. 5 Ethnic forces have also
overwhelmed economic and social policies designed to elevate the moral and
material well-being of citizens. The failure of democracy has led to civil war
and endless military intervention in the political process with attendant
massive human rights violations, corruption, and mismanagement.' 6

Consequences of such failures are so ominous that continued replication of
similar efforts is morally unacceptable.

This paper focuses on Nigeria to illustrate the impact of ethnicity on
the search for a durable social order in Africa. Nigeria, one of the
wealthiest nations in Africa, is at a crossroad. Once touted as the "most
stable African nation,"17 Nigeria has been plagued by intractable ethnic

13. For a detailed analysis of the controversy surrounding revenue allocation in Nigeria,
see Attorney General of Bended State v. Attorney of the Fed'n, 2 N.C.L.R. 1 (1982).

14. Professor Akande identifies six basic problems in Nigeria: fear of the predominance
of one state over others, overcentralization of powers, lack of consensus politics and
government based on community of interests, absence of truly integrative national political
parties, non-establishment of the principle of public accountability for office holders, and
inequitable system of revenue allocation. See Jadesola 0. Akande, Constitutional Development
in Nigeria, in THE CHALLENGE OF THE NIGERIAN NATION 27 (1985).

15. See THE FAILURE OF THE CENTRALZED STATE, supra note 11; DANIEL HoRowrrz,
ETHNIC GROUPS IN CONFLICT (1985).

16. See supra text accompanying notes 11 and 12.
17. ARTHUR A. NwANKwo & SAMUEL U. IFEIKA, BIAFRA: THE MAKING OF A NATION

125 (1972) (noting that Nigeria was expected to be "Africa's bastion of democracy and

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. [Vol. 8:2

tensions and rivalries, and the country is now degenerating toward anarchy."
After thirty-six years, Nigeria has been characterized by ethnic rivalries that
have resulted in a traumatic thirty-month civil war, 9 six military coups, 20 an
unsuccessful experimentation with various constitutional models,2 and
massive human rights violations. 22 As a result, Nigeria represents the faded
hopes, broken promises, and tantalized aspirations of a people in search of
a durable social order and economic empowerment. 23

Contrary to the views of many Western nations that democracy

stability").
18. A June 1994 report of the U.N. Development Program lists Nigeria "as among

countries in danger of joining the world's list of failed states because ... of disastrous social
upheavals and explosions." Paul Lewis, U.N. Lists Four Nations at Risk Because of Wide
Income Gaps, N.Y. TIMES, June 2, 1994, at A6.

19. The civil war lasted from 1967 to 1970. For a detailed account of the civil war, see
JOHN DE ST. JORRE, THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR (1972); KEN SARO-WIWA, ON A DARKLING
PLAIN: AN ACCOUNT OF THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR (1989), NTIEYONG U. AKPAN, THE
STRUGGLE FOR SECESSION, 1967-1970 (1976).

20. The 1966 coup attempt marked the beginning of military involvement in Nigerian
politics. The military, previously insulated from politics and subordinate to civilian authority,
suddenly became a key player in the political process. Having tasted political power, the
military found it increasingly difficult to accept civilian authority. See Paul Adams, Reign of
the General, AFR. REPORT, Nov.-Dec. 1994, at 27-28 (commenting that the primary role of
the Nigerian military has become political rather than military after 24 years of army rule out
of the 34 years since independence). Between 1966 and 1996, there were five successful
coups. In July 1966, General Gowon seized power and ruled until July 29, 1975, when
General Mohammed seized power in a bloodless coup. General Mohammed ruled for 200
days until he was assassinated. On December 31, 1983, General Buhari seized power and
ruled until he was ousted on August 7, 1985, in a coup led by General Babangida, who ruled
Nigeria until August 26, 1993. On November 17, 1993, General Abacha, the current head
of state, seized power from the interim national government of Chief Shonekan. Nigeria also
experienced coup attempts in January 1966, February 1976, and April 1990. Two other coup
plots were uncovered and circumvented in 1985 and in 1994. For an accurate chronicle and
history of coups and attempted-coups in Nigeria, see Factsheet on Coup Precedents in Nigeria,
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Mar. 10, 1995, available in 1995 WL 777542.

21. Nigeria has experimented with two constitutional models since attaining
independence in 1960: a parliamentary system of government from 1960 to 1966, and a
presidential system between 1979 and 1983.

22. For human rights violations in Nigeria, see U.S. DEP'T OF STATE, COUNTRY
REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES FOR 1994, at 287 (1995); A. OLANREWAJU, THE BAR
AND THE BENCH IN DEFENSE OF RULE OF LAW IN NIGERIA (1992); LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR
HUMAN RIGHTS, IN DEFENSE OF RIGHTS: ATTACKS ON LAWYERS AND JUDGES (1994);
NIGERIAN HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, supra note 11.

23. This is not peculiar to Nigeria. The African political landscape is replete with
crumbled, crumbling, and chaotic nations groping for solutions to civil strife and ethnic
conflicts. The rate and frequency of reforms in Africa led Colin Legum to describe this era
as the second independence of the continent. See Colin Legum, The Coming of Africa's
Second Independence, 13 WASH. Q. 129 (1990).



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

provides an appropriate framework for preserving social order in Nigeria, 2A
this paper argues that the most efficacious, and perhaps the only viable way
to preserve order in Nigeria is to partition the nation.' The goals of
resolving ethnic tensions and successfully implementing democracy in
Nigeria entail wholesale changes in attitudes and social practices. These
changes seem very unlikely in the near future. Preserving social equilibrium
in Nigeria through constitutional democracy is an unwinnable battle-a task
rendered more difficult by ethnic rivalries as well as by a conspicuous
absence of democratic culture. The uneasy ethnic groups that comprise
Nigeria have clearly and repeatedly demonstrated their unwillingness to
subordinate ethnic loyalties to the interest of the nation. 26 The intense ethnic
rivalries and aggressive ethnic identification among the political elites render
democracy an inherently unworkable proposition." Democracy can never
work if "political competition only generates patterns of political
mobilization and conflict which threaten the very integrity of the nation
itself. " 21 The deep-seated ethnic distrust and rivalries provide an
inhospitable environment for the implementation of democracy. 29 Political
leaders who manipulate ethnicity to gain political advantage often find
themselves overwhelmed by the ethnic sentiments they have engineered. Far
too often, ethnic rivalries result in weakened and ineffectual leadership, as
citizens rarely accept or submit to the authority of leaders from different
ethnic groups.30 Pervasive ethnic irredentism has reached the point where
the minimum conditions necessary for democracy no longer exist in most

24. Western nations frequently use democracy as the yardstick for evaluating a nation's
legitimacy. Consequently, the United Nations devotes considerable resources and time to
assisting troubled nations establish democracy. For a detailed study of the United Nations'
efforts in that regard, see Douglas Lee Donoho, Evolution or Expediency: The United
Nations' Response to the Disruption of Democracy, 29 CORNELL INT'L L.J. 329 (1996).

25. William Schroeder, Nationalism, Boundaries and the Bosnia War: Another
Perspective, 19 S. ILL. U. L.J. 153, 161 (1994) ("Only after an ethnic group has achieved self-
government within secure and definite boundaries is democracy likely to take root.").

26. For a rich study of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria, see JAMES COLEMAN,
NIGERIA: BACKGROUND TO NATIONALISM 15 (1958).

27. Michael Lind, In Defense of Liberal Nationalism, 73 FOREIGN AFF. 95 (commenting
that the evidence is overwhelming that democracy does not work in societies divided along
linguistic and cultural lines).

28. RICHARD A. JOSEPH, DEMOCRACY AND PREBENDAL POLTIcs IN NIGERIA: THE RISE

AND FALL OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC 185 (1987).
29. For a detailed analysis of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria, see NNOLI OKWUDIBA, ETHNIC

POLITICS IN NIGERIA (1978); John Paden, Communal Competition, Conflict and Violence in
Kano, in NIGERIA: MODERNIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF COMMUNALISM 113-44 (Melson

& Wolpe eds., 1971).
30. Robert Jackson, Juridical Statehood in Sub-Saharan Africa, 46 J. INT'L AFF. 1

(1992) (stating that many post-colonial states in Africa lack an independent political
organization with enough authority and power to govern a people and territory; in other
words, they lack the essential requirements of empirical statehood).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. [Vol. 8:2

African states.3 Neither the political elites who seek power nor the masses
are willing to subordinate ethnic loyalties to the overriding interests of the
nation.32

This paper contends that seeking political stability in Nigeria through
constitutional democracy is an unattainable ideal, an illusory notion
sedulously promoted by dominant ethnic groups and their foreign allies.
Democracy can never resolve the deep-seated ethnic distrust and rivalries in
Nigeria, currently kept within bounds by the ruling military junta.33

Democracy is typically effective in countries where citizens have internalized
democratic values and political elites observe the rule of law.'
Constitutional democracy in Nigeria has always been a multi-headed monster
with different faces: flagrant violation of the rule of law; brutal suppression
of political opponents; exclusion of minorities from the governance process;
and manipulation of the electoral process by ethnic entrepreneurs
masquerading as nationalists.35 Constitutional democracy cannot obliterate

31. Most definitions of democracy draw heavily from ROBERT DAHL, POLYARCHY:
PARTICIPATION AND OPPOSITION (1971). Dahl states that "a key characteristic of a democracy
is the continuing responsiveness to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political
equals." Id. at 1. To achieve the level of accountability described by Dahl, certain conditions
must exist: freedom to form and join organizations, periodic free and fair elections, and the
right to vote. See generally POLITICS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: COMPARING EXPERIENCES
WITH DEMOCRACY 7 (Larry Diamond et al. eds., 1991), eloquently describing political
democracy as

meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and organized groups
... for all elective positions of government power, at regular intervals and

excluding the use of force; a highly inclusive level of political participation in
the selection of leaders... and a level of civil and political liberties-freedom
of expression, freedom of press, freedom to form and join organizations.

32. Makau Wa Mutua, Redrawing the Map Along African Lines, BOSTON GLOBE, Sept.
22, 1994, at 17 (noting that citizens as a whole lack an instinctual bond to the state; hence,
those who become rulers pillage it in league with members of their ethnic group and resort to
massive human rights violations to repress those they have excluded).

33. JOHN MACKINTOSH, NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT AND POLrICS 619 (1966) (noting that
democracy in Britain and the U.S. was never intended and has never managed to settle the
range of questions, the whole position of tribes, or the domination of the country by one or
two areas).

34. Professor Wing correctly observed that "[diemocracy is based in part on
constitutionalism, the creation of a culture in which the governing document is followed as a
charter for the exercise and limit of official power." Adrien Wing, Towards Democracy in
a New South Africa, 16 MICH. J. INT'L L. 689, 690 (1995) (book review).

35. David Peterson is probably correct in his assessment of the workability of democracy
in Africa. He states:

Africa is not ready for democracy. Africans neither want it nor understand it.
What Africa really needs is food, stability, and development. Democracy is
just another fad-another western imposition. Little has changed in Africa; the
dictators are still in place, corruption and human rights abuse are the norm.
Democracy only gives rise to tribalism and war; it hinders economic



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

the legacy of ethnicity. If this continues, there will be neither an end to
ethnic strife nor a dearth of politicians eager to exploit ethnicity. 36 More
importantly, there is no guarantee that a new civilian administration will not
imitate its corrupt, inept, and abusive predecessors. 37 Moreover, the option
of restoring equilibrium through democracy has long expired. It was fatally
wounded by a selfish, insincere, ambitious, and often ethnically-motivated
military that lacks a culture of subordination to civilian authority. 38 The
military's litany of broken promises to restore civilian administration has
irredeemably destroyed citizens' faith in the democratic process. 39

Nigeria is in this precarious position by imperial design, and the
position is rendered more intractable by Nigeria's inaction and perhaps
complicity. 4° We cannot continue to allow boundaries arbitrarily drawn by
colonial masters to imperil social equilibrium and political stability in
Nigeria.41 However unpalatable it might appear, Nigerians must

development. Africa is still too poor and illiterate for democracy. The entire
continent is strategically insignificant anyway. All the foreign aid to Africa
only makes the situation worse. At best, democracy will take decades to
emerge.

David L. Peterson, Debunking Ten Myths About Democracy in Africa, 17 WASH. Q. 129
(1994).

36. Hurst Hannum, Minority Rights, Introduction, 19 SPG FLETCHER F. WORLD AFF.
1, 4 (1995) (noting that democracy is not a panacea for resolving competing ethnic demands).

37. For a vivid account of the misdeeds of the last civilian administration, led by Alhaji
Shehu Shagari from 1979-1983, see WOLE SOYiNKA, THE OPEN SORE OF A CONTINENT: A
PERSONAL NARRAATrvE OF THE NIGERIAN CRISIS 61-74 (1996).

38. The formidable obstacle posed by Africa's military in the continent's search for
constitutional democracy was poignantly summarized by William Foltz. He writes that "in
most of Africa, government has been synonymous with the military. Today, as civilian
administrations struggle to create democratic traditions, their toughest task may be to convince
their armies to accept secondary status and maintain political neutrality." William J. Foltz,
Democracy: Officers and Politicians, 38 AFR. REP. 65.

39. Sakah Mahmud, The Failed Transition to Civilian Rule in Nigeria: Implications for
Democracy and Human Rights, 40 AFR. TODAY 87, 91 (1993) (noting that the frequency with
which Nigerians have been disappointed with the process of democratization is enough to
create a negative and perhaps lasting feeling of hopelessness and disbelief that the cycle of
military rule will be permanently broken).

40. Dr. Mutua places the blame for state failures in Africa on colonial policies,
especially the grouping of diverse ethnic groups under one nation. He states:

The ethnic plurality, and, in some cases, the duality of the state, have finally
caught up with post-colonial Africa. Absent cold war or neo-colonial
international guarantees to client states, the colonial state is nothing if not a
house of cards. Its ethnic configuration, an integral legacy of colonization, is
a major factor in its failure.

Makau Mutua, Why Redraw the Map of Africa: A Moral and Legal Inquiry, 16 MICH. J.
INT'L L. 1113, 1147 (1995) (footnotes omitted).

41. Joseph Hummer, A Generation of Failure, NEWSWEEK, Aug. 1, 1994, at 32
(commenting that much of Africa is still paying the price of colonialism: in the late 19th

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

acknowledge that there is no way of encouraging warring, distrustful, and
often intolerant ethnic groups to coexist harmoniously. We must look
beyond the surface and appreciate the intense inter-ethnic hostilities
simmering beneath the facade of calm held out by the Nigerian military
rulers and their civilian allies.42 The truth is that Nigeria is in deep trouble,
roiled incessantly by ethnic rivalries and lack of loyalty to the nation.
Unchecked, these clearly visible signposts of anarchy will consume the
nation.43 The genocide in Rwanda, the chaos in Somalia, and the pogrom
that led to the Biafran failed secession attempt are merely signposts on the
road to destruction that Nigeria will surely travel should it remain indifferent
to ethnic conflicts.

The message to the proponents of "one Nigeria"" is simple but urgent:
pursue your vision of one Nigeria and allow the nation to continue its
downward spiral toward anarchy or act decisively and stanch the blood that
flows from mortal wounds inflicted upon the nation by warring ethnic
groups. Promoting the rule of law and preserving social equilibrium would
be best achieved through redrawing boundary lines. Granting homogenous
ethnic groups a nation of their own would reduce human rights violations and

century, European imperialists carved up the continent without regard to natural tribal or
political borders).

42. Military rulers frequently take out self-promoting advertisements in newspapers to
reassure the public that all is well in Nigeria. The ruling Abacha regime has retained
American public-relations consultants to help polish its image abroad.

43. Larry Diamond, an authority on Nigeria, eloquently discussed in his testimony
before the United States House of Representatives' International Relations Committee, Sub-
Committee on Africa, the warning signs of political and social decay and correctly states that
these signs are increasingly evident today in Nigeria.

States do not collapse all of a sudden, out of the blue. The process is
anticipated by numerous signs of decay. Political institutions lose capacity,
flexibility, and legitimacy. Social and economic problems mount in the face of
state corruption and ineptitude. Crime and violence flourish and fear
proliferates. State authority withers and people retreat into formal arenas.
Political power and national wealth become monopolized by an increasingly
narrow elite, which substitutes force for dialogue, bargaining and legitimate
authority. Mass constituencies become more and more alienated, angry and
embittered. Contending elites manipulate ethnic, regional, and religious
cleavages in the struggle for power and incidents of deadly conflict escalate in
number and scale .... Civil society fragments and recedes. Every type of
institutional glue that binds diverse cultures, regions, classes and factions
together into a common national framework gradually disintegrates.

Preventive Diplomacy for Nigeria: Imperatives for U.S. and International Policy: Testimony
Before the Subcomm. on Africa of the House Comm. on International Relations (Dec. 12,
1995) (statement of Larry Diamond), available in 1995 WL 13415408.

44. "One Nigeria" is a slogan coined during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) to
denote the indivisibility of Nigeria. Successive regimes remain adamantly committed to the
notion of one Nigeria.

[Vol. 8:2



1998] RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

insure that citizens participate in the governing process. Nigeria has very
little choice in the matter: partition amicably now or do it at great cost after
bitter strife. 45 Partition is the only realistic way for Nigeria to avoid the
devastation, misery, and agony suffered by failed African states like
Rwanda,' Somalia, 7 and Liberia. 41 Partition is the most creative and
effective way of numbing ethnic tensions in Nigeria. The successful
extraction of Eriteria from Ethiopia and the peaceful Balkanization of the
former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia provide paradigms for the rest of
Africa.49

Part II of this paper traces Nigeria's search for constitutional
democracy. Part III examines the impact of ethnicity on the political
process. Part TV reviews three strategies for combatting the evils of ethnicity
in Nigeria. These strategies include enforcing legal rules, attacking the
social forces that promote ethnicity, and partitioning the nation.

II. THE SEARCH FOR CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA

A. Historical Perspective

Before the coming of the British, the geographical area presently
known as Nigeria consisted of different ethnic groups. 50 Each group was
largely homogenous and was bound by shared religion, customary values,
mores, and ethos.5" There were three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria:
the Hausas in the North, 2 the Yorubas in the West, 53 and the Ibos in the

45. See generally Mutua, supra note 40, at 1113. Mutua believes that a bleak future
confronts Africa unless the boundary lines are peacefully and voluntarily redrawn. He states
that "foreign imposition of artificial states and their continued entrapment within the concepts
of statehood and sovereignty are sure to occasion the extinction of Africa unless those sacred
cows are set aside for now to disassemble African states and reconfigure them." Id. at 1118.

46. For a detailed analysis of the Rwandan crisis, see David Newbury, Irredentist
Rwanda: Ethnic and Territorial Frontiers in Central Africa, 44 AFR. TODAY 2211, 2211-22
(1997).

47. For a brilliant analysis of the crisis in Somalia, see THE SOMALI CHALLENGE: FROM

CATASTROPHE TO RENEWAL (Ahmed Samatar ed., 1994).
48. For a study of the ethnically-motivated violence in Liberia, see Stephen Ellis, Liberia

1989-1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence, 94 AFR. AFFAIRS 165 (1995).
49. Michael Wrong, Ethiopia Buries the African Nation State: For the First Time a

Region's Right to Secede is Laid Down in the Constitution, FIN. TIMES, May 5, 1995.
50. For a detailed history of Nigeria, see A.AN C. BURNS, HISTORY OF NIGERIA (4th

ed. 1948).
51. K.A. BUSIA, AFRICA IN SEARCH OF DEMOCRACY 30-31 (1967) (noting that pre-

colonial African communities were held together because they inhabited a common territory,
their members shared a tradition, real or fictitious, of common descent, and they were held
together by a common language and a common culture).

