Much Ado About Nigerian Identity and Citizenship
By
Tokunbo Awosahin
Since
independence from British colonialist in 1960, successive governments in Nigeria
have struggled to maintain the image that the country is a nation of different
people with one national identity. The
Nigerian Civil war, which started was as a result of a challenge to this
"common" identity and which lasted for three years, came to an end
partly with the use of the unifying ideological slogan of " “Go On With
One Nigeria”.
Today
ethnic conflicts have become proliferated in Nigeria. Underlying most of the
conflicts is the issue of citizenship and rights. The construction and nature of
the Nigerian state which is rooted in the colonial pedigree, tend towards the
institutionalisation of ethnic entitlements, rights and privileges, which
creates differentiated and unequal status of citizenship.
Like
in most places, In Nigeria, the
question of national identity has always been linked to the nation-building
project, which depends on national unity for national development. Those that fought for independence used this very well
The
nation-building project usually spoons many "national" things,
including: flags anthems, Holidays, Pledge, Coat of Arms, Passports and other
symbols to which everybody is taught to identify with as citizens.
People
are united in nations under these, and symbols such as these create and
construct a national identity often made up of many different cleavages of
peoples. K.R Minogue looks at these issues in his book Nationalism (1967) He
states that "Flags and anthems can be
use to create members of a nation by developing new habits and emotions"
One of the most important personal and collective commitments which all Nigerians are called to make towards the realisation of the genuine renaissance and rebirth in the new dawn of the country’s political and social evolution, is the constant and persistent upholding of and respect for the national symbols.
These
include The National Flag and the Armorial Bearings or the Coat-of-Arms.
These constitute the two most significant symbolic representations of the ideals
power and the rallying focus of calls to patriotism and national duty reflected
in both the National Anthem and the National Pledge It might be relevant at this
juncture to ask the question of how people become citizens.
How
do National symbols convey the ideas of identity as contained in the anthem and
pledge? Do these convert citizenship on the people?. In the case of Nigeria,
does the clarion call of “Arise O Compatriot” give the people a sense of
common identity or citizenship?
Samuel Huntington in his seminal work, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996) argues that the post-cold war era may not signal the end of history as Francis Fukuyama may want us believe, rather the international system will witness the emergence of new social forces that are basically identity driven.
These
identity-based forces will be at the heart of conflicts in the world, and will
resonate more within national boundaries
The politics of hegemony and control in the political process within
national and international context will be based on the primordial values of
identity, culture and civilisations.
Today in Nigeria, it is no,longer fresh to declare that group
identities have assumed not only a primary means of social expression, but also
of rights and privileges in the polity. The concept of national citizenship of
equal rights, benefits and duties for all citizens has been attenuated or
bifurcated, with the Nigerian state riddled by inter-group struggles and
conflicts over the distribution of public goods.
The
claims of marginalisation, domination, and social injustice by groups in
Nigeria, which has resulted in the proliferation of several ethnic groups like:
Odua (Yoruba), Idi-ngbo (Igbo), Arewa (Hausa) representing the three main ethnic
groups and others like Ogoni (Niger delta) often derive from this reality.
It would seem therefore that inter-group or identity based conflictsare
manifestations of a deep-seated problem of citizenship in different national
contexts.
The
relationship between the state and citizenship has been an age-long theoretical
discourse dating back to the classical political theorists. In the view of
Aristotle for example, a state is nothing but “a compound made up of citizens;
and this compels us to consider who should be properly called a citizen and what
a citizen really is”
Citizenship
will therefore be an instrument of social closure through which the state lay
claim to and defines its sovereignty, authority, legitimacy and identity.
The institution of citizenship is that political artefact through which
the state constitutes and perpetually reproduces itself as a form of social
organisation. It is the means
through which the modern nation-state made of various nationalities seeks to
forge a common identity and collective experience for its people.
In an analysis of National identity, Citizenship and Nation
building in Nigeria, there is the need to look at how colonialism created a
split in the personality of the average Nigerian elite under colonial rule. It
was not suprising therefore that anti-colonial political struggle in Nigeria was
couched in the language of citizenship. That is, the right of the natives to
become citizens. The political slogans of the nationalist movements were,
“power to the people”; “equal rights for all"
As
the independent movements sought to mobilise the rural population in the
liberation struggle ethnic expressions gained meaning. In Nigeria, the three
major political parties in the decolonisation era (the Northern Peoples Congress
(NPC), the Action Group (AG), and the National Council for Nigerian Citizens (NCNC)
reflected ethnic configurations in their origin and character
The
interaction of the twin- factors of the colonial antecedent and the direction of
state policy coalesced to shape the nature of the post-colonial identity of
Nigeria.
Forty
years after the British Union Jack flag was lowered to be replaced by the
Nigerian Green-White-Green and the people of Nigeria started singing “Arise O
Compatriot” instead of God Bless The Queen” post-colonial state of Nigeria
has not yet been able to reorganised to attenuate difference, either
institutionally or ethnically.
With
regard to the institutional dimension, the logic of dualism in the state
structure has not been obliterated. Rather it has reproduced and assumed a new
dimension. The nature of the dichotomy between the central and local states,
though reformed, still has implications for the issues of identity and
citizenship in the present day Nigeria. While national citizenship was
liberalised with civil laws applicable to all, the local state remains largely
ethnicised.
For instance, despite the idea of “One Indivisible Nigeria” contained in the anthem and pledge to give a sense of single national identity to every citizen, the definition of a citizen of Nigeria as stipulated in the 1979 constitution is rooted largely in primordial origins. An individual’s membership or origin in an ethnic group or community is a major criterion for the qualification of citizenship. Thus citizenship gains expression more from the primordial, than the civic perspective in Nigeria .
At
the national level the logic of difference of an ethnic nature is factored into
the rules, and norms of political interactions and the state system especially
with regard to social rights. Ethnic identity as opposed to citizenship identity
determines who gets what, when, how, and how much in the state. Issues of
employment, public appointments, education grants, scholarships, etc, are
subjected to ethnic arithmetic by the central state.
In
Nigeria, that obnoxious
constitutional provision known as the principle of “Federal Character ” an
ethnic formula for the allocation of public goods which was designed as a
political technique for managing Nigeria’s federal system; of giving equal
opportunities to all ethnic groups, has proved to be largely counter-productive,
especially in respect to the idea of common nation identity and citizenship
reward.
What
this principle has done is to place ethnic identity as the primary identity for state
entitlements and social rights. It has de-individualised citizenship and made it
more of a group phenomenon. As such, in gaining access to state institutions,
the individual does not relate with the state directly as citizen, but relates
with it as a member/representative of an ethnic group.
The
result is that the central state becomes an arena of ethnic contest with the
more powerful ethnic groups excluding and submerging the lesser ones and denying
their people the benefits of citizenship. Whenever an Hausa man is in power,
other ethnic group are supposedly left out of the scheme of things . Now that
Obasanjo, a Yoruba man is in power, similar allegations have become
proliferated.
This
tendency undermines the integrity and cohesion of the country as spelled out in
the symbols like the National anthem and the National pledge. It also
supplements the principle of territorial loyalty and citizenship with that of
ethnic and community loyalty.
As regards to Nation building therefore, the reality is that the post-colonial Nigerian State has neither been able to provide a strong Trans-ethnic or secular national identity for its citizens nor safeguard the values of citizenship.
Now that election year is again around the corner . Now that all sort ethnic identities are set to be used for political purposes, perhaps it is time for Nigerians to give more consideration to various proposals for a new paradigm of governance and relationship between the tiers of the Nigerian federation.