By O. Igho Natufe, Ph.D.
Itemizing the properties of a political party
as "cohesiveness, organization propelled by strict discipline,
ideology-based human ideas and solidarity and socially motivated unity of
purpose," he asked his PDP members: "Can we in all honesty say that we are
such a party?" (11)
The "dynamic amalgam of interest groups" that
Obasanjo referred to is the group of Nigerians whose main raison d'�tre in
politics has been to "make money" and deplete the national treasury in the
process. Not much thought has been devoted to nation building. This
phenomenon is not restricted to the PDP; it forms the basis of the other
political parties - All Peoples Party (APP), and the Alliance for Democracy
(AD). The fact that some prominent leaders and members of these parties,
including their former presidential aspirants in the 1999 elections decamped
and joined the PDP can only be explained by their desire to belong to the
"party in power," because "there is a strong expectation of patronage" to be
gained in the PDP. It is doubtful if such leaders play any significant role
in advancing the democratic agenda in Nigerian politics.
Deprived of a national party to articulate
their interests, the working class, the poor and Nigeria's middle class find
solace in their respective unions, for example, the Nigerian Labour Congress
(NLC) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It is only within
these unions that serious socio-economic and political questions of
relevance to the country are discussed. They also articulate the
frustrations of the oppressed nationalities, especially in the Niger Delta,
who experience the brutality of exploitation by domestic and foreign
capital. For these peoples, particularly in the Niger Delta, the current
Nigerian state is a prison of nationalities.
Niger Delta is representative of the
exploitative nature of domestic and foreign capital in Nigeria. Over the
years, Nigerians, irrespective of their ethnicity, have aligned with foreign
capital (MNCs) to exploit the natural resources of the Niger Delta with
complete disregard to the development of the region. The ecosystem of the
region has been ruined. Thousands of families have lost their agricultural
lands and fisheries, as a result of the environmental degradation of the
region by oil (domestic and foreign) companies. None of the political
parties, including the federal government of President Obasanjo has
developed any concrete policies on how to deal with the degradation in the
region. The unions and NGOs, especially the Environmental Action Rights
(ERA) and the Civil Liberties Organization of Nigeria (CLON) have remained
the main voice of the oppressed and deprived peoples of Nigeria. Those
politicians that have spoken in support of the oppressed and deprived
peoples of Nigeria have done so, not as representatives of their respective
political parties, but as representatives of their constituencies. The
absence of a well articulated national development plan in any of the
parties has increased the polarity between the proponents of the resistance
to oppression and those of the resistance to change.
Access to power is the chief cause of social
strife in any society. (12) Those in power determine the distribution of
resources and who gets what, when and how. Driven by the desire to preserve
the status quo, those in power have neglected their responsibility to create
a conducive environment for the articulation of contending policies that
would benefit the entire country. However, a reluctance to accept change may
lead to a break down of the polity. With respect to Nigeria, the challenge
to the status quo has been argued primarily in ethnic, state and religious
terms. A brief discussion of these will help to situate the status of the
current crisis in Nigeria.
Ethnicity
From time immemorial, ethnic identity has
defined the scope of political intercourse in pluralistic societies. (13)
Nigeria exemplifies such a society. In each of these societies, including
Nigeria, a critical element of the conflict is the treatment of minority
groups by the majority groups. Thus, the majority-minority relationship
lends itself as one of the conceptual frameworks for analyzing the problems
of plural societies, including Nigeria. The others are ideology, religious
affiliation, etc. Each level of analysis addresses specific problems of the
relationship.
Ideologically, as argued by Marxists, the
ruling class determines the form and content of the means of production as
well as the distribution and consumption of national wealth. Marxists argue
that it is the ruling class that controls state power. In Nigeria, however,
the debate over this phenomenon has regrettably acquired an ethnic flavour
because of the concentration of state power in the hands of a specific
group, the Hausa-Fulani. Territorial disputes, access to power and wealth,
to employment and education, and to social services and resource control are
some of the causes of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria. In the absence of a
national, ideologically oriented party representing concrete class interests
of Nigerians across the ethnic divide, ethnic based political movements have
filled the void to challenge the present distribution of power and wealth,
demanding a restructuring of the political system in such a way that will
grant them equitable access to these properties. For example, Afeniferi and
the Odua Peoples' Congress represent the Yoruba ethnic group, while the Igbo
is represented by Ohanaze Ndigbo, and the Union of Niger Delta speaks for
the South-South. An Arewa Consultative Forum has been established to defend
the core interests of the Hausa-Fulani who feel threatened by these
challenges to their power. On both sides of the Niger and the Benue,
competing ethnic political movements and military units have been
established to advance the courses of their respective ethnic groups. This
development poses serious potential dangers to the Nigerian state, if the
causes of ethnic conflicts are not meaningfully resolved.