52. See COLEMAN, supra note 26, at 39. The Hausas were bound by common language,



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

East." Surrounding and within the perimeters of each of these three major
ethnic groups were an array of minority ethnic groups. For example, Efik
Ibibios, Ijaws, and the Ekoi-Yakuri surrounded the Ibos. The Yorubas
contained the Edos, Urhobos, and Ijaws, while the Hausa had the Kanuris,
Tivs, and the Nupes.

Something more than geography separated these ethnic groups; there
were profound cultural, religious, and linguistic differences as well. 5 Yet
the colonial administrators, for political and economic reasons, brought all
the ethnic groups together and created one country called Nigeria.5 6 This
was done without any concern for the inhabitants and pre-existing
relationships between the ethnic groups. 57 The transition from autonomous

history, and strong fidelity to Islam. At the beginning of the 19th century, during the holy war
of 1804, the Muslim Fulanis led by Usman Dan Fodio conquered the Hausa Kingdom. Aided
by an extensive military machine and the Islamic religion, Usman Dan Fodio established a
centralized administrative structure with strong emphasis on class hierarchy and loyalty of
subjects to constituted authority. The Emirs governed different segments of the area that
constituted Northern Nigeria. The Emirs were assisted by other officials, including: the
Waziri, directly accountable to the Emir; the Dagga, in charge of internal security; and the
Alkali, in charge of judicial functions. For a detailed history of the Hausas, see E.D. MOREL,
NIGERIA: ITS PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS 99-102 (1968); NOTES ON THE TRIBES, PROVINCES,
EMIRATES AND STATES OF THE NORTHERN PROVINCE OF NIGERIA (C.L. Temple ed., 1965);
POLLY HILL, RURAL HAUSA: A VILLAGE AND A SETTING (1972); CHARLES ORR, THE
MAKING OF NORTHERN NIGERIA (1965).

53. See A. AKINOYE, REVOLUTION AND POWER PoLrrIcS IN YORUBA LAND 1940-1983,
at 5-6 (1971). The Yorubas consisted of loosely organized kingdoms that prided themselves
on being able to ward off Fulani incursions. The kingdoms shared a common religion and
were linked together by a common ancestry. The Yorubas had a highly structured
organizational hierarchy with chiefdoms headed by the Alafm, assisted by a prince and a
Bashorun or chief minister. Yoruba politics was highly participatory: dynastic and social
groups were recognized as interest groups. Their political organization was pyramidal, and
the social groups were contra-positive in a series of dyadic relationships characterized by
conflict and competition. See ROBERT SMITH, KINGDOMS OF THE YORUBA (3d ed. 1988).

54. See WILLIAM EVANS-SMITH, NIGERIA: A COUNTRY STUDY xvi (1982). The Ibos
consisted of autonomous villages united by common religion, culture, and political structure.
The Ibos, unlike the Hausas and Yorubas, had a completely different political apparatus. The
Ibos consisted of several fragments made up of more than 200 subgroups. These subgroups
consisted of clusters of culturally and linguistically related communities but were politically
cohesive. See also KALU EZERA, CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA 8-9 (1964)
(noting that the Tbos had no indeginous overall political authority around which their loyalty
was crystallised).

55. B.O. NwABuEzE, A CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF NIGERIA 129-30 (1982) (stating
that the Muslim North and the population of the South are quite different peoples, separated
not just by tribal and language differences, but also by those of race, culture, religion, social
and political organization, economy and even geography).

56. DIAMOND, supra note 12 (noting that, like other colonial powers, the British carved
arbitrary and artificial boundaries around their two Nigerian protectorates, merging people
with few or no common cultural or political bonds).

57. Chris M. Peter, The Proposed African Court of Justice-Jurisprudential,

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

tribal communities to a nation-state, hurriedly forced on most African nations
by the colonial administration, remains the major obstacle to constitutional
democracy in Africa. 8 Though Nigeria has acquired many attributes of a
nation-state, political elites have been unable to forge a collective sense of
identity and unity among several ethnic groups that comprise the nation."
The area known as Nigeria is not really a unified country; it comprises
multiple ethnic groupings, identified by ethnic loyalties and lacking a
common sense of nationhood. Nigeria's failure to forge a sense of unity and
nationhood among the various ethnic groups has been sufficiently
documented. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, former Premier of the defunct
Western Region and a Presidential candidate in the 1979 and 1983 general
elections, stated that "Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical
expression. There are no 'Nigerians' in the same sense as there are
'English,' 'Welsh,' or 'French.' The word 'Nigerian' is merely a distinctive
appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria
from those who do not."' Tafawa Balewa, former Prime Minister of
Nigeria during the first republic between 1960 and 1966, observed that
"[slince the amalgamation of the southern and northern provinces in 1914,
Nigeria has existed as one country only on paper. It is still far from being
united. "

61

Ethnic rivalries in Nigeria are not rooted in history; they are recent
struggles to control the machinery of the modern state called Nigeria. 62

Lawrence Friedman states that "ethnic identity is not natural or inborn, nor
the product of ancient tradition; instead it is socially constructed. It is, in
fact, one of the bastard children of modernization."6 In pre-colonial
Nigeria, ethnic rivalries and hatreds were small because each ethnic group
rarely ventured beyond its boundaries. If they did, they engaged in peaceful,

Procedural, Enforcement Problems and Beyond, 1 AFR. J. PEACE & HUM. RTs. 117, 124-25
(1993) ("[A]t the Berlin Conference, Africa was regarded as terra nullius, subject to the
possession of the European power exercising effective authority. They never took any account
that there were people of vastly different backgrounds and cultures living on the continent.").

58. BusiA, supra note 51, at 171 (arguing that the tribal solidarity of the past invades
the present-creating problems of political organization for the states of Africa-and has been
a source of tension and instability).

59. OLUWOLE ODUMOSU, THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION: HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
17 (1963) (noting that marked differences in language, religion, custom, and culture could not
be obliterated by the mere fact of amalgamation).

60. OBAFEMI AwoLowo, PATH TO NIGERIAN FREEDOM 47-48 (1947).
61. NWANKWO & IFF.jncA, supra note 17, at 30.
62. DIAMOND, supra note 12, at 290 (noting that ethnic conflict was not deeply rooted

in Nigerian history; different tribes exchanged goods amicably more often than they warred,
and, in any case, they were less centralized in scale and much less regular in their external
contacts).

63. Lawrence Friedman, Introduction: Nationalism, Identity and Law, 28 IND. L. REv.
503, 503 (1995).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

productive, and mutually beneficial activities, like trading. Each ethnic
group placed a tremendous premium on survival and rarely engaged in
conduct that disrupted social equilibrium.

Severe ethnic polarization in Nigeria is traceable to the coming of
colonialism. More specifically, a cause of this ethnic polarization is
especially misguided colonial policies that have encouraged ethnic
differences." Aniagolu, a retired justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court,
observed:

The colonial rule, while not being all negative, poignantly left in
its wake disaster and desolation. In order to rule Nigeria, the
British had to adopt certain strategies and principles. They not
only adopted the wise political principle of "indirect rule" but
also the vicious, divisive policy of "divide and rule." Instead of
emphasizing and harnessing the richness of our cultural
diversities, the British exacerbated and pitched our differences.
While the ethnic groups were at each others' throats, the British
reaped their economic and political harvests.'

The first colonial policy that encouraged ethnic loyalties is the forcible
grouping of radically different ethnic groups into one nation. The creation
of a nation-state and the attendant modernization transformed the society
from homogenous and autonomous, bound by shared cultural values, to a
highly fragmented society in which citizens were forced to re-adjust to an
alien civil order.66 The colonial civil order undermined customary values
and ethos that formerly preserved equilibrium in the society. It also
considerably weakened the native political apparatus, thus rendering the
administrative machinery too ineffective to generate the loyalty and support

64. DIAMoND, supra note 12, at 28 (noting that colonial rule failed to develop
institutions that could have integrated Nigeria's common cultural, social, and political symbols
and structures).

65. A.N. Aniagolu, Keeping Nigeria One Through Visionary Constitutional Engineering:
Philosophy Behind Some Provisions of the 1989 Constitution, 21 CAP. U. L. REv. 1033, 1034
(1992); Mikell, supra note 6, at 104, states:

Many of the present situations of ethnic conflict and political chaos in West
Africa have their roots in distorted processes of political competition that began
with western colonialism approximately one hundred years ago. What we now
call "ethnicity" was very much the outcome of the nineteenth century period of
colonial conquest when western metropolitan or settler groups used force to
divide, conquer, and then politically subjugate the African indigenous
populations. In essence, colonial policy subverted the political and cultural
legitimacy of both strong and weaker ethnic groups.

66. Mikell, supra note 6, at 105 ("colonial policies forced individuals to respond to
norms which promoted individual or western interests, often to the exclusion of ethnic
communal interests").

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

of the citizens. The re-adjustment process proved especially traumatic as
powerless inhabitants painfully watched the colonialists discard, discredit,
and, at times, desecrate traditional institutions and customs that preserved
order in the society.67 The ruthless and Machiavellian manner in which
colonial masters pursued their policies, the flagrant disregard of customary
values, and contempt for the traditional political apparatus alienated vast
segments of the population.6" Unable to exert themselves, citizens retired
to their ethnic groups to find solace and form coalitions to ward off
imperialism. Finding solace among citizens united by disgust for the
imperial masters ultimately generated ethnic consciousness and resulted in
cleavages that no government in Nigeria has overcome.

Ethnic rivalries were not so pronounced during the colonial era because
the colonial administration's reputation for ruthlessness acted as a restraining
influence on the ethnic warlords.69 Moreover, the ethnic groups had nothing
to fight over since the colonial powers maintained "exclusive control over
the political and economic resources of their colonies. "70 When the colonial
administration left, ethnic groups engaged in a fierce battle with each other
to control the machinery of the state.7' Freed from the pangs of despotism
and dictatorship, ethnic groups became interested in acquiring political
power and the economic resources that go with it.7" The battle intensified as

67. Id. at 106 (noting that under British rule, cultural values were assailed. Pride in the
welfare of the people was frowned upon and was derisively described as "native." By this,
the dignity of the human person based upon cultural awareness was devalued).

68. Mutua, supra note 40, at 1137, states:
The newly contrived state represented, for many Africans, the physical symbol
of the loss of independence and sovereignty over their societies. The manner
in which it was created, after long periods of resistance, the way it was
governed, and the purpose for which it was brought into existence, namely the
exploitation of both natural and human resources, were a grim reminder of the
luxuries of self-governance. Colonial policies were harsh and brutally
implemented. Such practices did little to endear Africans to the state or develop
a loyalty towards it.

69. George Carew, Development Theory and the Promise of Democracy: The Future
of Post Colonial African States, 40 AFR. TODAY 31, 32 (1993) (stating that colonial
administration kept its disparate ethnic groupings together through coercion and manipulation).

70. Wilson, supra note 5, at 447.
71. Francis Deng, Africa and the New World Dis-Order: Rethinking Colonial Borders,

BROOKINGS REV., Spring 1993, at 34 (noting that because colonial institutions had divested
the local communities and ethnic groups of much of their indigenous autonomy and sustainable
livelihood, and replaced them with a degree of centralized authority and dependency on the
welfare state system, once control of these institutions passed on to the nationals at
independence, the struggle for control became unavoidable).

72. Blood and Earth, ECONOMIST, Sept. 23, 1995, at 17. Describing the struggle for
power that followed the end of colonialism, the article states:

under despotism or colonialism ... it did not matter much whether frontiers
reflected ethnic reality.... Now in sudden liberty, it is easy to persuade people

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

the state became increasingly identified as the purveyor of social amenities.73

The state, especially the political process, became a battleground for ethnic
groups bent on securing greater benefits for themselves.74

The second colonial policy that intensified ethnic cleavages was the
decision to treat the North and South as two separate entities. This policy
sowed seeds of ethnic distrust that blossomed over the years. Though the
British recognized a single political entity called Nigeria, they rarely ruled
Nigeria as a single nation. In 1900, the British proclaimed two separate
protectorates, North and South, for Nigeria.75 They established different
administrative structures for each protectorate: they ruled the North through
indirect rule, i.e., through traditional rulers,7 6 and they administered the
South directly.77 Though they formally amalgamated the two protectorates
in 1914, the British continued to rule each segment differently.7" In 1939,
the division of southern Nigeria into eastern and western regions coincided
with ethnic boundaries: the West comprised predominantly of Yorubas and
the East comprised of Ibos. All three regional governments were self-
governing and functioned as autonomous organs of government.79

The deliberate encouragement of regional identities immensely
contributed to ethnic schism in Nigeria.' ° By introducing and supporting
regional governments, the colonial administration encouraged distinctive
paths for each region that successive governments have been unable to
negate.8" Failing to treat the nation as one political unit exacerbated ethnic

to care about those things a lot. Freed from a common yoke, peoples fight for
a prime position. No one wants to wind up a surrounded minority.

Id.
73. Mikell, supra note 6, at 108 ("Nigeria provides a classic case of conflict under

conditions of scarcity where the state, after independence, has been seen as the major resource
and is therefore the object of intense ethnic competition").

74. Some argue that the modernization process did not negate citizens' attachment to
their ethnic groups. See DAVID SMOCK & AUDREY C. SMOCK, THE POLITICS OF PLURALISM:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LEBANON AND GHANA 3 (1975). The authors contend that
"[e]vents in the last decade attest to the fact that communal attachments do not quietly wither
away with the exposure to modernizing influences. Quite the contrary, modernization often
creates the very conditions necessary for the incubation of strong communal identities and sets
the stage for communal competition." Id.

75. COLEMAN, supra note 26, at 54-56.
76. C.S. WHITAKER, JR., THE POLITICS OF TRADITION, CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN

NORTHERN NIGERIA, 1946-1966 (1970).
77. DIAMOND, supra note 12.
78. Id. at 26 (noting that even after formal aWialgamation in 1914, the British continued

to rule Nigeria as two countries).
79. MACKINTOSH, supra note 33, at 87-138 (1965).
80. Ali Mazrui notes that the encouragement, even creation, of ethnic loyalty and

consciousness was a leading feature of British colonial rule. DIAMOND, supra note 12, at 28.
81. Adopting different administrative strategies for the different regions, indirect rule

in the North, and direct rule in the South, generated resentment and hostility towards the

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RESTOR NG SOCIAL EQuILIBRUM IN NIGERIA

differences and encouraged citizens to think about their own narrow ethnic
group.' Although Nigeria at various stages of political development
emphasized nationhood, politicians since independence have invoked and
exploited ethnic loyalties to cling to power.10 Since its inception as a
sovereign nation, the largest and most populous African country has been
plagued by grave problems: social unrest, lack of democratic culture, and
economic mismanagement. In its thirty-seven year history as an independent
nation, Nigeria's attempt to establish constitutional democracy has resulted
in endless military coups," ethnic strife, and civil war.as Different epochs
of the country's bleak history require close scrutiny to enhance
understanding of how Nigeria found itself in its current precarious position.

B. 1960-1966

The attainment of independence in 1960 afforded an opportunity for
Nigeria to control its destiny, to elevate the moral-being of its citizens, to
raise the standard of living, and to foster unity among the various ethnic
groups.' More importantly, it afforded a unique opportunity for the nation
to structure a government capable of addressing the concerns of a multi-
ethnic and complex society in search of identity and modernization. Instead,
Nigerian leaders chose to tread on familiar grounds and adopted the
Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, which it practiced until the
military intervention in 1966."

The years from 1960 to 1966 were ones of intense political unrest,
rendered even more complicated by ill-prepared and insincere
experimentation with constitutional democracy. In an attempt to fill the void
created by the departure of colonial administrators, an array of ethnic

western political apparatus, and ultimately undermined attempts to forge nationalist ideals.
82. COLEMAN, supra note 26, at 210 ("Ithe system of native administration was

designed to foster love for and loyalty to the tribe").
83. W.B. Hamilton, The Nrgerian Constitutional Conference of 1957, S. ATLANMc Q.,

Fall 1958, at 491 (noting that all the leaders, and most minority groups, proclaim they are for
a single, strong Nigeria, and it is the contradiction between their words and their actions that
makes difficult the task of nationalism).

84. See supra note 20.
85. For an account of the civil war, see infra text accompanying notes 114-19.
86. INDEPENDENCE Acr § 1(2) (1960) (Nig.) states that as from October 1, 1960, Her

Majesty's government in the United Kingdom shall have no more responsibility for the
government of Nigeria or any part thereof.

87. For a detailed study of parliamentary democracy, see NwABUEzE, supra note 55, at
96-97 (noting that parliamentary democracy is characterized by four main features: the
nominal position of the head of the executive and his separation from the effective head of
government; the plurality of the effective executive which consists of cabinet members headed
by a prime minister; the parliamentary character of the executive; and the responsibility of the
ministers individually and collectively to the legislature).

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

political leaders, irredentists, and untested power seekers violated all
democratic norms to satisfy narrow parochial and ethnic interests.8s
Additionally, the introduction of a multi-party system without an adequate
infrastructure to promote democratic traditions inevitably resulted in group
warfare.89 Parties were formed along ethnic lines. 9° Political leaders were
elected or supported not because of their policies or platforms, but because
citizens perceived them as capable of protecting ethnic interests. Politicians
played on ethnic sentiments of the largely unsophisticated citizenry,
appealing to these sentiments whenever necessary to shore up political
support. 9' Political leaders who admirably forged a united front in the fight
for independence soon underwent complete transformation; they turned into
irredentists, tribal chieftains aggressively identifying with their ethnic groups
and seeking to recruit their clansmen into government.' The post-
independence struggles revealed that the politicians never focused on the
corporate welfare of Nigeria as the centerpiece of their opposition to colonial
rule; rather, each was concerned with advancing ethnic interests. Political
campaigns turned into an open season for destroying the fragile union.93

Politicians, unfamiliar with the restraints of the democratic process, used
their powers to loot the national treasury, to enrich their allies," and to
harass and intimidate innocent citizens, especially the opposition.91 Professor

88. Mikell, supra note 6, at 100 ("[i]n Nigeria and Liberia, the 'ethnic entrepreneurs'
have emerged, using cultural identities as tools to hijack the political process and garner
control and resources within the state").

89. This phenomenon is common in most multi-ethnic African countries. President
Yoweri Museveni of Uganda succinctly captured this phenomenon when he said that "multi-
party systems were created by industrial societies and fit them because they tend to divide
along fluid lines of class. But in pre-industrial African countries split vertically along rigid
tribal lines, party competition can lead to group warfare." John Darton, Africa Tries
Democracy, Finding Hope and Peril, N.Y. TIMES, June 21, 1994, at A8.

90. See infra text accompanying notes 215-44.
91. VICTOR A. OLURONSOLA, THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL SUBNATIONALISM IN

AFRICA.
92. This phenomenon occurred in virtually all African countries. The machinery of

government in newly emancipated African countries often "involved the incorporation of 'kith
and kin' into ruling oligarchies and the exclusion of other groups from enjoying the
prerogatives of power. This generated problems of ethnicity, clanism, regionalism, and
religious bigotry." Jibrin Ibrahim, Political Exclusion, Democratization and Dynamics of
Ethnicity in Niger, 41 AFR. TODAY 15 (1994).

93. JOSEPH, supra note 28, at 153 (1987) (noting that in "Nigeria [ party politics as a
relentless struggle to procure individual and group benefits via the temporary appropriation
of public offices eventually reduces the electoral process to a Hobbesian state-of-war").

94. Several commissions of inquiry empaneled to investigate allegations of impropriety
found gross violations, abuse of power, and fraud in most government parastatals. The
commissions also found that politicians viewed board appointments as rewards for loyal party
supporters.

