Democratic
Governance and the Citizenship Question: All Nigerians Are Settlers By Dr.
Jibo Ibrahim Global
Rights There
has been a steady rise in communal tensions and conflicts since the
introduction of the indigeneity clause into Nigerian public law through
the 1979 Constitution. Since then, numerous cabals of local political
elite have devoted considerable resources and time to defining
themselves as indigenes, natives and autochthons while defining others
in their communities as settlers, migrants and strangers. With the
return of democratic rule in 1999, there has been an explosion rather
than a reduction of political and religious conflicts. As the number of
conflicts and the death toll and destruction of property increases, the
strains on democratic governance and indeed political stability have
been enormous. On
The
reasons the President gave for taking such a drastic action are the
following. The breakdown of law and order in Plateau state and its
ripple effects with violence or the threat of violence growing in
neighbouring states such as Bauchi, Nassarawa, Taraba, Kano, Gombe,
Kaduna and Benue. The President also cited the state governor’s lack
of: “Interest,
desire, commitment, credibility and capacity to promote reconciliation,
rehabilitation, forgiveness, peace, harmony and stability” (President
Obasanjo’s Address to the Nation, The
Plateau state governor, Joshua Dariye had indeed been making incendiary
remarks questioning the citizenship of the Hausa-Fulani Muslim
population in Plateau state, who he refers to as settlers, as the
following quotes indicate: “Jos,
capital of Plateau state is owned by the natives. Simple. Every Hausa
man in Jos is a settler whether he likes it or not.” “Even
if I spend 150 years in Bukuru, I cannot become an indigene of Du.” “It is
an Alqaeda agenda to bring down Plateau state… The ulama were chased
out of (Quotes
from “What Dariye Did Say” Weekly Trust, With
this type of encouragement from their state Governor, the
“indigenes/natives” of Plateau state, previously known as a haven of
peace, have since 2001 been engaged in a series of bloody clashes
against the Muslim Hausa-Fulani minority population, hundreds of whom
were killed. While some of the Hausa-Fulani are relatively recent
settlers with memories of their homeland, many have been in the Plateau
for hundreds of years and have no memory of a home other than the
Plateau. Resolving
the Dilemma of Citizenship and Rights in Over
the years, as part of the efforts to cope with the problems of a
multi-ethnic society and to accommodate differences in the true spirit
of “unity in diversity”, policy makers have adopted a number of
measures. Some of these
measures include the creation of new states and local governments and
the entrenchment of certain provisions in the constitution to guarantee
fairness and equity such as the “federal character” principle
enshrined in the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Consociational measures of this type which involve some elements of
power sharing and a deliberate attempt to regulate competition and
access to resources/opportunities as a means of protecting groups
considered to be relatively disadvantaged are not alien to federal
systems. However,
in the Nigerian context this has had a boomerang effect in the sense
that problems, which they are meant to solve, are reinforced.
Consociational measures or related policies that emphasise “ethnic
arithmetic” are meant to moderate the divisive nature of ethnic and
regional competition for power and opportunities. Unfortunately, in the
Nigerian situation, especially due to the manner in which they have been
implemented, the result is the heightening of ethnic tension and ill
feelings. A good example of such measures which has created more
problems than it was intended to solve is the provisions in the
constitution regarding the implementation of the federal character
principle which limits existing opportunities to those defined as
“indigenes”. The
consequence is that millions of Nigerians who find themselves in
"effective" residency in places other than where they can
claim ‘indigeneity' or where they are accepted as “indigenes” are
labelled as "strangers and "settlers". Nigerians so
defined are subjected to all kinds of exclusions and deprivations, which
differentiate them from the “natives”, and members of the” host
communities”. What this
does immediately is to place obstacles on the path of Nigerians who are
so labelled from the enjoyment of their full citizenship rights, which
are formally guaranteed in the elaborate provisions in the constitution
regarding the Fundamental Rights of citizens. This outcome completely
blocks possibilities of deepening civil and political rights of
individuals and groups in the country as people stigmatised as settlers
are perpetually denied their rights. The
Mamdani Principles: The Indigene/Settler Professor
Mahmoud Mamdani of When
we look at the most spectacular cases of indigene/settler conflicts in The
sheer weight of human tragedy that has accompanied these conflicts in
terms of deaths of thousands of people, the destruction of property and
the displacement of population draw attention, not only to the security
threat they pose to the state, but the potential danger they pose to the
country’s nascent democracy. Although
the basis of the crisis of citizenship is in The
1999 Constitution, Citizenship and Rights The
provisions on Citizenship and Fundamental Rights in the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are contained in
chapters 3 and 4 respectively. The most salient provisions are as
follows. Chapter 3 which focuses on Citizenship basically contains
provisions relating to citizenship by birth, registration and
naturalisation in addition to provisions relating to dual citizenship,
renunciation and deprivation of citizenship. While chapter 4 provides a
detailed checklist of the fundamental rights, which are the entitlements
of Nigerian citizens. These include the right to life, right to the
dignity of the human person, the right to personal liberty as well as
the right to fair hearing and the right to family and private life.