Over the past four years a series of violent
inter-ethnic clashes has caused severe damages to the polity. Witness the
Ezon-Itsekiri-Urhobo schism in Delta State, the Ezon-Yoruba confrontation in
Lagos, the Igbo-Hausa clash in Aba, the Hausa-Yoruba conflict in Lagos and
Sagamu, and the Hausa-Igbo crisis in parts of the North. All these incidents
resulted in the death of scores of Nigerians. Buried in this push-and-pull
is the perennial problem of minority ethnic rights in the polity. The
increasing failure of Nigerian political leaders to construct a viable and
sustainable strategy for national integration and equitable distribution of
national wealth has significantly facilitated the rise of ethnic (and
religious) conflicts in the polity.
Arguing from opposing ideological perspectives,
both liberal and Marxist theories predicted the withering away of ethnicity
as a political force in the polity. For the liberals, the imperatives of
modernization with its emphasis on individual success and economic activity
will compel the formation of inter-ethnic national associations that will
render ethnicity obsolete. On the other hand, Marxists referred to ethnicity
as a false consciousness of the masses and a stratagem of the bourgeois
ruling class to subjugate the working class. However, historical experiences
over the past two centuries have contradicted both assumptions. Across the
globe, ethnic conflicts have remained as, arguably the most potent
destabilizing factor in respective multi-ethnic polities, including Nigeria.
Over 90% of states in the international political system are multiethnic,
with two or more ethnic groups. Competing ethnic nationalisms challenge the
sovereignty of states in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Middle East and Europe.
Thus, it is vital for Nigerian political leaders to respond to the dynamics
of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria. It is not enough to condemn ethnocentrism in
Nigerian politics, they must take appropriate measures to address its
causes.
With an estimated population of 123,337,822,
Nigeria is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups. In any polity with such
diverse ethnic affiliations, it is perhaps inescapable that inter ethnic
conflicts will play a vital role in the country's politics. Each ethnic
group regards itself as a distinct nationality with defined customs and
territories. The contending desires to assert this distinctiveness collides
with the federal government's strategy to create a NIGERIAN. It is perhaps
futile and counterproductive to attempt to create a NIGERIAN and destroy his
or her historical being in the process. That historical being is the source
of the individual contemporary Nigerian traceable to his or her
ethno-regional base. Thus, he or she is first and foremost a Bini, an Efik,
an Esan, an Ezon, a Hausa, an Ibibio, an Igbo, an Itsekiri, a Nupe, a Tiv,
an Urhobo or a Yoruba, etc. This fact must be recognized and accepted as the
only viable base upon which contemporary Nigerians are molded.
It compels Nigerians to also recognize and
respect their diversities just as much as they emphasize and celebrate their
shared historical similarities. Thus, they cannot celebrate Nigerian multi-culturalism
on the debris of their respective historical being.
Every ethnic group in Nigeria is marginalized,
deprived and oppressed. Irrespective of the fact that the North has produced
most of the leaders (civilian and military) and has controlled the apparatus
of state power in Nigeria since 1960, the average Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri, or
Nupe is not materially better than the average Efik, Ezon, Itsekiri, or
Yoruba of the South. Thus, all Nigerian ethnic groups have been victimized
by a coalition of North-South political leaders who have neglected the basic
needs of the Nigerian populace. Who speaks for these victimized Nigerian
ethnic groups? While it is true that the federal government has failed in
this regard, it must be stressed that the various state governments have
also failed to respond to the basic needs of their respective
constituencies. The same politicians who facilitate deficient governance are
also engineering the populace to blame the other level of government for
their ineptitude and gross mismanagement of the economy.
State
The crisis of inter-ethnic relations, made
possible by the collapse of good governance, informs the deteriorating state
of Federal-State relations in Nigeria. As citizens of a federation, it is
expected that Nigerians will pay allegiance to their respective States, for
without the federating States there will not be a Federal Republic of
Nigeria. The inability of a federal government to equitably relate to the
interests of the federating units gives rise to centrifugal forces that
could destabilize the federal polity. Thus, the levels of citizenship -
State and Federal - become entangled in perpetual conflicts as the federal
government and the federating units fail to agree on vital issues of
interests to the later. Under this scenario, citizens' loyalty gravitates
toward their respective States and the legitimacy of the Federal government
becomes questionable. The current crises in Nigeria are explicable in these
terms. A number of States has challenged the constitutional base of
Nigeria's federal structure. While the country is supposedly a federation,
the 1999 Constitution is fundamentally a unitary document. It makes the
federal government highly centralized, a phenomenon which is injurious to
the federal polity as it establishes a quasi federal or unitary system.