95. This appears to be a common phenomenon in most post-independent African nations.

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RESTORING SocIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

Ewelukwa provides an accurate characterization of the political process and
the activities of politicians:

Most of the politicians were ignorant, small minded and
parochial in outlook, and sought to make the Nigerian political
arena congenial to their acquisitive, corrupt and undemocratic
tendencies in life. By their methods, they made politics a rough,
uncomfortable and hazardous pursuit for anyone, and in their
frantic bid to enrich themselves illicitly out of public funds, they
combined with certain professionals, independent contractors and
even public servants to trample upon the rights and liberties of
individuals and to make life difficult for the common man,
thereby alienating his sympathy .... In fact, all of them
(politicians) directly or indirectly supported and encouraged
improper dealings with public funds as well as aided and abetted
gradual debasement of human rights and democratic values. 96

Politicians, bent on retaining power, terribly upset whatever remained
of social equilibrium in Nigeria. Elections, especially in the defunct western
region, turned into warfare in which politicians brutally displayed their lack
of respect for democracy and human dignity. Kirk-Greene aptly described
the 1965 elections as "the ultimate debasement of the democratic process
through chicanery and thuggery."' The country was slowly degenerating

Jack Cope, in a fairly lengthy passage, clearly captured the African political elites' disrespect
for the rights of fellow Africans:

Looking back from the perspective of the present, I think it can justly be said
that, at the core of the matter, the Afrikaner leaders in 1924 took the wrong
turning. Themselves victims of imperialism in its most evil aspect, all their
sufferings and enormous loss of life nevertheless failed to convey to them the
obvious historical lesson. They became themselves the new imperialists. They
took over from Britain the mantle of the empire and colonialism. They could
well have set their faces against annexation, aggression, colonial exploitation
and oppression, racial arrogance and barefaced hypocrisy, of which they
themselves were victims. They could have opened the door to humane ideas
and civilizing processes and transformed the great territory with its incalculable
resources into another new world. Instead they deliberatively set the clock back
wherever they could. Taking over ten million indigenous subjects from British
colonial rule, they stripped them of what limited rights they had gained over a
century and tightened the screws on their subjects.

Wole Soyinka, The Past Must Address the Present (1986 Nobel Lecture), in 3 OCCASIONAL
PAPERS OF THE PHELPS-STOKES FUND, Mar. 1988, at 9.

96. D.I.O. Ewelukwa, The Constitutional Aspects of the Military Take-Over in Nigeria,
2 NIG. L.J. 1, 2 (1967).

97. A.H.M. KIRK-GREENE, 1 CRISIS AND CONFLICT IN NIGERIA: A DOCUMENTARY
SOURCE BOOK 1966-1969, at 23 (1971).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV. [Vol. 8:2

toward anarchy and lawlessness.9" Only the army could save the country,
and they did on January 15, 1966.

C. 1966-1979

In the early hours of January 15, 1966, a group of army officers led by
Major Nzeogwu attempted to overthrow the Balewa federal administration.9

Though the coup was unsuccessful, they killed some key federal ministers
and government functionaries, including the Prime Minister. °0 The
remaining ministers and the Senate President, who was then acting for the
President, 01 invited the General Officer commanding the Nigerian army,
General Aguiyi Ironsi, to take over administration of the country."° The
army promulgated the Constitution (Suspension and Modification) Decree,
which suspended the 1963 Republican constitution"m and conferred authority
on the federal military government "to make laws for the peace, order, and
good government of Nigeria or any part thereof.""° General Ironsi,
unshackled by the constitution, embarked upon wholesale destruction of the
democratic process. t15 In May 1966, General Ironsi promulgated the
Unification Decree, which abolished regional governments. t

06 The Supreme

98. Several reasons have been advanced for the failure of the first republic. See
DIAMOND, supra note 12, at 15 (blaming the failure of democracy on the strains and
contradictions in the constitutional structure-which in consolidating regional inequalities and
assigning such minuscule powers to so few regions encouraged ethnic political mobilization-
made regional dominance the prerequisite and the basis for intense national political
competition and so heightened regional and cultural insecurity); Walter Schwarz, Tribalism
and Politics in lNigeria. 22 WORLD TODAY 460 (commenting that democratic order collapsed
because historic competing nationalism of Nigeria's three largest tribal nations was never
successfully reconciled and united into an overarching Nigerian identity).

99. For a detailed analysis of the failed coup attempt, see ST. JORRE, supra note 19, at
30-47.

100. For a detailed analysis of the 1966 crisis in Nigeria, see generally DIAMOND, supra
note 12; WILLAM PRAFF, THE NIGERIAN STATE: POLMCAL ECONOMY, STATE, CLASS AND
POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE POST COLONIAL ERA (1988).

101. The President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, was in Britain for a medical check up.
102. The character of the purported hand-over remains a subject of intense debate.

Arguments rage as to whether the events of January 15, 1966, amounted to a revolution or a
constitutional change of government. For detailed analysis of both sides of the controversy,
see NWAnuEZE, supra note 55, at 164-66; Abiola Ojo, The Search for Grundnorm in Nigeria:
The Lakami Case, I.C.L.Q. 117 (1971); Ewelukwa, supra note 96, at 1.

103. CONST. (SUSPENSION & MODIFICATION) DECREE (1966) (Nig.).
104. Id.
105. For an interesting analysis of the structure of military government, see Abiola Ojo,

Constitutional Structure and Nature of the Nigerian Government-The New Constitution and
Decrees, 10 NIG. L.J. 82 (1976).

106. CONST. (SUSPENSION & MODIFICATION No. 5) DECREE 34 (1966) (Nig.) provided
that "Nigeria shall on the 24th May 1966 ... cease to be a federation and shall accordingly



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUiBRIUM IN NIGERIA

Military Council took all decisions at the center, thus effectively
undermining the federal system of government.'" Explaining the reasons for
the abolition of the federal structure, General Ironsi stated that the Decree
"was intended to remove the last vestige of intense regionalism of the recent
past, and to produce that cohesion in the government structure which is so
necessary in achieving and maintaining the paramount objective of the
national military government... National unity. "'1

General Ironsi never restored equilibrium in Nigeria. The unitary
administrative structure never recovered from the January coup attempt.
The army gradually disintegrated into splinter groups with loyalties to their
ethnic groups. On July 29, 1966, barely six months after assuming office,
General Ironsi was killed in a counter-coup led by northern army officers.'°9
After internal negotiations, the coup plotters named Colonel Gowon the Head
of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. "0

The major task for Colonel Gowon was to restore peace in a country
severely troubled by ethnic tensions. The lbos, from the eastern region, felt
oppressed by the North and publicly demanded reparation for the carnage
unleashed against Ibo military officers and civilians during the July counter-
coup."' Colonel Ojukwu, then the governor of eastern Nigeria, refused to
accept Colonel Gowon's authority, threatening to secede if the North did not
make reparations for the brutality unleashed against the Ibos. 1 2

Nevertheless, in an attempt to dissipate ethnic tensions, General Gowon, on
May 27, 1967, split the four regions into twelve states and appointed eleven
military governors and a civilian administrator to run them." 3 The twelve-
state structure split the former eastern region into three states: East Central
State, consisting exclusively of Ibos; South Eastern State, comprising mainly
of Efiks, Ibibios, Annangs, and Ekois; and Rivers State, inhabited mainly by
Ijaws, Ogonis, and Ikweres.

On May 30, 1967, three days after the creation of more states,

as from that day be a Republic by the name The Republic of Nigeria, consisting of the whole
territory which immediately before that day was comprised in a federation."

107. For reactions to the unification decree, see ALEX MADIEBO, THE NIGERIAN
REVOLUTION AND THE BIAFRAN WAR (1980); OLUSEGUN OBASANJO, MY COMMAND: AN
ACCOUNT OF THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR, 1967-1970 (1980).

108. Akande, supra note 14, at 15 (Major General Ironsi, broadcast to the nation by the
Head of State (May 24, 1966)).

109. See ST. JORRE, supra note 19, at 65-73, for an account of the July 29, 1966, coup.
110. General Gowon was not the most senior officer in the army, but he was considered

the most likely to Command the loyalty of the soldiers.
111. See ST. JORRE, supra note 19.
112. For the pogrom unleashed against bo military officers and civilians following the

July 1966 counter-coup, see id. at 65-88.
113. STATES (CREATION & TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) DECREE 4 (1967) (Nig.).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

Colonel Ojukwu declared the former eastern region the Republic of Biafra. "4

The federal military government, bent on preserving Nigeria's unity and
territorial integrity, embarked upon what General Gowon described as a
"short, surgical police action" to crush the rebellion. 5 The surgical police
action resulted in a thirty-month civil war." 6 On January 12, 1970, in the
face of excruciating defeat, Major General Effiong, the Biafran Chief of
Army Staff, surrendered to the federal military government." 7 General
Effiong stated: "We are firm, we are loyal Nigerian citizens and accept the
authority of the Federal Military Government .... We accept the existing
administrative and political structure of the federation of Nigeria .... The
Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist.""" Accepting the surrender,
General Gowon described the thirty-month civil war as a "tragic and painful
conflict," and stated that the civil war was fought to "[cirush the rebellion,
to maintain the territorial integrity of our nation, to assert the ability of the
black man to build a strong progressive and prosperous modem state, and to
ensure respect, dignity and equality in the comity of nations for our
posterity." 119

General Gowon embarked on a reconciliation process and introduced
several measures designed to reassure the seceding easterners that the
process of reconciliation was genuine. 11 The Gowon administration
reinstated senior civil servants and police officers who served in Biafra and
provided money to repair the war-ravaged parts of the region. 12

Subsequently, in 1974, General Gowon reneged on an earlier promise
to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian government by 1976,
stating that Nigeria was not yet ready for democracy. In the 1974
Independence Day broadcast to the nation, General Gowon stated:

It would indeed amount to a betrayal of trust to adhere rigidly to
that date .... It was clear that those to lead the nation on the
return to civilian rule have not learnt any lesson from past

114. For the full text of the proclamation of the Republic of Biafra and a detailed analysis
of the Biafra story, see NWANKWO & IFEJIKA, supra note 17, at 349-50.

115. FREDRICK FORSYTH, THE BIAFRA STORY 146 (1969).
116. The war started on July 6, 1967. Radio Nigeria Lagos announced on July 7, 1967,

that "the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria has issued orders to the
Nigerian Army to penetrate the East Central State and capture Ojukwu and his rebel gang."
AUBERON WAUGH & SUZANNE CRONJE, BIAFRA: BRITAIN'S SHAME 41 (1969).

117. ST. JORRE, supra note 19, at 400-01.
118. TIME, Jan. 16, 1970, at 18.
119. J.1. ELAiGwu, GOWON: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A SOLDIER-STATESMAN 136 (1980)

(General Gowon, broadcast to the nation (Jan. 15, 1970)).
120. For details of the reconciliation, reconstruction, and rehabilitation programs, see

ELAIGWU, supra note 119, at 140-45.
121. Id.

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1998] RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

experience. Consequently it would be utterly irresponsible to
leave the nation in the lurch by a precipitate withdrawal which
will certainly throw the nation back into confusion."z

On July 29, 1975, a group of senior army officers toppled General Gowon
in a bloodless coup." General Mohammed, a cabinet minister under
General Gowon, was named the Head of State. General Mohammed
promised to rid the country of corruption and restore democracy by 1979.124
As part of its effort to combat corruption, the Mohammed regime established
a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and a Public Complaints
Commission'2 to deal with allegations of impropriety against public servants.
They constituted panels to investigate the assets of governors and top civil
servants.l'h

In September 1975, the Military regime empaneled a fifty-one member
Constitution Drafting Committee headed by Chief Rotimi Williams, one of
Nigeria's leading lawyers, to draft a new constitution. 7 The fifty "wise
men," as the media reverently called them, represented all states of the
federation and were drawn from various segments of society including the
legal profession, the universities, and the private sector. 1 To involve the
public in the constitutional drafting process, the Constitution Drafting

122. General Gowon, Broadcast to the Nation (Oct. 1, 1974).
123. ELAIGWU, supra note 119, at 241-50.
124. Id.
125. The Public Complaints Commission had authority to:

Inquire into complaints lodged before it by members of the public concerning
any administrative actions taken by any minister or department of the federation
or any state government, statutory corporation, local government authorities and
other public institutions and of companies whether in the public or private sector
and of any officials of any of the aforementioned bodies.

PUBLIC COMPLAINTS COMMISSION ACT, CAP 377 (1990) (Nig.).
126. See FEDERAL GOVERNMENT VIEWS ON THE REPORT OF THE FEDERAL ASSETS

INVESTIGATION PANEL (Federal Ministry of Information 1975) (Nig.).
127. Chief Obafemi Awolowo declined to serve on the committee, thus reducing the

number to 50. See NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION DRAFTING COMMITTEE,' 1 REPORT OF THE
CONSTITUTION DRAFTING COMMITEE xiii (Federal Ministry of Information 1976).

128. According to the federal military government:
Members of this committee were selected, first on a basis of two per state, so
as to obtain as wide geographical coverage as possible and, secondly from our
learned men in disciplines considered to have direct relevance to constitution-
making, namely . . . History, Law, Economics and other social sciences
especially political science. Eminent Nigerians with some experience in
constitution-making were brought in to complete the spectrum. It is enough to
ensure that all the broad areas of interest and expertise are brought into the
committee, and I am satisfied that members of this committee gathered here
today represent a cross section of opinion in this country that can be trusted to
do a good job.

Id. (statement of General Mohammed).



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

Committee held public hearings in various parts of the country and solicited
memoranda and suggestions from members of the public. 9 On February
13, 1976, just two weeks after creating seven new states,'1° General
Mohammed was assassinated during an unsuccessful coup attempt led by
Colonel Dimka.' 11 General Obasanjo, who succeeded General Mohammed,
promised to honor the 1979 commitment to hand power back to civilians.
On September 14, 1976, the committee, after extensive deliberations and
consultations, submitted a draft constitution to the federal military
government.132 On October 7, 1976, the federal military government turned
over the draft constitution to the Constituent Assembly and directed members
of the public to send their comments and suggestions to the Constituent
Assembly. 33  The Constituent Assembly was comprised of 203 elected
members"3 and 27 government appointees.13s After extensive and sometimes
rancorous debate, the Constituent Assembly wrapped up its assignment in
August of 1978.

The new constitution introduced a presidential system of government
modeled after the American system-a written constitution with an elaborate
Bill of Rights,"3 division of power between the federal government and the
states, 37  a president with executive powers, 131 federal and state
legislatures, 39 federal and state judiciaries,"4 and clear separation of powers
among the three arms of government.' 4 ' The constitution also contained
elaborate provisions guaranteeing freedoms, rights, and liberties, including
freedom of expression and of the press;4 2 freedom of thought, conscience

129. The Constitution Drafting Committee regularly inserted paid advertisements in
national and local newspapers requesting memoranda from members of the public.

130. STATES (CREATION & TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS) DECREE 12 (1976) (Nig.).
131. ELAIGWU, supra note 119.
132. J.0. OJIAKo, 13 YEARS OF MILITARY RULE IN NIGERIA, 1966-1979, at 178 (1979).
133. The Constituent Assembly was set up pursuant to the Constituent Assembly Act of

1977. See NWABUEZE, supra note 55, at 255.
134. Members were elected from all the local government areas in the country. FALOLA

& IHONVBERE, THE RISE AND FALL OF NIGERIA'S SECOND REPUBLIC, 1979-1983, at 25,

(1985).
135. Government appointees constituted chairmen of subcommittees of the Constitution

Drafting Committee and representatives of interest groups that were not adequately represented
during the constitution drafting process (such as student organizations and women's groups).

136. CONST. OF 1979 §§ 30-42 (Nig.).
137. Id. § 2(2) provided that "Nigeria shall be a Federation consisting of States and a

Federal Capital Territory."
138. Id. § 5(l)(a).
139. Id. §§ 4(1), 84.
140. Id. § 6(1)-(2).
141. Id. § §4-6.
142. Id. § 36.

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

and religion; 43 right to life;'" right to personal liberty; 45 the right to a fair
hearing;' right to privacy and family life; 47 and the right to free
assembly.'"

The enjoyment of these rights, liberties, and freedoms were further
secured by vesting the courts with jurisdiction to redress violations. 49 The
government could not interfere with constitutionally guaranteed rights except
"in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality, or
public health, or for. . . protecting the rights and freedom of other[s]."15°

The military government promulgated the draft constitution into law
effective October 1, 1979.1 Following the promulgation of the constitution
into law, the federal military government established the Federal Electoral
Commission, which was charged with organizing elections and regulating the
activities of political parties.1 2 The military government lifted the ban on
party politics on September 21, 1978.153 Politicians, eager to assume the
reigns of power, quickly formed political associations. The Federal
Electoral Commission" insisted that political associations seeking
registration must reflect the federal character of Nigeria and be open to every
citizen of Nigeria despite his or her place of origin, religion, or ethnicity. 55

After thoroughly screening many applications, the Federal Electoral
Commission granted approval to five parties: Great Nigeria People's Party
(GNPP); National Party of Nigeria (NPN); Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP);
Peoples Redemption Party (PRP); and Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).151

After thirteen years of military dictatorship, conducting elections in a

143. Id. § 35.
144. Id. § 30.
145. Id. § 32.
146. Id. § 33.
147. Id. § 34.
148. Id. § 37.
149. Id. § 42(1) provides that "[a]ny person who alleges that any of the provisions of this

Chapter [fundamental human rights] has been, is being or likely to be contravened in any State
in relation to him may apply to a High Court in that State for redress."

150. Id. § 41(1) provides that:
Nothing in sections 34, 35, 36, 37 and 38 [provisions relating to fundamental
human rights] .. . shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a
democratic society-
(a) in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or
public health; or
(b) for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.

151. CONST. (ENACTMENT) DECREE 25 (1978) (Nig.).
152. CONST. DECREE 73 (1977) (Nig.).
153. FALOLA & IHONVBERE, supra note 134, at 29.
154. Id. at 28-29.
155. CONST. OF 1979 §§ 201-03 (Nig.).
156. The Federal Electoral Commission chose only these five parties out of more than

forty associations that applied for registration. See JOSEPH, supra note 28, at 154.

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. [Vol. 8:2

country plagued by ethnic rivalries and a lack of democratic traditions
provoked anxieties and fears among various segments of the society. Most
Nigerians feared that party elections would ignite ethnic rivalries that had
been dormant for thirteen years. Citizens were especially troubled by the
domination of the political scene by the same politicians who liquidated the
first republic.157 The army, to its credit, quickly and positively allayed the
fears of the public by showing its willingness to deal ruthlessly with anybody
who sabotaged the transition process."I After a ten-month campaign tightly
monitored by the military, elections were held for the federal and state
elective offices including the Senate, House of Representatives, State
Legislature, Governors, and the President. The elections were tolerably free
and fair, with no major incidents in any part of the country." 9 Any disputes
that arose from the elections were resolved through the judicial system."6

On October 1, 1979, the federal military government, amid pomp and
pageantry, handed the reigns of government to the elected civilian
administration. "I

157. Id. at 160. The author notes:
Many of the surviving members of the political class of the First Republic, and
their political machines, had moved once again to the fore of the country's
politics ... .The expectation that history was likely to repeat itself in any
elections under a civilian party government was therefore a rational and even
self-fulfilling one for the Nigerian citizenry.

158. Extolling the role of the army in the conduct of 1979 elections, Adamu Kurfi writes:
The calm atmosphere prevalent during the 1979 elections was not brought about
by the existence of (a] fine political culture in the Nigerian people but was due
to the veiled threat of immediate military retribution should law and order break
down-and worse, the possibility of postponement of the date of hand-over of
power to the civilians.

ADAMU KURFI, THE NIGERIAN GENERAL ELECrIONS 1959 AND 1979, at 258 (1982). Similar
views were expressed by ADAMU & OGUNSAWO, NIGERIA: THE MAKING OF PRESIDENTIAL
SYSTEM: 1979 GENERAL ELECTIONS. The authors stated that "[t]he presence of a military
government which rounded up potential party thugs and effectively checked their activities
created a peaceful atmosphere for the elections." Id. at 255-56.

159. For a detailed survey of the 1979 elections, see KURFI, supra note 158; Keith
Panter-Brick, Nigeria: The 1979 Election, 14 AFRIKA SPECTRUM 3 (1979); and Richard
Joseph, Democratization Under Military Tutelage: Crisis and Consensus in the 1979
Elections, 14 COMP. POL. (1981).