Others are: the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion,
right to freedom of expression and the press, the right to freedom from
discrimination, the right to freedom of movement and the right to
acquire and own immovable property. As
can be gleaned from the above, there is nothing to suggest that the
enjoyment of these rights have discriminatory application. A reading of
other relevant provisions of the constitution lends credence to the
point that the promotion of the political objectives of national
integration and cohesion are of central concern to the constitution. For
instance, Chapter 2, Section 14 (3) provides as follows: 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 a 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 any of its
agencies. Section
14 (4) calls on the states and local governments in the country to
implement the federal character principle. Furthermore, Section 15 (3)
of the same chapter states that: “For the purpose of promoting
national integration, it shall be the duty of the state to (a) provide
adequate facilities for and encourage free mobility of people, goods and
services throughout the Federation; (b) secure full residence rights for
every citizen in all parts of the Federation.”
It is also instructive to note that the Constitution allows
anyone to contest election anywhere he/she wishes, as indigeneity is not
a requirement for election into such bodies as the Senate, the Federal
House of Representatives, or the State Houses of Assembly. The 1999
Constitution goes further to encourage “inter-marriage among persons
from different places of origin, or of different religious, ethnic or
linguistic associations or ties in Section 15 (3c). What
seem problematic however are the constitutional provisions regarding the
implementation of the federal character principle? The issues of federal
character and quota system have their origins in the recommendations of
the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) in 1976, which had reasoned
that there was need to give every ethnic group in the country a sense of
belonging. At the risk of repetition, Section 14 (3) of the 1979
Constitution which captures the reasoning of the CDC defined the
objective of federal character as ensuring that 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 a manner as to
reflect the federal character of Nigeria, and the need to promote
national unity, and also to command loyalty, thereby ensuring that there
shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or form a few
ethnic groups or other sectional groups in that government or any of its
agencies". However,
this provision has made it more convenient for the aspiring politicians
and ambitious elite to hang on to birth and descent criteria to
determine citizenship. In this
sense the most problematic aspect of the issue of citizenship derives
from the way in which the `indigeneity' clause in the 1979 constitution
has tended to legitimise discriminatory practices against Nigerians who
reside within a state, which is "not their own". According to
the constitution, “indigeneship” of a state is conferred on a person
whose parents or grandparents were members of a community indigenous to
a particular state. We shall return to the specific ways in which the
issue of “indigenes” and “natives” have provided practical
obstacles to the implementation of the rights conferred on Nigerians by
their citizenship of the Nigerian state. The
1999 Constitution apparently in recognition of the controversy generated
by the “indigeneity” clause in the 1979 Constitution has no
definitional clause. However, the Constitution still requires the
implementation of the federal character principle. The interpretation of
Section 147 regarding the appointment of Ministers shows clearly that
the notion of “indigeneity” has not been expunged from the
constitution. It states: “Provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the
President shall appoint at least one Minister from each state, who shall
be an indigene of such state. What this means in effect is that,
Nigerians who cannot prove that they are indigenes of a state cannot be
appointed into such positions no matter the length of their residence. The
implication is that a tension exists between the formal provisions in
the constitution on citizenship and fundamental rights on the one hand,
and the practical application of these rights because of the reality of
difference introduced by the politically introduced dichotomy between
elites seeking to increase their power by defining themselves as
“indigenes” and “natives” through the definition of others as
“settlers” and strangers. These categories have tended to undermine
the very essence of Nigerian citizenship in the sense that one is not
really a citizen of
i.
Those
most privileged are those who belong to the indigenous communities of
the state in which they reside.
ii.
Those
citizens who are indigenes of other states are less favoured.
iii.
The least
favoured are those citizens who are unable to prove that they belong to
a community indigenous to any state in
iv.
Women
who are married to men from states other their own are in a dilemma, as
they can neither be accepted in their “states of origin” or that of
their husbands. In
addition to these, it is particularly difficult for migrants in rural
locations to have access to farmlands because indigeneity implies
membership of the local ethnic community. The system gives undue power
to the traditional authorities and power brokers in regulating access to
land understood as the collective, natural possession of the ethnic
group. Next week, we shall analyse the specific ways in which the
categories “indigenes” and “settlers” are at conflict with the
idea and practice of national citizenship in As
we argued last week, the categories of “indigenes”,
“settlers”, and “natives” are social and political
constructions of the Nigerian power elite in their search for legitimacy
within the local community/state and their quest for access to power and
resources. In the ordinary meaning
of the words, “indigenes” and “natives” simply refer to a region
or country of birth - aborigines and autochthones. In countries such as
the Indeed,
a major study of our region – West African Long Term Perspective Study
(1994) undertaken by the African Development Bank and the Club du Sahel
revealed that West Africa was had become a region of migrants and
settlers with two profound modes of migration that had completely
transformed the population dynamics of the region. The first is movement
from the In
spite of this fact, self-declared indigenes and natives are pitched
against settlers in deadly confrontations over access to local power,
resources and questions of identity. These labels have become potent
instruments for the negative mobilisation of peoples’ sentiments and
feelings in ways that undermine the national political objectives of
integration and the evolution of a harmonious political community. Given
the peculiar history of Citizenship
is applicable to a person endowed with full political and civil rights
in a state. It defines the political, civil and social rights
attributable to the individual as a member of a state. In the modern
state, the acquisition of citizenship can be through birth (the law of
blood), law of place, and through naturalisation. The notion of
citizenship was developed in the context of the bourgeois revolution and
the ascendancy of liberalism. The idea evolved with the collapse of
feudalism and the medieval state, which limited the rights, and freedom
of the individual. The rights and freedom, which were won and secured
with the birth of the modern state therefore, transformed the individual
from subject to citizen. Citizenship is thus defined in terms of the
special status granted by the state to its members and expresses at the
formal level, the equality of all before the state. In the
contemporary Nigerian context, the discourse on citizenship and the
application of citizens’ rights often generate political tension and
violence because it is intricately tied with the issue of ethnic
identity, ethnicity and religion. This is the case in so far as
indigeneity is tied to membership of a particular local ethnic
community. There are three reasons why ethnicity is problematic in
relation to the discourse on identity and citizenship: Ethnic
identity is not a fixed form of identity. Although it may appear as a
natural community distinguished by a common language, ancestry and myth
of origin as well as a common consciousness of being one in relation to
others, it is not a static category.