160. Election Petition Tribunals were set up in various states to resolve electoral disputes.
See CONST. DECREE 73 (1977) (Nig.). For a detailed analysis of the jurisdiction of election
tribunals, see F. OLISA AwoGu, THE JUDICIARY IN THE SECOND REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, 1979-
1983, at 128-34.

161. General Obasanjo, along with key officers of his administration, retired from the
army.



RESTORING SocIAL EQuILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

D. 1979-Present

The period between 1979 and 1983 witnessed a replay of events and
problems that led to the collapse of the first republic. Lack of democratic
traditions, corruption, and abuse of power thwarted the nation's ill-prepared
experimentation with the presidential system of government. 62 Religious
riots, arson, and political disturbances ruptured prospects for democracy.
Nigerian politicians squandered the ideals of presidential democracy. They
routinely violated the rule of law'" and manipulated the electoral process to
retain power. 16 Economic chaos, corruption, abuse of office, and incessant
squabbles among and within the political parties imperilled the nation.'

The 1983 general elections exposed the ethnic tensions smoldering
beneath the facade of calm held out to the world for four years. Without the
army to police the electoral process, politicians flagrantly violated the
electoral rules.1" President Shehu Shagari was re-elected in a controversial
election characterized by electoral malpractice, thuggery, and rigging. 67

Virtually everyone condemned the election, which was aptly characterized
as "a selection carried out through a strong alliance between the police, the
Federal Electoral Commission officials, and members of the ruling National
Party of Nigeria," with the latter supplying the money.'" In December of

162. For a detailed study of the 1982 religious riots and their implications for democracy
in Nigeria, see Raymond Hickey, The 1982 Maitasine Uprising in Nigeria: A Note, 83 AFR.
AFFAIRS 251 (1984).

163. The most egregious violation occurred in 1980 when the ruling party, the National
Party of Nigeria, arrested and deported to Chad a prominent politician from a rival party, the
Great Nigeria People's Party, on the unverified and unprovable allegation that he was not a
Nigerian. Alhaji Shugaba, the Majority leader of the Great Nigeria People's Party in Borno
state, was arrested in the early hours of the morning and transported across the borders by
federal agents without an opportunity to defend himself. For details of the deportation and the
lawsuit that followed, see Shugaba v. Federal Minister of Internal Affairs, 1 N.C.L.R. 25
(1981).

164. FALOLA & IHoNVBERE, supra note 134, at 227.
165. For a catalogue of abuses and inter-party squabbles, see id. at 78-80; and JOSEPH,

supra note 28, at 164-81.
166. For details of electoral irregularities, see JOSEPH, supra note 28, at 170-73.
167. The army in taking over from Shagari cited electoral malpractice as one of the

reasons for assuming the reigns of power. General Buhari stated:
The people could only look forward to a change in their circumstances by the
installation through the mechanism of the ballot box of a government with a
more purposeful and responsible leadership . . . .The conduct of the 1983
general election dashed that hope since that election could be anything but free
and fair.

FALOLA & IHONVBERE, supra note 134, at 216 (Major General Buhari, address to the World
Press Conference, Lagos (Jan. 5, 1984)).

168. FALOLA & IHONVBERE, supra note 134, at 217. All the politicians engaged in one
form of electoral malpractice or the other, but the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) turned out

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV. [Vol. 8:2

1983, the army ousted President Shehu Shagari. The coup plotters named
Major General Buhari the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces on January 1, 1984. The new military regime suspended the
1979 constitution 69 and assumed legislative and executive functions at both
federal and state levels. 70 Explaining the reasons for the army take over,
General Buhari stated:

Little did the military realize that the political leadership of the
second republic would sacrifice most of the checks and balances
in the constitution and bring us to the present situation of general
insecurity . . . . The premium on political power was so
exceedingly high that the political contestants regarded victory
in election as a matter of life and death. ... The last general
election could be anything but free and fair. There is ample

to be the most guilty of them all. Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel Prize Laureate, writing
about the 1983 election, said:

Discredited, condemned and rejected, even loathed by the majority of
Nigerians, the National Party of Nigeria, buoyed by the image-building of its
leaders by the western press-meek, unassuming, detribalized, and the
guarantor of peace and stability etc. ad nauseam-went confidently ahead to
commit the most breath-taking, in sheer scale, electoral fraud of any nation in
the whole of West Africa. At every level, from acts of brutal ejection of the
opposition at the polling both by "law enforcement agencies" to the simplest but
most daring motion of all, swapping the figures at the very point of
announcement-the scale of robbery is unprecedented, truly mind-boggling.
Wherever all other measures failed, the secretaries to the State Electoral
Commissions simply announced the wrong figures or else the Federal
Commission in Lagos announced the forgeries.

Wole Soyinka, The 1983 Elections and the Foreign Press, GUARD AN, Sept. 10, 1983, in
FALOLA & IHONVBERE, supra note 134, at 216-17.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, the elite national organization of Nigerian
university professors, unequivocally condemned the conduct of the 1983 elections:

Whereas the members of the ruling class are wallowing in stinking opulence,
the masses of the working people have increasingly been overburdened by
economic and social hardships. The people had hoped that the 1983 elections
would enable them to replace the corrupt and rich politicians responsible for this
state of affairs. But these high expectations have been dashed by the shameful
manipulation of the electoral process to reimpose the same notorious people
responsible for the hardships. Thus the right of the people to have responsible
government and a dignified living has been denied.

Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) National Executive Council Communique, The
Election Crisis, Dangers Ahead and the Way Out, in FALOLA & IHONVBERE, supra note 134,
at 222.

169. CONST. (SUSPENSION & MODIFICATION) AcT, ch. 64 (1990) (Nig.).
170. Section 2(1) vested in the Federal Military Government power to make laws for the

peace, order, and good government of Nigeria or any part thereof with respect to any matter
whatsoever. Id. § 2(1).



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUiLIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

evidence that rigging and thuggery were related to the resources
available to the political parties. This conclusively proves to us
that the political parties have not developed confidence in the
presidential system of government on which the nation invested
much material resources.

General Buhari's depiction of the Shagari administration as corrupt and inept
generated public support for the military regime. 17 Politicians who felt that
the National Party of Nigeria massively rigged the 1983 general elections
were especially supportive of the military regime.

The military regime quickly embarked upon fighting corruption and
revamping the nation's economy. The thrust of the regime's effort was to
restore probity in the nation. The Supreme Military Council, the highest
organ of the military administration, promulgated several decrees to facilitate
the attainment of the regime's objectives. Responding to public anger
against corrupt politicians, the military government promulgated a decree
specifically targeting corrupt politicians. 171 Key politicians, including the
former president, vice president, governors, and ministers, were detained
pending investigation of their assets. The new law empaneled a special
military tribunal to try corrupt politicians. 4 The special military tribunal
could dispense with certain evidentiary rules'" and procedures of regular
courts and had the power to impose harsh sentences ranging from twenty-one
years to life imprisonment. 76  Despite protests from the Nigerian Bar
Association, 'I the tribunal tried and convicted several politicians, including

171. W. AFR., Jan. 7, 1984, at 58. Similarly, General Danjuma, the Chief of Army Staff
under General Obasanjo, expressing disgust with the politicians stated:

Democracy had been in jeopardy for the past four years. It died with the
elections. The army buried it, they did not kill it. All the parties were
involved, but the greatest offender was the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
The NPN had the largest gathering of the worst human beings that Nigeria
could produce.

W. AFR., June 30, 1984, at 197.
172. Shehu Ottman, Classes, Crises and Coup: The Demise of Shagari's Regime, 83

AFR. AFFAIRS 441, 456 (1984) (noting that the reaction of the Nigerian public to the coup was
decidedly favorable).

173. RECOVERY OF PUBLIC PROPERTY (SPECIAL MILITARY TRIBUNALS) ACT, ch. 389
(1990) (Nig.).

174. Id. § 5(1)-(2).
175. For a detailed analysis of the modus operandi of military tribunals, see M.A.

Owoade, The Military and the Criminal Law in Nigeria, 33 J. AFR. L. 133 (1989).
176. RECOVERY OF PUBLIC PROPERTY (SPECIAL MILITARY TRIBUNALS) ACT, ch. 389,

§ 13(a)-(b) (1990) (Nig.).
177. The draconian provisions of the law drew the ire of the Nigerian Bar Association,

which directed its members not to appear before the military tribunals. See Jadesola Akande,
A Decade of Human Rights in Nigeria, in NEW DIMENSIONS IN NIGERIAN LAW 112 (1989)
(noting that the Nigerian Bar Association's objections focused on three main issues: the trials

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv. [Vol. 8:2

governors, ministers, and presidential advisers.'
In August of 1985, General Babangida, the then Chief of Army Staff,

staged a palace coup and deposed General Buhari. General Babangida, eager
to garner public support, openly castigated the Buhari regime for human
rights violations.'79 He promised to respect human rights, to correct the
country's social and economic ills, and to lay a solid foundation for
democratic rule."S General Babangida expressed the hope that his regime
would be the last military administration in Nigeria.""' He promised to
return power to an elected civilian administration in 1990. The President
inaugurated a Political Bureau on January 13, 1986 to find out the wishes of
Nigerians as to the preferable political program of governance."'s Following
the submission of its findings, the Federal Military Government appointed
a committee of forty-nine Nigerians to review the 1979 constitution.10

The Constitution Review Committee met for six months and submitted
a draft constitution to the Federal Military Government. "I The draft
constitution produced by the committee was ratified by a Constituent
Assembly8s5 and subsequently promulgated into law by the federal military

were not conducted in public; the denial of right of appeal from the tribunal's decision; and
the composition, nature, and powers of the tribunal).

178. Most of the sentences were later reduced by a Special Appeals Tribunal constituted
in 1985 by General Ibrahim Babangida upon assumption of office. All the jailed politicians
are now free, enjoying their ill-gotten wealth. Some of the jailed politicians are cabinet
ministers serving under the current Abacha's regime.

179. For details of General Babangida's speech, see Babangida Takes Over, W. AFR.,
Sept. 2, 1985, at 1789.

180. Id.
181. Id.
182. The Political Bureau, headed by Dr. Sam Cookey, had the following terms of

reference:
(a) Review Nigeria's political history and identify the basic problems which

have led to our failure in the past and suggest ways of resolving and
coping with these problems;

(b) Identify a basic philosophy of government which will determine goals
and serve as a guide to the activities of government;

(c) Collect relevant information and data for the government as well as
identify other political problems that may arise from the debate;

(d) Gather, collate and evaluate the contributions of Nigerians to the search
for a viable political future and provide guidelines for the attainment of
the consensus objectives;

(e) Deliberate on other political problems as may be referred to it from time
to time.

Aniagolu, supra note 65, at 1040-41 n.9.
183. See Peter Koehn, Competitive Transition to Civilian Rule: Nigeria's First and

Second Experiments, 23 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 401 (1989).
184. For details of General Babangida's transition program, see Larry Diamond,

Nigeria's Search for a New Political Order, 2 J. DEMOcRACY 54 (1991).
185. The Constituent Assembly was established by the CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DECREE



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

government,1 with few amendments.' Besides the introduction of a two-
party system,"' the draft constitution paralleled the 1979 constitution. It
provided for a presidential system,"s federalism,'9 and separation of powers
among the three arms of government. 19' Additionally, the new constitution
contained an elaborate human rights provision. ,92

Another notable feature of the Babangida transition program was that
it banned former politicians, particularly those found guilty of corruption and
abuse of office, from running for elective offices." The idea was to create
room for "newbreed" politicians untainted by corruption, ethnicity, and all
the other social ills that plagued the political process. I9 To ensure that
tainted politicians were screened out of the process, anybody running for
office was required to obtain a clearance certificate from the Federal
Electoral Commission.

Thereafter, the Federal Military Government lifted the ban on party
politics. The National Election Commission (NEC), charged with

OF 1988 and consisted of a Chairman, a Deputy Chairman, 450 elected members, and 111
nominated members.

186. CoNsT. (PROMULGATION) AcT 12 (1989) (Nig.). The new constitution was
scheduled to take effect on October 1, 1992.

187. The Armed Forces Ruling Council introduced eleven amendments. The first
amendment deleted section 15 of the new constitution that declared Nigeria a welfare state,
and sections 42 and 43 that provided for free education to age eighteen and free medical care
for persons up to age eighteen or older than sixty-five, the handicapped, and the disabled. The
second amendment streamlined the jurisdiction of sharia and customary courts of appeal to
make them apply at the state level only to matters regarding the personal status of Muslims.
Amendment three related to civil service reforms. Amendment four reduced the minimum age
requirements for federal and state elective offices from forty to thirty-five for the president,
thirty-five to thirty for senators and governors, twenty-five for members of the House of
Representatives, and twenty-one for members of state houses of assembly and local
government councillors. The fifth amendment replaced the six-year single-term tenure for the
president and governors with a four-year, maximum two-term tenure. Amendment six
removed from the National Assembly control over matters of national security. The seventh
amendment made the federal judicial service commission accountable. The eighth amendment
eliminated the provisions establishing an armed forces service commission to supervise
compliance with provisions of the federal character principle, i.e. that government bodies such
as the military reflect the various elements of the population. Amendment nine reduced the
number of special advisers to the president from seven to three. Amendment ten eliminated
section 1(4) which outlawed coups and criminalized them. Amendment eleven deleted the
provisions which barred the federal government from obtaining external loans without the
National Assembly's approval.

188. CONST. OF 1989 § 220(1) (Nig.).
189. Id. § 5.
190. Id. § 2(1)-(2).
191. Id. §§ 4-6.
192. Id. §§ 32-44.
193. Koehn, supra note 183.
194. Id.

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

conducting elections, received a total of thirteen applications for
registration.195 The National Election Commission recommended six parties
for approval but noted that they "were poorly organized with stale ideologies
firmly rooted in the past, had little differentiation in their policies and no
convincing solutions to current problems." 196 On October 7, 1989, General
Babangida announced the rejection of all the political organizations that
applied for recognition and stated that the government would form two new
parties. 19 Thus, he set up two new parties: the National Republican
Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He requested
interested politicians to join the party in their respective local government
areas. 1

98

The Babangida regime amended the transition program several times
and extended the final hand-over date to 1993. 1" Under the new plan,
elections into state offices were to be held in 1991, while the regime
postponed the presidential election until June of 1993. State elections were
held as scheduled, and the elected civilian governors took office in the states
in 1991. This arrangement involved a novel development in Nigerian
politics-power sharing between the military and the civilians. '  General
Babangida retained his position as President and Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces while elected civilian governors and state legislators
administered the states.

The presidential election proved problematic. After a series of
rescheduling, the National Election Commission held the presidential
elections on June 12, 1993. Barely twenty-four hours before the elections,
a group called the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) sued, seeking to
restrain the National Election Commission from conducting the election.
The NEC ignored the lawsuit and went on with the election. The June 12th
presidential election differed markedly from previous elections held in the
country. Unlike previous elections characterized by electoral malpractice,
thuggery, and corruption, Nigeria for the first time in its history conducted
what was widely described as a free and fair election. Anxious to derail the
transition program, the Association for Better Nigeria sued, seeking this time

195. Id.
196. James Read, Nigeria's New Contitution for 1992: The Third Republic, 35 J. AFR.

L. 174, 188 (1992).
197. W. AFR., Oct. 16-22, 1989. According to President Babangida, "[a]ll we are saying

is that we will not serve our people yesterday's food in glittering new dishes .... Many of
the associations were either the offshoots of the defunct political parties or surrogates of
banned or disqualified politicians."

198. TRANSITION TO CMIL RULE (POLITICAL PARTIES REGISTRATION & ACTIVITIES)

DECREE 27 (1989) (Nig.).
199. Koehn, supra note 183.
200. This is consistent with diarchy proposed by Dr. Azikiwe immediately after the civil

war. See NNAMDi AZiKIWE, DEMOCRACY WITH MILITARY VIGILANCE (1974).

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

to restrain the NEC from announcing the election results. This sparked a
plethora of lawsuits in various parts of the country. Various interest groups
sued, seeking either to restrain NEC from announcing the results or to
compel the NEC to announce the election results. 201 Amid widespread
speculation that Alhaji Abiola, the Social Democratic Party candidate, had
won the election, General Babangida annulled the elections and canceled the
remaining portion of the transition program. According to General
Babangida, his administration canceled the elections "to protect our legal
system and the judiciary from being ridiculed and politicized nationally and
internationally."2° General Babangida, surprised and even chastened by the
spate of protests, violent demonstrations, and mounting international
pressures to restore democracy in Nigeria, stepped down in August of 1993
and appointed an interim government to run the affairs of the nation pending
the election of another president.3 The interim government led by Chief
Shonekan promised to conduct the presidential election in February of
1994.204 In December of 1993, General Abacha, the Defense Secretary,
toppled the interim government and assumed the position of Head of State
and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces.' °

Upon assuming power, General Abacha suspended the constitution,
disbanded the existing political structure, and dismissed all elected officials,
including senators, members of the House of Representatives, and state
governors.' ° In the face of intense domestic and international pressure to
restore democracy in Nigeria, General Abacha reacted to criticism in the
traditional military fashion-quelling the populace by brute force. General
Abacha has adopted various repressive techniques to suppress public
resentment.' The Abacha regime detains citizens without trial and security

201. By one account, at least eight different interest groups filed lawsuits either praying
for or against the release of election results. W. AFR., June 28, 1993, at 1078.

202. Id. at 1079. Many suspect that General Babangida was less than candid when he
cited electoral malpractice as the main reason for annulling the results of the presidential
elections. Strong suspicion persists that personal and ethnic considerations figured
prominently in the decision to annul the elections. Chief Abiola, a Yoruba, would have been
the second non-Northerner to rule since independence. Moreover, it was rumored that Chief
Abiola was planning to probe the military hierarchy, a course of action that would have
exposed massive corruption and human rights violations by the military. See, e.g., Malmud,
supra note 39, at 90 (noting that Babangida did not allow a Yoruba to rule since that was not
in the interest of Northern Hausa-Fulani).

203. Peter Lewis, Endgame in Transition? The Politics of a Failed Democratic
Transition, 93 AFR. AFFAIRS 323, 328 (1994).

204. Id.
205. Id.
206. Id.
207. For techniques adopted by military regimes to curtail human rights, see Okechukwu

Oko, Lawyers in Chains: Restrictions on Human Rights Advocacy Under a Military Regime,
10 HARV. HUM. RTS. J. 257 (1997).

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

agents selectively harass lawyers for human rights activities. 205

General Abacha has promised to hand over power to a democratically
elected civilian administration in 1998.20 Pursuant to this, he impaneled a
Constitution Conference Committee to draft a new constitution for Nigeria.
The committee has since proposed a new constitution for the country.
However noble General Abacha's intent may be in establishing a durable
democracy in Nigeria, the truth is that Nigerians are becoming increasingly
cynical about the workability of a western-style democracy in Nigeria.2 1

0

Thirty-five years of gyration from the Westminster model to military rule
and to the more recent presidential system has left citizens dismayed and
disillusioned. In a 1994 address, General Abacha succinctly captured the
mood of the nation:

After nearly three and a half decades of hopes raised and hopes
dashed, it should not be very surprising that Nigerians are weary
and worried. Having gone through several years in which their
faith in the national enterprise has been abused and affronted,
our people's impatience with government and almost total
distrust of its functionaries can no longer be dismissed as merely
cynical. 2 '

As Nigeria tinkers with the political order, an examination of the
impact of ethnicity on the political process will help to understand and devise
a workable constitutional framework that will preserve peace in the country.

208. Despite incessant harassment and brutality, Nigerian human rights organizations
have been remarkably resilient in demanding the restoration of democracy.

209. General Abacha, in the 1995 Independence Day broadcast to the nation, stated:
To establish the foundation of a durable democracy, we estimate that the time
required will cover a period of no more than thirty-six months. A detailed and
carefully considered program of sequence of events that will lead to that
deadline has been worked out. This sequence will begin with a stage by stage
phased handing over at the local government level. It has been calculated that
the completion date, at the level of the presidency when the final tier of a
democratically elected civil government shall be installed, should be feasible for
October 1, 1998.

W. AFR., Oct. 9, 1995, at 1557 (General Abacha, 1995 Independence Day Broadcast).
210. Nigerians are deeply suspicious of General Abacha's transition program that Chris

McGreal aptly characterized as "a legacy of his predecessor's breach of faith." Chris
McGreal, A nation stained by Abacha's rule, GUARDIAN, Nov. 18, 1995, available in 1995
WL 9953200.

211. General Abacha, Address to the Nation on the Presentation of the 1994 Budget in
Abuja (Jan. 10, 1994), available in LEXIS AL/WO 316/WA 1994.

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

III. ETHN CrIY AND THE NIGERIAN POLITICAL PROCESS

Ethnicity manifests itself predominantly in the political process.212 The
political process attempting to establish western-style constitutional
democracy has become increasingly polarized, divisive, and counter-
productive.213 Despite integrationist rhetoric, political elites have not been
successful in forming a truly national party. Ethnic-based politics ultimately
undermines social equilibrium and national unity that should be the political
process' chief goals. Walle Engedayehu, an Ethiopian scholar, eloquently
describes the impact of ethnic-based politics on the democratic process:

Ethnic-based politics has the propensity of intensifying group
conflict since the primary interests of political actors in such a
setting do not work for the collective good of the nation. Ethnic
parochialism in politics does not only limit the broader
examination of issues affecting the nation, but also encourages
separatism in the social and political life of that nation. Both can
be counterproductive to peace, stability and democracy.2 t4

This portion of the paper reviews the impact of ethnicity on the
formation and organization of political parties in Nigeria since the country
attained independence in 1960.

A. The Ethnicity and Party Politics

One aspect of the political process that has repeatedly succumbed to
ethnicity is the organization of political parties.21 5 Formation of political

212. Ike Udogu, The Allurement of Ethnonationalism in Nigerian Politics: The
Contemporary Debate, 29 J. AsIAN & AFR. STUD. 159-71 (1994) (generally noting that the
potency of ethnicity remains salient in Nigerian politics); Pita Agbese, Ethnic Conflicts and
Hometown Associations: An Analysis of the Experience of the Agila Development Association,
43 AFR. TODAY 139 (1996) (noting that in Africa political issues are perceived in ethnic terms
and political competition is structured primarily on an ethnic basis).

213. DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM IN AFRICA 195 (Dov Roven ed., 1986) (commenting

that efforts to institutionalize democracy (i.e. political parties, elections, electoral competition
for office, etc.) have awakened, strengthened, and even created ethnic or ethno-national
identities, and thus have, in reality, countered the efforts of centralized power to integrate,
unify, institutionalize, and define the nation).

214. Walle Engedayehu, Ethiopia: Democracy and The Politics of Ethnicity. 40 AFR.
TODAY 29, 50 (1993).

215. General Mohammed, whose regime set the stage for the second republic from 1979-
83, was so concerned about the negative impact of party politics that he advised the
Constitution Drafting Committee that "[i]f during the course of your deliberations, and having
regard to our disillusion with party politics in the past, you should discover some means by
which government can be formed without the involvement of political parties you should feel

19981.



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

parties along ethnic, rather than ideological lines, may be a consequence of
politics in plural societies, especially in developing sectors of the world.1 6

Political parties conjure different images in the minds of Nigerians. For
some, they represent the state itself; for others, a political party is a forum
for citizens from the same ethnic group to protect their interests. The
underlying assumption in both views is that a political party consists of
persons from the same ethnic groups who share an identifiable interest in
gaining control of the state. Despite increased sophistication and political
development, most Nigerians have been unable to separate political parties
from the state. This attitude encourages citizens to join parties controlled or
dominated by politicians from their ethnic group, thereby preventing the
emergence of truly national parties-a sine qua non for durable democratic
order.

217

Ethnicity has always been the banner under which party loyalty is
generated. While class may be the initial unifying factor in the
composition of political parties, ethnic groups quickly realigned their support
and closed ranks to maintain hegemony over the process or to stave off
perceived threats. For example, during the second republic, many perceived
the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) as an assemblage of millionaires united
more by class than ethnicity. 219 The hopes that ideology had finally taken
precedence over ethnicity and that the political process had rid itself of
ethnicity were quickly dashed as several party members broke ranks with the
NPN and openly aligned with their ethnic groups. Even President Shehu
Shagari, the leader of NPN, crudely appealed to religious and ethnic
sentiments by publicly stating that voting for Christians was wrong for

free to recommend [them]." NIGERIAN CONSITUTION DRAFTING COMMITTEE, 1 REPORT OF
THE CONSTITUTION DRAFTING COMMITTEE xiii (Federal Ministry of Information 1976).

216. ALVIN RABUSHKA & KENNETH A. SHEPSLE, POLITICS IN PLURAL SOCIETIES: A
THEORY OF DEMOCRATIC INSTABILrrY 20-21 (1972).

217. S.M. Lipset notes:
A stable democracy requires a situation in which the major political parties
include supporters from many segments of the population. A system in which
the support of different parties corresponds too closely to basic social divisions
cannot continue to operate on a democratic basis, for it reflects a state of
conflict so intense and clear cut as to rule out compromise.

JOSEPH, supra note 28, at 25.
218. Chudi Uwazurike, Confronting Potential Breakdown: The Nigerian

Redemocratisation Process in Critical Perspective, 28 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 55, 76 (1990)
(noting that in Nigeria, first ethnicity, then class, and lately religion have provided the basis
for political mobilization with varying degrees of success; thus far, regional geo-ethnicity still
remains the most potent).

219. Ottman, supra note 172, at 444 (noting that the ranks of NPN were filled by a
staggering blend of what one party ideologue called "men of fibre and integrity ... timber
and caliber") (quoting CHUBA OKADIGBO, THE MISSION OF THE NATIONAL PARTY OF NIGERIA
38-39 (1980)).

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

Muslims.,
Ethnicity remains the driving force behind the formation of political

parties in Nigeria for three main reasons." First, the peculiar political and
economic conditions in Nigeria have contributed immensely to the
prevalence of ethnicity. Nigeria operates a semi-socialistic economy in
which the government largely determines what private businesses can and
cannot do. Before 1992, government involved itself in all kinds of
businesses ranging from hotel management to the trucking industry.' This
provided a broad range of options for politicians to enrich themselves and
service their political supporters (or clients). "Each ethnic group seeks to be
the dominant player in the political process and thus control and redirect
social and economic amenities to their ethnic group. "3 The perception of
the state as the distributor of largesse encourages citizens to coalesce around
their ethnic leaders. Many Nigerians conceive state power as "a congeries
of offices which can be competed for, appropriated and then administered for
the benefit of individual occupants and their support groups. "I Some
people believe that the only way they can get ahead in modern pluralistic
Nigerian society is to elect politicians from their clan. These beliefs are
more prevalent among the illiterate members of the society. In the largely
unsophisticated communities where citizens lack the capacity to evaluate
party programs objectively, failing to support a party that enjoys popular
support in the community was close to an abomination. " Even among the
sophisticated citizenry, ethnicity remains a major force in politics.
Typically, a Nigerian embraces the belief that "the real hope of
socioeconomic betterment lies in the success of his relative, or other son of

220. Soyinka, supra note 168. at 129 (noting that President Shagari's anti-tribalism was
no doubt proven when he campaigned in his home state, Sokoto, and appealed so crudely to
both religious and tribal sentiments).

221. Richard Sklar questions traditional assumptions about the role of ethnicity in party
politics and maintains that class, rather than ethnicity, is the driving force behind formation
of political parties. He writes that "tribalism was a mask for class privilege and that parties
were really instruments used to promote class interests in the acquisition and retention of
regional power." Richard Sklar, Political Science and National Integration-A Radical
Approach, 5 J. MOD. APR. STUD. 6 (1967).

222. For a detailed analysis of privatization in Nigeria, see Okechukwu Oko, Government
Control of Public Corporations and Parastatals (unpublished LL.M. dissertation) (on file with
author).

223. Jeffrey Herbst, Is Nigeria a 1r1able State?, 19 WASH. Q. 151, 156 (1996) (noting that
the inability of ethnic groups to subordinate selfish interests to the overriding interest of the
nation results in a pernicious political dynamic in which control of the state became critical
in order to regulate the flow of patronage).

224. JOSEPH, supra note 28, at 63.
225. K.W.J. POST, THE NIGERIAN FEDERAL ELECTION OF 1959. at 396 (1963)

(commenting that "for a man to support a political party different from the one supported by
the rest of the community amounted almost to a repudiation of his own people").

1998]



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

the soil, in getting a lien on the public purse and trickling a few coins down
to him."' This perception proves well-founded given that ethnic groups
with the most politicians in government enjoy more modem facilities than
their minority counterparts.tm

The second reason results from the fact that far too often politicians
frame political issues in Nigeria as preserving values dear to one ethnic
group.' For example, any issue that poses a threat to Islam, however
veiled, generates opposition from all Moslems. Similarly, politicians from
the South easily garner support by accusing Moslems of attempting to
dominate other religious groups. In the first republic, 1960-66, the political
parties used unfounded ethnic accusations to generate support. The Hausa-
controlled Nigeria Peoples Congress (NPC) spread rumors that the Action
Group (AG), a Yoruba party, would ban Islam. The AG accused the NPC
of attempting to force Islam upon the South. The National Council of
Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), an Ibo-controlled party, was accused by both
parties of scheming to stack the federal bureaucracy with Ibos. Such vile
rhetoric and mischievous appeal to the peoples' fears generated considerable
support for the parties.' Political cleavages along religious lines manifested
themselves again in the second republic, 1979-83. The Sharia debate in
1979 illustrated the phenomenon. The Muslim members of the Constituent
Assembly had suggested the insertion of a special provision in the 1979
Constitution to establish a Sharia Court of Appeal to hear appeals on matters
of Islamic personal law. Upon rejection of this suggestion, all Muslim
members of the Constituent Assembly stormed out of the meeting and
boycotted further deliberations of the assembly. It took the intervention of
the Head of State to bring them back.

Thirdly, ethnicity serves as a potent tool for manipulating the electoral
process. 230 Nigerian politicians often mobilize the masses not toward the
attainment of goals beneficial to the entire nation, but to secure narrow,

226. RIcHARD A. JOSEPH, POLITICAL PARTIES AND IDEOLOGY IN NIGERIA 90 (1987).
227. For a classic study of deprivations suffered by Ogoni minorities in Nigeria, see

Eghosa Osaghae, The Ogom Uprising: Oil Politics, Minority Agitation and the Future of the
Nigerian State, 94 AFR. AFFAIRS 325 (1995).

228. Mafeje Archie, The Ideology of Tribalism, 9 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 253, 259 (noting
that by whipping up communal fears and suspicions, by casting each election as a threat to the
sacred values and even the survival of the ethnic community, and by establishing tribalism as
the ideology of politics, the politicians and business allies of each regional party were able to
entrench themselves in power).

229. DIAMOND, supra note 12, at 43.
230. Modernization and the Politics of Communalism: A Theoretical Perspective, in

NIGERIA: MODERNIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF COMMUNALISM 19 (Melson & Wolpe eds.,
1971), states that "mass participation in the political process encourages aspiring politicians
to make appeals to the most easily mobilized communal loyalties and to define themselves
primarily as the representatives of community interests."

[Vol. 8:2



19981 RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

parochial sectional interests." Nigerian politicians have historically
appealed to ethnic loyalties and will continue to do so, especially when such
a strategy yields clearly demonstrable results. 2 In politics, ethnicity has a
very high survival value. 233 For the contestants, it ensures victory at the
polls.234 For the masses, ethnic identification helps them live richly and
powerfully. Dudley, an authority on Nigerian politics, succinctly captures
the manipulation of ethnicity by Nigerian political elites: "What has been
called 'tribalism' is seen to be part of the mechanism through which the
political elite maintains itself in power and exercises its influence. It is
therefore an attribute of elite behavior ... the educated became the chief
proponents and purveyors of parochialism and particularistic values."'3

For any, or a combination of all three reasons, political parties usually
revolve around ethnic lines. In the first republic, political parties were
regionally-based, with loyalties to their ethnic groups. 6 For example, the
NCNC was seen as an Ibo party, the AG was supported by the Yorubas in
the western part of the country, and the NPC drew its support from the
North. 7 Each party made no pretense about its tribal base and made no

231. Politicians frequently remind their followers of the serious consequences that will
result should politicians from rival ethnic groups attain power. They typically promise their
ethnic followers that if elected into office, they will protect and advance their ethnic interests.
Anthony Smith characterizes this phenomenon as "internal colonialism" and concludes that
"the implication is that autonomous ethnic control over the homeland's resources and budget
would restructure the economy to support the interest of, and preserve intact, the community
which would otherwise suffer further decline and assimilation or deprivation." ANTHONY
SMITH, THE ETHNIC ORIGIN OF NATIONS 163 (1986).

232. DIAMOND, supra note 12, at 41 (notes that in a multi-ethnic society that was
modernizing but still largely illiterate, where expectations were growing faster than resources,
no electoral strategy seemed more assured of success than the manipulation of ethnic pride and
prejudice).

233. JOSEPH ROTHSCHILD, ETHNoPOLrICs: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 173 (1981)
(arguing that the most emotionally intense type of political solidarity is currently in ethnic
rather than in class or formal ideological affinities).

234. Wilson. supra note 5. at 446 (noting that ethnic groups are especially convenient
bases for generating mass political support because they provide the loyalty not merely of
ideologues but of family members).

235. B.J. DUDLEY, INSTABILITY AND POLITICAL ORDER: POLITICS AND CRISIS IN
NIGERIA 44, 51 (1973). The late Professor Kenneth Dike, Africa's leading historian and
former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, stated: "[I]t must be said to our shame
that the Nigerian intellectual, far from being an influence for national integration, is the
greatest exploiter of parochial and clannish sentiment." VAN DEN BERGHE, POWER AND
PRIVILEGE IN AN AFRICAN UNIVERSITY 224.

236. For an interesting discussion of the emergence of political parties in Nigeria, see
Minton F. Goldman, Political Change in a Multi-National Setting, in DYNAMICS OF THE
THIRD WORLD: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE (David Schmitt ed., 1974).

237. POST, supra note 225, at 13 (noting that from 1951 onwards, generally almost all
Ibos supported the NCNC, while most Yorubas backed Action Group, and all but a small
minority of the Hausa and Fulani were associated, if indirectly, with the NPC).



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

attempt to broaden its power base to include other ethnic groups. Framing
electoral issues in ethnic terms and manipulation of ethnic sentiments by
politicians generated conflicts and tensions that ultimately resulted in the
collapse of the first republic."

The political parties that emerged in the second republic, 1979-83,
were constitutionally enjoined to uphold the idea of a united Nigeria and to
embrace the constitutional ideal of federal character. 239 Consequently, they
were less regional than the old parties, but political affiliations still ran along
ethnic lines. 24 Each party tended to be identified with the ethnicity of its
leaders. For example, the Nigeria Peoples Party was viewed as the "Ibo"
party because of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe; the Unity Party of Nigeria was seen
as the "Yoruba" party because of Chief Awolowo; the Peoples Redemption
Party was identified as a "Hausa" party because of Mallam Aminu Kano.
The National Party of Nigeria was much more broad-based than the others;
nevertheless, strong suspicions persisted that it was a party for the Hausas,
apparently because the presidential candidate, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, was
Hausa."4

The two-party system introduced by the Babangida administration
during the ill-fated third republic, between 1990 and 1993, considerably
reduced the impact of ethnicity upon party membership. More by default
than by reasoned calculation, the formation of two political parties by
executive fiat broke the ethnic lines that historically determined party
membership in Nigeria. Politicians, unable to set their own ideology or
forge coalitions, were forced to join either of the two parties. Speculations
were that ethnicity had finally crumbled under the pressures of democracy.
We may never know the truth because the army aborted the democratic
process before any scientific finding could be made on the impact of a two-
party system on ethnicity. 2 The fourth republic, promised by General

238. Horowitz eloquently describes the deleterious effects of vile ethnic rhetoric on the
society:

By appealing to electorates in ethnic terms, by making ethnic demands on
government, and by bolstering the influence of ethnically chauvinistic elements
within each group, parties that begin by merely mirroring ethnic divisions help
to deepen and extend them. Hence the oft-heard remark in such states that
politicians have created ethnic conflict.

HOROWITZ, supra note 15, at 291.
239. CONST. OF 1979 § 14(3) (Nig.).
240. See Olatunde Ojo, The Impact of Personality and Ethnicity on the Mftgerian Elections

of 1979, 28 AFR. TODAY 47 (1981).
241. Id. (noting that major ethnic groups voted overwhelmingly for candidates of their

own ethnic origin).
242. For an operational assessment of the impact of a two-party system on the Nigerian

political process, see Oyedele Oyediran & Adigun Agbaje, Two-Partyism and Democratic
Transition in Nigeria, 29 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 213 (1991).

[Vol. 8:2



1998] RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

Abacha to begin in 1998, reverted to a multi-party system and approved five
political parties on September 30, 1996.' The fourth republic will confirm
whether class and ideology have finally emerged over ethnicity as the
ultimate determinants of party membership. 24

IV. RESPONDING TO THE PROBLEMS OF ETHNICITY iN NIGERIA

The prospect of a durable social order depends mightily on Nigeria's
ability to construct a mechanism that can fairly address the ethnic problems
that frustrated past attempts to set up democracy. Modem political
apparatus, especially the breakdown of the two major divisions (North and
South) into several states, failed to dissipate ethnic sentiments and loyalties
among the ethnic groups.' Each ethnic group retains its identity and seeks
to dominate the others. Ethnicity becomes heightened by modernization,
especially migration from rural areas to the city. As citizens move from
rural to urban areas in search of progress, they carry with them certain
attitudes and biases that prevent complete integration with people from other
ethnic groups. The urban city dweller becomes "concerned lest his ethnic
group falls behind others in the struggle for wealth, power, and status. "2
Sometimes administrative rules and practices prevented interaction with other
ethnic groups. 7 Mutual distrust among the various ethnic groups in Nigeria
is well-documented.3

African political elites have adopted several legal and political

243. Nigeria: Review, AFR. REV. WORLD INFO., Feb. 1. 1997, available in 1997 WL
10204078.

244. For General Abacha's transition program, see SOYInKA, supra note 37, at 159-61.
245. OsiTA EZE, HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA 135 (1984), stated:

With independence... ethnic conflicts have surfaced and have in many African
countries threatened the fragile geo-political bases of the new states. It was
thought that the process of modernization would lead to the accommodation of
the various primordial loyalties; the history of many African states tends to
point to the contrary.

246. YOUNG, THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL PLURALISM 464.
247. OKwuDIBA, supra note 29, at 115 (noting that the Southerners who migrated to the

North were forced to live in segregated housing and to educate their children in separate
schools, and were prevented from acquiring freehold title to land); DIAMOND, supra note 12,
at 26 (noting that Northern Muslims were forbidden on both religious and administrative
grounds to associate with Southerners whom they were taught to regard as "pagans and
infidels").

248. VAN DEN BERGHE, supra note 235, at 252, summarized the typical position thus:
By and large, people expect members of ethnic groups other than their own to
be "tribalists," i.e., to be biased in favor of their fellow ethnics and against
"strangers".. . . Most people assume that all others except those in the same
circle of intimates (fellow Kinsmen, townsmen, or persons linked by patron-
client ties) will behave in ways which further the person's interest at the
expense of oneself.



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

measures to combat the deleterious effects of ethnicity.249 These techniques
include: constitutional democracy with an emphasis on representative
government; a federal system of governmentm with considerable autonomy
for the state and local governments; a one-party state 5

1 with constitutional
rules that enjoin governments to ensure fair representation of ethnic groups
in governnent;252 and recently shared key elective positions among ethnic
groups. z 3 African governments try to smother ethnic rivalries through
economic programs and political patronagel targeted at minority ethnic

249. The devastation wreaked on countries by ethnic rivalries was succinctly depicted by
Donald Horowitz. He states:

The importance of ethnic conflict, as a force shaping human affairs, as a
phenomenon to be understood, as a threat to be controlled, can no longer be
denied. By one reckoning, ethnic violence since World War UI has claimed
more than ten million lives, and in the last two decades ethnic conflict has
become especially widespread. Ethnicity is at the center of politics in country
after country, a potent source of challenges to the cohesion of states and
international tension .... Ethnicity has fought and bled and burned its way into
public and scholarly consciousness.

HoRowrrz, supra note 15, at 238.
250. Benjamin Neuberger, Federalism in Africa: Experience and Prospects, in

FEDERALISM AND POLITICAL INTEGRATION 171, 173 (1984) (noting that federalism had an
appeal in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a middle of the road approach between the poles
of unitary centralism and outright secession. Intra-state federalism was seen as the only way
to accommodate tribal and linguistic diversity within one political system. Federalism within
the state was the outcome of devolution and thus its function was more to mediate between the
ethnic groups than to integrate them into one uniform whole.) (footnotes omitted).

251. Some African nations, upon attaining independence, established a one-party state as
a means of offsetting the divisive effects of multi-partisanship. Anyang' Nyong'o brilliantly
articulates the arguments for the establishment of a one-party state:

The single party would promote national unity; the peoples' efforts would be
directed towards nation building and not wasted on politics; since people
generally agreed that the government was to engage itself in development, party
politics was not necessary; whatever differences would emerge, these could be
freely discussed under the single-party regime as democracy and human rights
would be practiced.

Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, The One Party State and its Apologists, in 30 YEARS OF
INDEPENDENCE IN AFRICA: THE LOST DECADES? 3 (Peter Anyang' Nyong'o ed., 1992). The
one-party system turned out to be a colossal failure in Africa as tyrants and despots used the
machinery of state to oppress and silence dissidents. As Anyang' Nyong'o observed:

No one party regime in Africa can boast of democratic practice or a good
record on human rights. Sekou Toure's Guinea had its own Gulag
Archipelagos; Mobutu' Zaire excelled in repression as a policy of maintaining
a kleptocratic regime in power; Banda' Malawi has been the best run police
state in Africa.

Id.
252. See infra text accompanying notes 258-63.
253. See infra text accompanying notes 333-40.
254. Attempts at promoting national unity have included economic policies, political

patronage, and mass education. See Anthony Smith, The Nation: Invented, Imagined,

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

groups.15 Both strategies, legal and political, failed chiefly because their
efficacies require a level of good faith from politicians and technocrats which
they are either unable or unwilling to display. 6 Most political elites
continue to harbor deep-seated ethnic loyalties that diminish their capacity
to make the necessary concessions and compromises required by the
democratic process." 7 This portion of the paper will examine three available
options for dealing with the resurgence of ethnicity. The options include:
introducing legal rules to address minority concerns; attacking the social
forces that engender ethnic rivalries; and partitioning the country.

A. Promoting National Unity Through Legal Rules

Before 1979, efforts at national integration were largely uncoordinated,
unorganized, and solely dependent on the good faith of politicians and
technocrats. Entrusting an issue as vital as integration to politicians with an
uncontrollable propensity for self-aggrandizement proved calamitous.
Without legal rules and democratic traditions to discipline their selfish
tendencies, politicians behaved opportunistically, doing whatever was
necessary to secure votes. Acutely aware of the citizens' commitment to
their ethnic groups"8 and eager to promote unity in Nigeria. 9 the

Reconstructed?, 20 MILLENNIUM 353, 364 (1991).
255. For example, a Commission of Inquiry-set up by the British Colonial government

in Nigeria to investigate allegations of discrimination and unfair treatment by minorities in
Nigeria-recognized as valid the fear of oppression and discrimination widely held by
minorities in Nigeria and recommended certain safeguards for allaying the fears of minorities.
These recommendations included the centralization of the police force, a constitutional
guarantee of rights, decentralization of functions to provincial authorities, and the
establishment of a development board to advise on the physical development of Niger Delta
areas and midwestern Nigeria. See Report CMND 505 (1958), in NWABuEZE, supra note 55,
at 151.

256. Professor B.O. Nwabueze, one of Africa's leading constitutional law scholars,
describes why federalism has been unable to resolve ethnic conflicts in Africa:

For federalism to be able to resist failure, the leaders and their followers must
"feel federal"... they must be moved to think of themselves as one people with
one common self-interest capable where necessary of overriding most other
considerations of small group interest. It is not enough that the units of a
federation have the same ideal of "good" but that the good for anyone must be
consciously subordinate to or compatible with the good of all.

Akande, supra note 14, at 28.
257. In his popular critique of group theory, Mancur Olson notes that "if the individuals

in any large group are interested in their own welfare, they will not voluntarily make sacrifices
to help their group attain its political (public or collective) objectives." MANCUR OLSON, THE
LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION 126 (1971).

258. The CDC observed that "as a general rule, every Nigerian owes or is expected to
owe some loyalty to his community or sub-community." NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION DRAFTING
COMMITTEE, I REPORT OF THE CONSTITUTION DRAFTING COMMITTEE xiii (Federal Ministry

19981



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), in 1979, sought to promote national
loyalty through legal rules. Specifically, the CDC included two main legal
rules designed to promote national unity. The first provision demanded that
a candidate, to be elected, must have the support of a broad segment of the
country. The second provision called for a fair representation of all the
existing ethnic groups in government. Both provisions were subsequently
ratified by the Constituent Assembly and incorporated into the constitution.

To ensure that the president enjoyed national support, the 1979
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provided that besides
securing a majority of the votes cast at the election, a president must secure
not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least
two-thirds of all states in the federation.' This provision was designed to
elect a president acceptable to a broad segment of the country. An executive
president, unlike a ceremonial president, needs acceptability among various
ethnic groups to be able to act decisively.

The second constitutional provision enjoined all levels of government
to ensure a fair representation of all ethnic groups. Section 14(3) provided:

The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of
its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in
such manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the
need to promote national unity, and also to Command national
loyalty thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of
persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional
groups in that government or in any of its agencies.

Similarly, state and local governments were required to "recognize the
diversity of the peoples within its area of authority and the need to promote
a sense of belonging and loyalty among all the peoples of the Federation. "261
This novel and extensive constitutional provision followed the
recommendation of the CDC, which noted: "Once it is agreed or provided
that the component states and all ethnic groups shall be accorded fair and
equitable treatment, it follows logically that no few states or combination of
a few ethnic groups shall be permitted to dominate the government to the
exclusion of others. "262

of Information 1976).
259. The CDC noted that loyalty to one's community ought not to be allowed to inhibit

or detract from national unity and resolved that "[t]he state shall foster a feeling of belonging
and of involvement among various sections of the country, to the end that loyalty to the nation
shall override sectional loyalties." Id.

260. See CONST. OF 1979 §§ 123, 125, 126(la), 126(2a) (Nig.).
261. Id. § 14(2).
262. NIGERIAN CoNSTITUrnON DRAFTING COMMITrEE, 1 REPORT OF THE CONSTITUTION

DRAFTING COMMITrEE viii-ix (Federal Ministry of Information 1976).

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REsToRING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

Explaining the reason for this novel constitutional provision, the CDC
observed:

There had in the past been inter-ethnic rivalry to secure the
domination of government by one ethnic group or combination
of ethnic groups to the exclusion of others. It is therefore
essential to have some provisions to ensure that the
predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic
or other sectional groups is avoided in the composition of
government or the appointment or elections of persons to high
offices in the state.2

"Federal character," as the media called it, was meant to have
implications far broader than increasing social representation of different
ethnic groups in government. It denounced domination of government by
one ethnic group and sought to give all ethnic groups a sense of belonging.
The CDC believed that including such an extensive policy statement in the
constitution would allay the fears of exclusion widely nursed by some ethnic
groups, and hopefully generate loyalty to the nation.

The CDC encouraged Nigerians to think that ethnic problems could be
eliminated or at least contained by legal rules. Nigerians realized quickly
that the efficacy of legal rules depended on social and political realities in the
country. The prognosis for integration suggested by the Constitution
Drafting Committee and included in the constitution was severely weakened
by politicians and technocrats who abused it for selfish ends. The lofty
constitutional ideal became embroiled in politics as politicians and key
government functionaries openly and aggressively identified with their
respective ethnic groups and pushed for preferential treatment for their
people.

Moreover, the above provisions in some respects severely constrained
efforts to promote unity. By constitutionally mandating "federal character,"
the system confessed its inability to promote unity and unwittingly rendered
simmering ethnic tensions more intractable and less amenable to solution.
In the hope of achieving increased social representation of all ethnic groups,
the Nigerian government traded a long-term search for integration for short-
term equilibrium. Government was forced to maintain a delicate balance
between merit and allaying the ethnic minority's fear of ethnic domination
or exclusion. The balancing act proved particularly invidious as government
functionaries readily sacrificed merit at the altars of ethnicity.2" Too much

263. Id.
264. Alhaji Ali Ciroma, the President of the Nigerian Labor Congress, stated: "Any

government that believes in federal character is basing its options on a wrong premise. This
is because if you want to apply federal character as a yardstick for giving people opportunities,

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

emphasis on ethnicity unnecessarily injected ethnic sentiments in all matters
of national concern, thus fracturing loyalty to the nation. 26 According to
Dr. Okere: "If ethnic and state considerations have to be the salient factors
in determining public appointments, would hankering after power and high
federal offices not lead to inordinate and aggressive identification with the
ethnic group or the state to the detriment of higher loyalty to the Nigerian
nation?

" M6

Ethnic loyalties may decrease if Nigerian politics becomes less of a
zero-sum game in which the winners partake of the national cake while the
losers wallow in abject poverty and misery.367 The sense of loss and even
alienation felt by those who describe themselves as minorities engender
pressure to question every facet of the civil society.8 Many complain about
the revenue allocation formula, the distribution of government appointive
positions, and even the legitimacy of the government. Though some of these
sentiments are misguided, they all cannot be dismissed as totally
unwarranted. Minority ethnic groups have watched helplessly as the
northern ethnic groups enjoy and squander the nation's resources. Northern
ethnic groups have repeatedly exhibited a tendency to behave
opportunistically, needlessly exploiting and dominating other groups. The
feeling of exclusion and subjugation among the Ibos in 1966 resulted in the
secessionist bid that resulted in a thirty-month civil war. Additionally, the
feeling that the North was trying to manipulate the West into submission led
to the 1966 western regional crisis.

Citizens profess commitment to ethnicity because it is efficient.69 It
serves the major purpose of assuring success and enjoyment of the facilities

you will be denying other qualified Nigerians opportunities." N.Y. TIMES, July 20, 1986, at
15.

265. For a critical analysis of "federal character," see A.A.M. Kirk-Greene, Ethnic
Engineering and the "Federal Character" of Nigeria: Boon of Contentment or Bone of
Contention?, 6 ETHNIC & RACIAL STUD. 457 (1983).

266. B.O. Okere, Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy Under
the Nigerian Constitution, 3 NIG. JURID. REv. 74, 75-76 (1988).

267. LEwis, POLITICS IN WEST AFRICA 76 (arguing that plural societies cannot function
peaceably if politics is regarded as a zero-sum game, which functions according to the
erroneous definition that the majority is entitled to rule the minority).

268. Paul Magnarella, Preventing Interethnic Conflict and Promoting Human Rights
Through More Effective Legal, Political and Aid Structures: Focus on Africa, 23 GA. J. INT'L
& COMp. L. 327, 330 (noting that "ethnonationalism or politicized ethnicity represents a major
legitimator and delegitimator of regimes. A government's legitimacy rests, in significant
degree, on its ability to convince the governed that it either shares, represents, or respects
their ethnicity.").

269. JOSEPH, supra note 28 (arguing that ethnicity remains a vital social force in Nigeria
because it is an emotionally satisfying mode of self and group assertion, and its salience
increases rather than being overridden by division according to social class during the struggle
for survival and material advantage in the modern sectors of the society and economy).

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RESTORING SoCIAL EQuEIBRIuM IN NIGERIA

of a modem state. The state has not been particularly successful in
presenting a viable and credible alternative to ethnic identification. Many
citizens perceive the nation-state as ethnically motivated and incapable of
treating them fairly; therefore, they are reluctant to trade-in the privileges of
ethnicity for the doubtful, even dubious, benefits of a nation-state.270

Demanding allegiance to this abstract entity called the "state" requires
citizens to ignore their life experiences 27' in the name of altruism, a move
that is nonsensical and economically unwise.2' Loyalty to the nation will
only make sense if political elites have the courage and the will to attack the
social forces that militate against national unity.2'

270. Anthony Anghie, Human Rights and Cutural Identity: New Hope for Ethnic Peace,
33 HARv. INT'L L.J. 341, 347 (1992) (noting that citizens are unwilling to surrender the
known and felt securities provided by their ethnic affiliations for the uncertain benefits of an
emerging state).

271. The average Nigerian takes great pride in his ancestry and will only support
programs or policies that do not compromise values dear to his ethnic group. Moreover, there
exists a prevalent perception that the dominant Hausa ethnic group is using the machinery of
state as a subterfuge to forcibly assimilate other ethnic groups. Geertz's observation in 1971
regarding ethnic groups' fear of domination remains valid in contemporary Nigeria. He
stated:

To subordinate these specific and familiar identifications in favor of a
generalized commitment to an overarching and somewhat alien civil order is to
risk a loss of definition as an autonomous person, either through absorption into
a culturally undifferentiated mass or, what is even worse, through domination
by some other rival ethnic, racial, or linguistic community that is able to imbue
that order with the temper of its own personality.

CLIFFoRD GEERTZ, THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURES (1973).
272. Jackson, supra note 30, at 1 (noting that citizenship means little and carries few

substantial rights or duties compared with membership in a family, clan, religious sect, or
ethnic community. Often the government cannot govern itself, and its officials may in fact be
freelancers, charging what amounts to a private fee for their services. The language of the
state may be little more than a facade for the advancement of personal or factional interests
by people who are only nominally judges, soldiers, bureaucrats, policemen, or members of
some other official category. In short, many states in sub-Saharan Africa are far more
credible realities.).

273. S.I.O. Okita, Ethnic Identity and the Problem of National Integration in Nigeria, 55
NIG. MAG. 61, 64 (1987). Okita attributes Nigeria's inability to forge a sense of nationhood
to the lack of political will.

Unfortunately, the search or quest for nation building and national integration
has largely been one of a grope in the dark. This grope in the dark is
characterized by changing from one type of constitution to another and setting
up one probe or tribunal after another .... This situation has been brought
about not because as a people we lack ideas to formulate and fashion a
constitution that will serve our purpose, or lack of expertise on the part of
government functionaries to deal with issues being probed by panels or
tribunals. What is lacking, on the part of our leadership, whether civilian or
military[,] is the will to forge a strong national outlook and orientation around
which a sense of identity, loyalty and belonging can be built by the citizenry.

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

B. Attacking Social Forces That Engender Ethnicity

Social equilibrium cannot be imposed on society or attained through
constitutional reforms alone. Nigeria. must devise strategies for
counteracting the constraining effects of social forces that promote ethnicity.
Much of the effort at starting democracy has gone into the creation of legal
rules and establishment of political institutions. These efforts go on the
popular but incorrect assumption that entrusting the governance of the
country to democratically elected leaders is enough to satisfy the major
requirements of democracy. 274 Nigeria has expended little effort to devise
strategies for counteracting the social forces that paralyze democracy.
Constitutional reforms, by themselves, scarcely produce stability because
legal rules, however efficacious, cannot alter the psychology of citizensY 5

Moreover, frequent constitutional changes in some respects inhibit social
equilibrium. Such reforms often produce the unintended consequence of
making citizens believe that their problems lie with the rule, thus ignoring
the underlying social problems.

Legal rules are necessary but never sufficient to resolve inter-ethnic
conflicts. Social equilibrium through constitutional democracy can be
achieved only through cultivating a culture that respects citizens' rights,
involving all ethnic groups in the process of governance, and fairly
distributing the nation's resources to all ethnic groups. Education may serve
as a vehicle to strengthen and promote understanding of democratic
traditions. Education should focus on two main areas: changing the political
philosophy and overcoming the adverse effects of illiteracy, poverty and
corruption. The major goal of education should be to change the attitude of
both the political leaders and the governed. Politicians must be educated to
change their perception of the political process 6 so they see that democracy

Id.
274. Stephen Schnably, The Santiago Comment as a Call to Democracy in the United

States: Evaluating the Organization of American States Role in Haiti, Peru and Guatemala,
25 U. MIAMI INTER-AM. L. REV. 393, 524 (1994) (noting that it would be unfortunate if
simply restoring elected heads of government came to be regarded as sufficient to vindicate
democracy).

275. Stephen Ellmann, The New South African Constitution and Ethnic Division, 26
COLUM. HUM. RTs. L. REv. 5 (1994):

The peril of ethnic division cannot be ignored. Reducing that peril by constitutional
means is no simple task, for when ethnic groups pull in different directions a free
country can only produce harmony between them by persuading each to honor some
claims of the other and to moderate some claims of its own. It will require much
more than technical ingenuity in constitution-writing to generate such mutual
forbearance.

276. General Mohammed, then Head of State, in his inaugural address to the Constitution
Drafting Committee, admonished that "politics must be transformed from its previous scenario
of bitter personal wrangles into a healthy game of political argument and discussion."

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUiLiBRIUM IN NIGERIA

is not simply a power game in which the winners impose their preferences
on the losers. Politicians must be educated to appreciate and respect the
central tenets of democracy, a process in which a pluralistic society,
comprising citizens from diverse ethnic and social backgrounds, organizes
itself and resolves its differences through established channels. Political
elites must rise above ethnic, sectional, and selfish interests and commit
themselves to the welfare of the nation. Political leaders' chief aim,
according to Lewis, should no longer be to "[c]apture the government in
order to benefit one group at the expense of another but rather to represent
the views of their sectional group of supporters and prepare to govern in
coalition with the leaders of other parties and groups.' Education can also
change ignorance-driven sentiments about the democratic process. Education
may emphasize and reinforce the basic tenets of civil society: subordination
of the military to civilian authority, respect for constituted authority, and
resolution of conflicts through established procedures. Education must also
promote a culture of religious tolerance, tolerance that not only refrains from
injecting religion into civil affairs, but also deeply resents preference of one
religion over others. We must respect our pluralism and allow citizens to
profess their religion without restraint. The ultimate goals of education must
be to encourage citizens to coexist peacefully and to change their negative
perceptions about other ethnic groups and the political process. We must
educate ethnic groups to view others not as rivals or even threats, but as
fellow citizens equally committed to peace and social equilibrium.

Ultimately, education becomes a question of values and how best to
translate them into reality. Politicians are members of the society, products
of its cultural synthesis; they often do not and cannot rise above their
communities. It is doubtful whether education can cause wholesale
behavioral changes given Nigerians' demonstrable lethargic attitude toward
change. Moreover, education leaves undisturbed the fundamental problem
that historically has plagued the process: the unfair treatment meted out to
other ethnic groups by the dominant Hausa group. This is why the next
option becomes crucial.

C. Partitioning the Nation

Nigerian boundary lines, like those of most African nations, were
arbitrarily drawn with scant regard for the well-being of the inhabitants. 278

NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION DRAFTING COMMITTEE, I REPORT OF CONSTITUTION DRAFTING
COMMITTEE xii (Federal Ministry of Information 1976).

277. LEwis, supra note 267, at 83-84.
278. ANTHONY SMITH, THEORIES OF NATIONALISM xxxiv (1983) (noting that African

boundary lines were drawn by colonial masters at the 1885 Berlin conference "in complete
disregard for the cultural preferences and ethnic sympathies of their populations").

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

Even the imperialists recognized that the boundary lines were arbitrarily
drawn and that national boundaries failed to take into account pre-existing
relationships. An after-dinner speech by Lord Salisbury, then British Prime
Minister, provided some insight into the mindset of the imperial masters who
demarcated the boundary lines. At the end of the Anglo-French convention,
which officially designated imperial spheres of influence in West Africa, he
stated that "we have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no
white man's foot ever trod; we have been giving away mountains and rivers
and lakes to each other, only hindered by small impediment that we never
knew exactly where the mountains and rivers were.'279 Another British
official, who was involved in creating the boundary between Nigeria and
Cameroon, spoke similarly about the Nigerian boundaries:

In those days we just took a blue pencil and a rule, and we put
it down at Old Calabar, and drew that line to Yola . . .. I
recollect thinking when I was sitting having an audience with the
Emir [of Yola] surrounded by his tribe, that it was a very good
thing that he did not know that I, with a blue pencil, had drawn
a line through his territory.m

The creation of the Nigerian nation was rooted in greed, fueled by the
arrogant belief that the colonial masters knew what was best for Africans. 281

Compelling hitherto homogenous and autonomous ethnic groups to exist as
one nation significantly enhanced the potential for conflicts and rivalries.2
As Jennifer Parmelee aptly observed: "[B]oundaries that ignored African

279. J.C. ANENE, THE INTERNATIONALBOUNDARIES OF NIGERIA 1885-1960, at 3 (1970).
280. Id. at 2-3.
281. Scarcely any doubt or question persists about the selfish and economic motives

behind the demarcation of Africa in the nineteenth century. See, e.g., Crawford Young, The
Heritage of Colonialism, in WORLD POLMCS 19 (John W. Harbeson & Donald Rothschild
eds., 1991) (noting that Africa, in the rhetorical metaphor of imperial jingoism, was a ripe
melon ready for carving in the late nineteenth century. Those who scrambled fastest won the
largest slices and the right to consume at their leisure the sweet succulent flesh. Stragglers
snatched only small servings or tasteless portions. Italians, for example, found only desserts
on their plates.); Mutua, supra note 40, at 1115 n.6 (noting that "[m]ost African states are
the product of the competitive subjugation of the continent by Great Britain, France, Belgium,
Portugal, Italy, and Spain between 1875-1900").

282. Mutua, supra note 40, at 1115 n.8, blames the perennial ethnic problems in Africa
on colonial policy that grouped diverse ethnic groups under one nation.

Severe cleavages, those which have been a major source of the persistent
problem of the African state, are the direct result of the imposition of colonial
rule and the modem state. Ethnic rivalries have arisen because previously
independent and self-governing ethno-political nations, characterized in almost
all cases by cultural, linguistic, and ethnic homogeneity, have been coerced to
live together under single states.

[Vol. 8:2



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

realities, haphazardly slicing through tribal territories ... have made Africa
uniquely susceptible to tribalism's centrifugal pulls . . . .Most of the
continent's civil wars, more than twenty in three decades, have had a
significant ethnic component. "

Nigeria, from its very inception, was doomed to fail. The country that
attained independence in 1960 was "not really a nation, but rather a
conglomeration of ethnic groups, with three predominating."' Assembling
ethnic groups with dramatically different cultural and political assumptions
under the umbrella of a nation was a flawed tactic, a mistake that plagues the
nation till this very date.'

In 1884-1885 the European imperial powers met in Berlin and
without the consent or the participation of the African people,
demarcated the continent of Africa into colonies or spheres of
influence. In many cases, kingdoms or tribes were split with
such reckless abandon that they came under two or three
European imperial powers. This event was the genesis of many
present-day conflicts and virtually insoluble problems in the
African continent.3

Boundaries artificially demarcated for powerless and unsophisticated rural
nineteenth-century African societies can hardly satisfy the aspirations of a

283. Jennifer Parmelee, Africa: Bloodied, Torn at its Ethnic Seams, WASH. POST, July
14, 1994, at Al.

284. M.G. Kaladharan Nayar, Self Determination Beyond the Colonial Context: Biafra
in Retrospect, 10 TEX. INT'L L.J. 321, 324 (1975).

285. Deng, supra note 71, at 34.
[T]he colonial nation-state . . . brought together diverse groups that it
paradoxically kept separate and unintegrated. Regional ethnic groups were
broken up and affiliated with others within the artificial borders of the new
state, with colonial masters imposing a superstructure of law and order to
maintain relative peace and tranquility .... It can credibly be argued that the
gist of these current internal conflicts is that the ethnic pieces put together by
colonial glue and reinforced by the old cold war world order are now pulling
apart and reasserting their autonomy.

Id. This phenomenon is not peculiar to Africa. The artificial demarcation of Europe by the
Allied forces following World War II accounts for some of the unrest in the former Soviet
Republic and Yugoslavia. See generally HURST HAANUM, AUTONOMY, SOVEREIGNTY, AND
SELF DETERMINATION (1990); Angela M. Lloyd, The Southern Sudan: A Compelling Case
for Secession, 32 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 419, 423 n.17 (1994):

Recurrent violence in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and the
bifurcation of Czechoslovakia into separate republics ... serve as poignant
examples of the fact that the forced incorporation of diverse ethnicities into
artificially delineated states neither fulfilled 'national' aspirations for autonomy
nor engendered any lasting sense of 'nationalism' in the state.

286. T.O. ELIAS, AFRICA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW viii (1988).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

twenty-first century continent.' Economic and social development,
increased political awareness, and education have increasingly focused
attention on the propriety of nineteenth-century boundaries drawn by
imperial fiat.' Also, the inequities suffered by minority ethnic groups have
led repeatedly to the clamor for separate nations. The unsuccessful 1967
secessionist attempt by Ibos in Nigeria2 and the more recent demands by the
Ogonis for a separate nation accurately depict widely shared partition
sentiments by ethnic minorities in Nigeria.2'

Some ethnic groups have realized that independence did not translate
into the end of oppression, and the beginning of justice and economic
prosperity. As Albie Sachs noted:

[T]he elimination of [colonialism] does not guarantee freedom
even for the formerly oppressed. History unfortunately records
many examples of freedom fighters of one generation who
became the oppressors of the next. Sometimes the very qualities
of determination and sense of being involved in a historic
endeavor which give freedom fighters the courage to raise the
banner of liberty in the face of barbarous repression, transmute
themselves into sources of authoritarianism and historic forced
marches later on. On the other occasions, the habits of
clandestinity and mistrust, of tight discipline and centralized
control, without which the freedom fighting nucleus would have
been wiped out, continue with dire results into the new society. 91

Self-government and constitutional democracy have frequently produced the
twin evils of exclusion of minority groups from the governance process and
human rights violations.2m The democratic process, especially the principle

287. Helman & Ratner, supra note 8, at 5 (noting that it is impossible to be certain that
the political boundaries created under colonialism will in the end prove sustainable).

288. Magnarella, supra note 268, at 330, notes:
Despite the ethno-nationalist rhetoric following World War I, most of the
emerged states were not true "nation-states." Most incorporated multi-ethnic
populations and subsequently experienced inter-ethnic conflict. Today many
states are wrestling with two conflicting principles: 1) the right of nations to
self determination; and 2) the inviolability and political integrity of sovereign
territory, regardless of how that territory may have been acquired or how
culturally diverse its population may be.

289. For an account of the Biafran secessionist attempt, see ST. JORRE, supra note 19.
290. For a detailed study of Ogoni demands, see Osaghae, supra note 227.
291. ALBIE SACHS, THE FUTURE OF CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF WHITE SOUTH

AFRICANS 108-09 (1990), in Adrien Wing, Towards Democracy in a New South Africa, 16
MICH. J. INT'L L. 689, 691-92 (1995).

292. See THE FAILURE OF THE CENTRALIZED STATE, supra note 11; COLLAPsED'STATES,
supra note 7.

[Vol. 8:2



RESTORING SOCIAL EQuILIBRIuM IN NIGERIA

of majoritarian supremacy, has been used to justify marginalization of
minority ethnic groups. For example, both the parliamentary system of
government practiced between 1960 and 1966 and the presidential system
introduced in 1979 go on the assumption that majority rule is the essence of
democracy. Because political alignments run along ethnic lines, democracy
often produces permanent minorities. This is especially true in Nigeria,
where some ethnic groups are much bigger than others.' The Hausa ethnic
group, the biggest in Nigeria, has produced more presidents than have all the
other ethnic groups combined.' The Hausa's record of marginalizing other
ethnic groups has tremendously affected the search for social equilibrium in
Nigeria: citizens from other ethnic groups are less inclined to play by the
rules and sometimes behave in ways inimical to the overall interest of the
nation.2' In pluralistic societies, democracy can only translate into social
equilibrium if the majority voluntarily checks its excesses and avoids actions
that threaten the minority's existence.

Voluntary self-restraint is an exorbitant commodity in Nigeria, given
a pervasive culture and a long history of arrogance. In Nigeria, as in most
developing nations, cases abound where the majority ethnic group forcibly
tries to impose its cultural and religious preferences onto other ethnic
groups.? Minority ethnic groups' opposition to this forced conformity and
injustice results in conflicts.2 ' A movement toward heightened ethnic
consciousness results in a call for an end to injustice and, more
fundamentally, a call for partition. Only a nation of their own. can satisfy
minority groups' quest for freedom and guarantee both control of their
destinies and a brighter future for their children. 98

293. See COLEMAN, supra note 26.
294. The only exceptions are General Ironsi, an Ibo, who ruled from January to July,

1966, and General Obasanjo, a Yoruba, who ruled from 1976 to 1979. General Obasanjo
assumed office following the assassination of General Mohammed.

295. RABusHC.A & SHEsmLE, supra note 216, at 90 (noting that "majoritarianism" is the
cause of the dominant community and their paradigm of politics in plural societies involves
the sectional domination of decisional processes, a decline in democratic competition, electoral
machination and political violence resulting in the destabilizing of the whole polity).

296. Forced assimilation techniques range from the damnable ethnic cleansing to
exclusion from power.

297. Magnarella, supra note 268, at 333 (noting that "[a]ttempts by state governments to
force diverse cultural populations into the majority ethnic mold have frequently led to human
rights abuses").

298. Despite stiff opposition from international bodies and super powers, partitioning is
gaining currency in the world. Eriterea broke away from Ethiopia and became an independent
state in 1993. The former Soviet Union was broken into fifteen independent states: Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova,
Russia, Tajikstan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The former Yugoslavia was
partitioned into six separate sovereign states: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia,
Slovenia, Serbia, and Montennegro. See Russell W. Howe, Countries Are Breaking into

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

Persistent clamor for statehood raises crucial questions: should African
nations continue to ignore the enormous costs, human and material, involved
in forcing unwilling ethnic groups to coexist? How long will African nations
endure the pains of statehood inflicted on them by colonial masters for purely
selfish reasons? Do Europeans, who arbitrarily thrust nationhood on
unwilling and ill-prepared ethnic groups, have a moral responsibility to help
African nations in finding a solution to the problem?2'

African countries, upon attaining independence, had two basic options:
redraw boundary lines to correct the errors of colonialism or accept the
borders drawn by the imperialists. Opinions have differed considerably
depending upon sentiments of the agitators. Some condemned the boundary
lines arbitrarily drawn by colonial masters and called for "the abolition or
adjustment of such frontiers at an early date. "3 Others, especially political
elites eager to assume the reigns of power, felt that restructuring borders
would delay the attainment of independence and "opted for maintaining
extant lines as the most feasible method for speedy decolonization." 30'

Neither time nor circumstance has dulled the relevance of revisiting
African border lines. Once overshadowed by the struggle for independence
and endemic ethnic conflicts, political and economic crises in Africa continue
to bring to the fore the highly controversial question of redrawing boundary
lines.' Some writers recognize that ethnic conflicts are endemic in Africa

Ministates and That's not Necessarily Bad, BALTIMORE SUN, Jan. 1994, at ES.
299. There is debate, largely academic, about what the appropriate response should be.

Some advocate recolonization as the solution to Africa's political problem. See, e.g., William
Pfaff, A New Colonialism? Europe Must Go Back to Africa, 74 FOREIGN AFF. 1 (1995). Ali
Mazrui, one of Africa's leading scholars, argues that the successive collapse of the state in one
African country after another creates the need for recolonization of Africa. See Ali Mazrui,
The Message of Rwanda: Recolonize Africa? N. PERSP. Q., Fall 1994, at 18. The
recolonization proposed by Mazrui rests on humanitarian grounds and differs from European
colonization because Africans would supervise it. Under the proposal, an African Security
Council composed of five African states-Egypt, Ethiopia, Zaire, South Africa, and Nigeria-
acting in concert with the United Nations, will restore peace and order in troubled African
states. See Ali Mazrui, Maybe 7me Has Come to Recolonize Africa, HousT. CHRON., Aug.
3, 1994, at A27. Other suggestions include setting up a trusteeship under the auspices of the
United Nations whereby the U.N. would act as the administering authority in troubled states.
See Helman & Ratner, supra note 8, at 3.

300. See COLIN LEGUM, PAN AFRICANISM: A SHORT POLrIcAL GUIDE 228, 231
(Resolutions Adopted by the All-African People's Conference. Accra, Dec. 5-13). One of the
resolutions condemned artificial frontiers drawn by imperialist powers to divide the peoples
of Africa and called for the abolition or adjustment of such frontiers at an early date.

301. Steven Ratner, Drawing A Better Line: Uti Possidetis and the Borders of New
States, 90 AM. J. INT'L L. 590, 595 (1996). Ian Brownlie also notes that "Africa[n]
boundaries which intersected ethnic territories were retained after independence to avoid
disputes and threats to peace in Africa." IAN BROWNLIE, BASIC DOCUMENTS ON AFRICAN
AFFAIRS 360 (1971).

302. Richard Mukisa identifies three factors as being responsible for rekindling the

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

but contend that partitioning would not be the best cure. Opponents of
partition argue that granting desirous ethnic groups the right to secede will
result in the proliferation of nations. One writer rules out partition as an
option and maintains that "Africa is too integrated to be retribalized and too
poor to be chopped up further into beggar republics. "3 Some also argue
that complaining minorities and a domineering majority will always exist.
Redrawing boundary lines might, therefore, serve only to reproduce
problems that lead to agitation for separate states.10' A 1922 report
submitted to the United Nations by the Commission of Rapporteurs on the
Aaland Island Question stated:

To concede to minorities, either of language or religion, or to
any fractions of a population the right of withdrawing from the
community to which they belong, because it is their wish or their
good pleasure, would be to destroy order and stability within
states and to inaugurate anarchy in the international life.30 5

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of civil strife, partition
demands Nigeria face two seemingly insurmountable obstacles. First,
international organizations, including the United Nations and the
Organization of African Unity, are reluctant to assist ethnic groups seeking
autonomy as such bodies have consistently favored the inviolability of a
nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Organization of African
Unity (OAU) has ill-advisedly emphasized the inviolability of existing
boundary lines and refused to review partition demands by oppressed
minorities."° The OAU, as far back as 1963, resolved "to respect the

discussion about redrawing Africa's boundary lines: (1) the determination of the African
political leadership to resolve the continent's current economic crisis; (2) Africa's increasing
realization that peace and security are the prerequisites for the economic development of the
continent; and (3) the urgent need to curb political crisis. Richard S. Mukisa, Toward a
Peaceful Resolution of Africa's Colonial Boundaries, 44 AFR. TODAY 7 (1997).

303. Pauline Baker, Carving up Africa Isn't the Way to Help, INT'L HERALD TRIB., Aug.
9, 1994.

304. Former United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher stated at his
confirmation hearing that "[i]f we don't find some way that the different ethnic groups can live
together in a country, how many countries will we have? . . . We will have 5000 countries
rather than the hundred plus we now have." David Binder, As Ethnic Wars Multiply, United
States Strives for a Policy, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 7, 1993, at 1.

305. Report Presented by the Comm. of Rapporteur on the Aaland Islands Question,
League of Nations Doc. C. 21/68/106 VII, at 28 (1921).

306. See ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY CHARTER, 479 U.N.T.S. 39, 2 I.L.M. 766
(1963). Article I of the Organization of Africa Unity Charter enjoins member states to defend
their territorial integrity and independence. Article III further requires member states to
"solemnly affirm and declare their adherence to the principle of respect for the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence."

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

frontiers existing on their achievement of independence. "31 The OAU stand,
in effect, puts the ethnic groups on notice that partition or redrawing border
lines would never be an option. The United Nations, for its part, hides
under the policy of non-interference in internal affairs of states to deny
assistance to ethnic groups fighting for partition1 8 Ethnic groups desirous
of asserting a right of self-determination find themselves in a quandary:
alienated from the political process, often robbed of their rights and brutally
denied the right of self determination. Henry Richardson succinctly captures
the plight of minority ethnic groups and the attitude of African governments:

A state may indeed be disintegrating because its government will
not justly represent the fundamental interests of a dissident
defined people who may be occupying a designated territory.
Secession being illegal and cession being a loss of political face
to the ceding national government, military force is all too often
called upon, justified not only under claims of law prohibiting
secession but under various slippery slope arguments advocating
suppression as the only remedy against the dissolution of the
entire national state. 3°9

National sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected so
long as ethnic groups' rights to self-determination and basic human rights are
not compromised. International agencies should anchor the much taunted
search for new world order on self-determination and respect for human
rights, rather than on national sovereignty. 10 In contrast, a policy that
emphasizes national sovereignty over self-determination will simply
embolden despotic regimes and majority groups to engage in acts of
oppression and human rights violations. Nations should be encouraged to
redraw boundary lines whenever the current government fails to meet the

307. BROWNLIE, supra note 301, at 361 (quoting OAU Resolution on Border Disputes
(1964)).

308. The United Nations has limited its involvement to peace-keeping, placing itself
between two opposing factions (Somalia and Bosnia are two recent examples). See H.E.
Boutros Boutros-Gali, Beyond Peace Keeping, 25 N.Y.U. J. INT'L L. & POL. 113, 114-15
(1992). United Nations peace-keeping efforts proceed under two broad heads. First, where
the warring parties exhibit the political will necessary for a successful intervention (i.e. willing
to keep the peace), the United Nations will intervene and keep the peace. Examples include
Cambodia, Mozambique, Namibia and El Salvador. The second is where the United Nations
intervenes regardless of the consent of the parties. Examples include Somalia and Rwanda.
Id. at 116-17.

309. Henry Richardson III, 'Failed States," Self-Determination, and Preventive
Diplomacy: Colonialist Nostalgia and Democratic Expectations, 10 TEMP. INT'L & COMP.
L.J. 1, 45 (1996).

310. For an interesting analysis of the central tenets of the new world order, see Ernest
Easterly III, The Rule of Law and The New World Order, 22 S.U. L. REV. 161 (1995).

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUiLIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

aspiration of its people. To continue to ignore minority rights violates basic
standards of decency and makes a mockery of human rights championed by
the United Nations and the "super powers."

The second impediment to redrawing boundary lines is national
governments' adamant opposition to such a measure. The Nigerian
government, ostensibly encouraged by international bodies' commitment to
national sovereignty, remains adamantly committed to the nineteenth-century
boundary lines. Even in the face of imminent disintegration, the Nigerian
military regime has squelched all attempts to discuss the option of
partition.311 Nigeria's blind and unquestioning commitment to national
boundaries contradicts sentiments expressed at the West African Conference
held in Berlin, at which Africa was demarcated. The conference implicitly
conceded that national boundaries are not cast in stone: "Possibilities and
new requirements will probably reveal themselves and the time may arrive
when a wise foresight will demand the revision of a system which was
primarily adapted to a period of creation and of change." 312 Nigeria, like all
nations plagued by ethnic conflicts, must weigh and balance the benefits of
partition against the dubious benefits of national sovereignty. African
countries should critically and dispassionately re-examine boundary lines to
assess the effect of existing boundary lines on social equilibrium. African
nations need to determine whether they can afford adamant commitment to
national sovereignty, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence of
ethnic strife and social unrest. Social equilibrium enjoyed by countries that
have been successfully partitioned clearly demonstrate that the benefits of
partition far outweigh the need for preserving a nation's territorial
integrity."'

Dramatic changes in Nigeria and the African continent demand that we
revisit the boundary lines artificially drawn in the nineteenth century.314

Boundary lines are not cast in stone; they can and should be changed if doing
so will promote peace and equilibrium. Nigerian and indeed all African
nations should listen to Richard Mukisa, who advised: "One must avoid the

311. General Sanni Abacha, Nigeria's current head of state, recently stated that "the
country's unity is not a subject for negotiation." Abacha Says Country's Unity Non-Negotiable
at Constitutional Conference (BBC Summary of World Broadcast, Dec. 13, 1993).

312. General Act of the Berlin West African Conference, art. 36 and annex 3 to protocol
no. 9 of the General Act, reprinted in R.J. GAVIN & J.A. BETLEY, THE SCRAMBLE FOR
AFRICA: DOCUMENTS ON THE BERLIN WEST AFRICAN CONFERENCE AND RELATED SUBJECTS
1884/1885, at 278-300 (1973).

313. Relative peace in the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia amply
illustrate that Balkanization can lead to peace.

314. Herbst, supra note 223, at 203 (commenting that so much has changed in Africa and
the rest of the world, and the development record of Nigeria and other countries has been so
stark that the principle that Africa cannot change the nature of its governing units should be
thrown open to debate).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

temptation to view the present patchwork of countries on the map of Africa
as unchangeable and indispensable. Instead, the focus should be on how to
peacefully reorganize the patchwork to maximize the prospects for Africa to
become a zone of peace and prosperity." 35

Nigeria as presently constituted has no answer to the coming anarchy,
chiefly because various ethnic groups are pitted irredeemably against each
other. Restoration of a civilian administration simply masks the problem or
perhaps changes its dynamics or size. The calm that currently exists in
Nigeria is due to the attitude of the current military dictatorship that sternly
sets its face against all kinds of agitations and complaints. 316 Numbing ethnic
tensions have been a simple task for brutal military dictators who easily
choke off ethnic agitations by intimidation. Restoration of a civilian
administration will provide a climate and opportunity for ethnic groups to
express their concerns. Freed from the pangs of despotism and emboldened
by the freedoms conferred by the democratic process, ethnic groups will
renew their age long rivalries and agitation for increased access to the
machinery of government.3"7 Civilian administration will "lay bare ethnic
tensions that have long simmered under the suppression of a dictator's
boot."318

The only way to prevent the coming anarchy is to redraw boundary
lines. Boundary lines can be peacefully redrawn; bloodshed is neither
necessary nor inevitable. Existing boundary lines need not be "washed clean
with buckets of blood."319 Redrawing boundary lines is an effective way of
numbing ethnic tensions and conflicts that threaten social equilibrium in
Nigeria. Nigeria can be broken into three countries, along the lines of the
three predominant ethnic groups. The first nation should comprise of states
in the old Northern province. The second nation should consist of states in
the old Western Nigeria. The third nation should comprise of states in the
old Eastern Nigeria. These suggested nations are merely illustrative and not
definitive. I proffer the creation of these states to provoke serious discussion

315. Mukisa, supra note 302, at 21.
316. Adams, supra note 20, at 29 (noting that the army may be the only institution able

to run this unwieldy country as one and its short-term horizons (controlling and benefitting
from oil money) are taking their toll on a corrupt, wasteful, and spectacularly mismanaged
economy); Benjamin Schwarz, The Diversity Myth: America's Leading Export, ATLANTIc
MONTHLY, May 1, 1995, at 57 (noting that stability within divided societies is normally based
on some form of domination and once internal differences become violent, usually only the
logic of force can lay them to rest).

317. Schwarz, supra note 316, at 57 (commenting that democracy, which permits-in fact
encourages--competition for power and benefits among contesting groups, actually exacerbates
internal tensions and conflicts).

318. Darton, supra note 89.
319. Ali Mazrui, The African State as a Political Refugee: Institutional Collapse and

Human Displacement, INT'L J. REFUGEE, July 1995, at 22.

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1998] RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

and good faith inquiry into the problems of post-independent Nigeria.
Whatever boundary lines that ultimately emerge should be predicated on
consent and voluntary association of all the parties involved. Unlike the
imperialists who based boundary lines on geographical features, 31° the central
focus of the Balkanization process should be to preserve the cultural
homogeneity of the disparate ethnic groups that now comprise the nation
called Nigeria. Partition along ethnic lines worked for Europe; nothing
suggests that redrawing boundary lines will not produce similar results in
Africa.

3 21

Partitioning ethnic groups with common language, religion, and
cultural and political ethos into one nation will make it much easier for civil
society to develop into a nation-state, thus preventing many tensions posed
by the existence of three parallel societies within one nation.31 New nation-
states consisting of homogenous groups will be in a much better position to
devise political and legal structures that will preserve the heritage and custom
of its inhabitants.

The fear that partition will increase demands for self-determination is
not persuasive in Nigeria. Partition demand in Nigeria rests entirely upon
a different assumption: to correct the errors of colonialism. 3

1 The three

320. IAN BROWNLE, AFRICAN BoUNDAgms: A LEGAL AND DIPLOMATIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
6 (1979).

321. WAsH. TIMEs, Apr. 26, 1994, at A18. Sam Onwuesbu notes that "Europe has been
divided into bits and pieces along ethnic lines-England, France, Ireland, the Netherlands,
Italy, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Greece, etc. If these ethnic partitions were good
for Europe, they would be perfect for Africa." Id.

322. See Art Hansen, African Refugees: Defining and Defending Their Human Rights,
in HuMAN RIGHTS AND GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA 161-62 (Ronald Cohen et al. eds., 1993):

The term 'nation' refers to a group that shares a common history and identity
and is aware of that; they are a people, not just a population. Using that
definition, ethnic groups (once called tribes) in Africa are also nations. None
of the new African states were originally nation-states because none of them
were nations as well as states. Each of the new states contains more than one
nation. In their border areas, many new states contain parts of nations because
the European-inspired borders cut across existing national territories.

See also Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, The National Question, Secession and Constitutionalist:
The Mediation of Competing Claims to Self Determination, in STATE AND
CONSTITTIONALIST: AN AFRICAN DEBATE ON DEMOCRACY 101 (Issa G. Shirji ed., 1991):

If we define a 'nation' simply as a people of common ethnicity and culture, the
term nation-state is somewhat a misnomer because it is very rare for the
population of a nation-state to consist of a single nation. In the vast majority
of cases, and universally throughout Africa, the population of the nation-state
consists of several "nations."

323. Osaghae, supra note 227, at 343 (contending that the Nigeria federation as it
presently exists is an anomaly because the various ethnic groups have not been allowed to
decide whether they want to continue to belong to it or not since the British "forced" them into
union in 1914).



IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REV.

major ethnic groups in Nigeria are not just geographical areas; they are
culturally, ethnically, and linguistically different from each other.
Artificially joined by colonial fiat, they have never truly harmoniously
coexisted. Peace cannot be secured by compelling culturally and
linguistically different people to live together. The three major ethnic groups
in Nigeria have no common bonds of nationhood; they are united by mutual
disdain for one another.

A complex of factors renders a nation viable including willingness and
desire to identify with and make the necessary connection with the nation.
Such intangibles cannot be imposed upon the inhabitants of Nigeria. For
some Nigerians, the state called Nigeria symbolizes oppression, a damnable
legacy of colonialism that ensured Hausa domination. 3 Fear of domination
has produced a cautious, even skeptical citizenry that questions every
integrationist attempt. The net result of this existence is that ethnic
consciousness has been raised to such a level that most Nigerians celebrate
ethnicity above the nation. No political arrangement will ever succeed in
shifting allegiances from the ethnic groups to an abstract entity called
Nigeria. 32s It is time for the ethnic groups to part ways. Holding together
and trying to democratize warring and implacable ethnic groups is a futile
exercise that guarantees endless violence and postpones other political
development.326

Problems in multi-ethnic countries have never been meaningfully
resolved through legal rules, including constitutional democracy.
Concession, compromise, observance of rules that safeguard against abuse,
and love for the nation are elements that produce peace in a nation and
cannot be secured through constitutional rules. Legal rules alone have never
been able to negate the avalanche of ethnic distrust or transform ethnic
irredentists into true nationalists. Nigeria needs to act decisively to avoid
replicating the mistakes of the past. We cannot hold on to the territorial
integrity at all costs. The government's failure to treat minority ethnic
groups fairly has greatly compromised Nigeria's viability as a nation. How
long must minority ethnic groups worship a god that is indifferent to their
cause? Can we in all honesty expect citizens to be loyal to a "bankrupt and

324. The statement by a 32-year farmer interviewed by Alec Russell of London's Daily
Telegraph represents widely shared negative sentiments about the Nigerian nation. The man,
who had been arrested and tortured three times, stated: "Nigeria means nothing to me....
How can you live in a place where your freedoms are denied? What we see every day is
intimidation, threats and detention." DAILY TELEGRAPH (London), Oct. 1995, available in
1995 WL 8039288.

325. Magnarella, supra note 268, at 333 (noting that historically, diverse ethnic
populations with a tradition of mutual animosity have not found common citizenship in a single
state a sufficient basis for social harmony; on the contrary, the state form has simply become
the new arena for inter-ethnic political and economic battles).

326. Schroeder, supra note 25, at 161.

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

abusive entity"?327 In 1968, Tanzania recognized Biafra as an independent
state contending that since Nigeria had failed the Ibos, they owed it no
loyalty. In according recognition to Biafra, Tanzania's government noted:

When the state ceases to stand for the honor, the protection, and
well being of all its citizens, then it is no longer the instrument
of those it has rejected. In such a case, the people have the right
to create another instrument for their protection-in other words,
to create another state.32s

Preserving a nation's territorial integrity is a highly desirable goal, but
the blood of innocent citizens should not water it. Pursuing the vision of one
Nigeria is inherently problematic and carries a tremendous potential for
another civil war. In the short term, it guarantees endless military coups.
Ambitious military officers will always use ethnic rivalries as a convenient
excuse to intervene in the political process forcibly. When a state loses its
raison d'etre, which is the provision of a safe and conducive environment for
citizens to pursue material and moral upliftment, it must be dismantled. 2 9

Nigeria is on the brink of collapse. 33 A confused military dictatorship and
ethnic strife have overwhelmed all the elements that preserve equilibrium in
society. 33' The only way out is to partition the country. Dividing the

327. Mutua, supra note 40, at 1165.
328. The Tanzania Government's Statement on the Recognition of Biafra, Apr. 13, 1968,

in FOREIGN POLICY OF TANZANIA 1961-1968: A READER 275, 278 (Mathews & Mushi eds.,
1981).

329. See Makau Mutua, Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: The Dilemma
of a Post-Colonial African State, 21 BROOK. J. INT'L L. 505, 509 (1995):

A state is not an end in itself but a means to the creation of conditions for the
happiness of the highest possible number of people. When the basic premise is
violated, and is no longer the rationale for the existence of the state, then it
becomes questionable why anyone would advocate the "redemption" of such an
entity.

See also Mazrui, supra note 319, at 23 (listing six crucial functions of statehood: exercise
sovereignty and control over territory, have sovereign oversight and supervision of the nation's
resources, exercise an effective and rational collection of revenue, maintain adequate national
infrastructure such as roads and telephone system, have capacity to govern, and maintain law
and order).

330. DIAMOND, supra note 12; Paul Adams, Africa's Next Pariah, AFR. REP., May-June
1995, at 45 (contending that Nigeria's gradual disintegration through collapsing infrastructure
and the decline of government institutions is a real but long-term threat to the centralized state;
Nigeria has been left far behind by South Africa, politically as well as economically, but the
danger is that it could follow the path of Zaire: disjointed, almost ungovernable, and
abandoned by the rest of the world except for a few companies interested in extracting its
mineral wealth).

331. The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research notes:
Nigeria is becoming increasingly ungovernable .... Ethnic and regional splits
are deepening, a situation made worse by an increase in the number of states

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IND. INT'L & CoMP. L. REv.

country into homogenous nation-states is a much better option than trying to
patch the country together "with ingenious but unworkable power sharing
schemes. "

332

Speaking of an ingenious power-sharing scheme, the new Nigerian
constitution, which takes effect in 1998, prescribes power-sharing schemes
under which the presidency and key elective posts will rotate among the
ethnic groups in the country. 333 The Head of State, General Sanni Abacha,
in his 1995 independence speech explained the reasons for a rotational
presidency:

The Provisional Ruling Council decided that on the higher and
long term national interest, the proposal of rotational power
sharing should be accepted. This option will apply to all levels
of government. The Provisional Ruling Council has also
endorsed a modified presidential system in which six key
executive and legislative offices will be zoned and rotated
between identifiable geographical groupings. In the
implementation of this provision, the country has been divided
into six zones: North-east, North-west, Middle Belt, South-west,
East Central and Southern minorities. The national political
offices which will be filled by candidates on rotational basis are:
the president, the vice president, prime minister, deputy prime
minister, senate president and speaker of the house. The power
sharing arrangement which will be entrenched in the constitution
shall be at the federal level and applicable for an experimental
period of thirty years.334

The proposal to rotate the presidency and other key elective posts among the
ethnic groups implicitly acknowledges that democracy cannot work in
Nigeria as presently constituted. Though the plan reflects bold moves to
allay the fear of domination widely nursed by ethnic groups in Nigeria, it
risks doing more harm than good. How do we decide which ethnic group
will produce the first president? What happens, if after the first term, the

from 19 to 30 and a doubling in the number of local governing authorities;
religious cleavages are more serious .... The will to keep Nigeria together is
now very weak.

Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, Feb. 1994.
332. Lind, supra note 27, at 98.
333. The power-sharing scheme parallels the federalist and conscotional principles

contained in the New South Africa Constitution. See ZiYAD MOTALA, CONSiTrUTIONAL

OPTIONS FOR A NEW SOUTH AFRICA: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIvE (1994).
334. W. AFR., Oct. 9, 1995, at 1556 (General Sanni Abacha, 1995 Independence

Anniversary Broadcast).

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RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

military aborts the process? 331 Would the division of the country into six
zones not enthrone zonal loyalties at the expense of national loyalty?

Nigerians have sufficient historic justification to be skeptical about the
efficacy of the power-sharing scheme.336 The history of Nigeria suggests that
legal rules have no enduring significance: politicians disregard them with
impunity3 7 and they have never bound the military. 338 Nigeria has reached
a point where the social realities, especially ethnic rivalries, can no longer
be ignored or treated as aberrant conduct of a few that executive fiat can
easily correct. 39 No legal rule or power sharing, however ingenuous, can
calm minority ethmic groups' apprehension of the nation-state, particularly
the majority group's commitment to the minority's well-being. Nigerians
must rise above this seductive, even fanciful, but untenable idea that power
sharing will promote national loyalty and social equilibrium. The power-
sharing scheme proposed by the fourth republic starting in 1998 should be

335. Adams, supra note 20 (commenting that the debate about president by rotation is
academic unless the armed forces intend to leave government to civilian hands long enough
for all six regions to have their share of top political offices).

336. Professor Julius lhonvbere's cynicism about the workability of the new rotation of
power arrangement probably reflects the view widely shared by most Nigerians. He stated:

This is not the first time that the idea of "zoning" or "rotating" key posts has
been tried in Nigeria. It has never worked. Those who begin the process will
not only want to hold onto power, but also to incapacitate others and reproduce
themselves. The creation of multiple levels of authority will merely weaken
government and administration in a political system where the state is the fastest
avenue to capital accumulation. Moreover, without enabling civil society to
accommodate popular interests, it is doubtful if the mere multiplication of
political positions and rotation of power will lead to genuine democratization.

Julius 0. Ihonvbere, Are Things Falling Apart? The Military and the Crisis of
Democratization in Nigeria, 34 J. MOD. AFR. STUD. 193. 221 (1996).

337. Constitutional rules have no enduring significance in Africa. Constitutions,
according to Green,

do not in any meaningful sense represent the goals or operating principles of
any significant interest groups/sub-classes, are not seen as relevant to
constitutional orders, and exist because it is believed that, like national anthems,
coats of arms and flags, constitutions, and "development plans" are something
that states have to have for ceremonial and formal symbolic purposes.

Reginald H. Green, Participatory Pluralism and Pervasive Poverty: Some Reflections, THIRD
WORLD LEGAL STUD. 21, 27 (1989).

338. The frequency of military assumption of political authority creates considerable
doubts in the minds of many Nigerians about the durability of the scheme. Upon assumption
of office, the military abolishes all political institutions and structures thus rendering irrelevant
all power-sharing schemes.

339. DIAMOND, supra note 12 (commenting that the country's ethnic, regional, and
religious cleavages cannot be resolved by force or fiat or denial of reality; they can only be
eased and managed through an open political process that takes frank stock of the fears,
grievances, and resentments on all sides and then crafts a new political framework, with
popular legitimacy, to enable contending groups to compete and coexist with mutual security).

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IND. INT'L & COMP. L. REv.

exposed for what it is: a convenient scheme designed by the ruling political
elites to achieve short-term equilibrium to enable them to continue their
shameless expropriation of the nation's resources.'

V. CONCLUSION

This paper has clearly shown that the idea of restoring social
equilibrium through democracy is profoundly misconceived. Restoration of
civilian administration cannot guarantee respect for human rights and
preservation of democratic ideas. Brief experiments with democracy in
Nigeria did not halt the phenomenon of ethnic rivalries. Oppression of
minorities remained despite constitutional injunctions of equality and justice.
So also did human rights violations, corruption, and exclusion of minorities
from the governance process feature prominently in the political landscape.
Dr. Mutua's pessimism about the workability of democracy in Africa is more
well-founded than the reassurances of self-serving African political elites and
their foreign cronies:

It will not suffice to democratize the post-colonial state; as a
fundamentally undemocratic entity in concept and reality, it is
incapable of genuine democratization. Africa's political map
must first be unscrambled and the post-colonial state
disassembled before the continent can move forward. Put
differently, the form and physical substance of the colonial state
must be completely dismantled; otherwise, its tightening noose
will strangle the entire continent.'

Nigeria cannot continue the costly experiment with democracy without
risking the lives of its citizens. No Nigerian citizen confronts, without a
feeling of despair, the civil strife, political instability, massive human rights
violations, and economic deprivations that flow from failed attempts at
establishing democracy. To avoid further destruction and relieve Nigerians
from the tyranny of the dominant ethnic group, partition has become an
unavoidable solution.2 Wole Soyinka's message deserves more credit than

340. Democracy and transition from military to civilian administration programs hold an
addictive appeal to ethnic chieftains with access to power and the national treasury. JOSEPH,
supra note 28, at 53 (characterizing democracy as a crucial defense by small groups to protect
their access to the public till).

341. Mutua, supra note 40, at 1162.
342. Professor Ali Mazrui predicts that

[o]ver the next century the outlines of most present-day African states will
change in one of two main ways. One will be ethnic self-determination, which
will create smaller states, comparable to the separation of Eriteria from
Ethiopia. The other will be regional integration, towards larger political

[Vol. 8:2



RESTORING SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM IN NIGERIA

it has received:

We should sit down with square rule and compass and redesign
the boundaries of African nations. If we thought we could get
away without this redefinition of boundaries back when the
Organization of African Unity was formed, surely the instance
of Rwanda lets us know in a very brutal way that we cannot
evade this historical challenge any longer.' 3

communities and economic unions.
Ali Mazrui, The Bondage of Boundaries, ECONOMIST, Sept. 11, 1993, at 28.

343. ECONOMIST, Sept. 10, 1994, at 16.

1998]