It is therefore, subject to frequent reconstitution and
redefinition. It is interesting to note for example, that from what the
British colonialist identified as 90 ethnic groups in the early part of
the last century, the number of ethnic groups in What
all this means is that the ethnic category on which the definition of
citizenship hinges is a very fluid category. It partly explains why the
political disputations arising from contradictory notions of citizenship
often leads to conflict and violence. In some instances, the groups at
conflict over such claims are not necessarily from different ethnic
groups. The groups at conflict may thus be sub-ethnic communities of the
same ethnic groups as is the case of the recurrent Ife/Modakeke
conflict. What needs to be emphasised is the fact that
after several decades of colonial capitalist development, and the
tremendous expansion of infrastructure across the country as well as
increasing cultural diffusion, Nigeria cannot simply be reduced to a
mere geographical expression. These conflicts relate to the crisis of
citizenship in the sense in which groups at conflict deploy or even
twist history in the contestation of identity by using such to establish
"indigeneity" over a particular political space which could be
a state or a local government area. In most of the recorded cases
located within semi-urban and rural locations, attempts are often made
to establish `indigeneity' over a local government or any other local
political and economic space. A
few illustrations will shed some light. The
use of history of migration, early patterns of settlement or local
history about patterns of power and domination among the different
ethnic groups in establishing "indigenous" claims are evident
in virtually all the cases. On the Mambilla Plateau, the series of
attacks in the early 1980s on the Banso and Kamba by the Mambilla is
hinged on this conception of citizenship. The Mambilla who laid
indigenous claim over the entire Mambilla Plateau do so precisely on the
historical claim that their settlement predated the arrival of other
ethnic groups such as the Fulani, Banso and Kamba. For the Banso and the
Kamba whose presence on the Plateau is more or less recent, the bulk of
them have arrived in the post-second world war period, it is a lot
easier to label them as "aliens". It is in this context that
one understands the basis of exclusion that the so-called indigenous
group seeks to subject the stranger elements. The
situation in Zango-Kataf is fairly unique and more complex as centuries
of interaction between the Hausa on the one hand, and the other communal
groups such as Bajju and Kataf (Atyab) have failed to produce the basis
of a more enduring harmonious community life. In this respect the
situation differs from other cases where the adoption of Islamic
religion and inter-marriages have attenuated the level of social and
cultural distance between "immigrant" Hausa population and the
"host" communities. What
one finds in the Zango-Kataf area of southern The
representation made to the Cudjoe Commission by the Kataf following the
violence of February 1992 is largely hinged on the claim that the land
belonged to the Kataf who accommodated Hausa immigrants on generous
terms. By the traditional system of land holding, the Kataf claim, such
land in principle should revert to the original owners. However, this
historical claim to indigeneity is contradicted by the position of the
Hausa community who claimed centuries of effective residency. Similar
claims by "indigenous" groups aimed at excluding
"strangers" appear to be central in the communal conflicts
between the Kuteb and Chamba in Takum Local Government Area of Taraba
state and the unending circle of communal clashes in Nasarawa involving
the Ebira, Bassa and Gbagyi. These
cases illustrate the enormous difficulty of resorting to history in the
contest over identity. The difficulty arises from the fact that there
can be no such a thing as eternal historical facts.
There is the tendency for facts to be either carefully selected
or for the same set of facts to be subjected to conflicting
interpretations. Take
the Kuteb/Chamba conflict for example. Although a number of ethnic
groups such as Hausa, Jukun, Kuteb and Chamba are found in the Takum
area, the major contest has been between the Kuteb and Chamba. From
available historical evidence both Kuteb and Chamba had taken effective
residency of the area around Takum prior to the colonial intervention.
However, in the present context of contestation over the
"ownership" of Takum, each of the two communal groups has
resorted to different accounts of history to bolster its claim. The
Chamba account, which is strongly challenged by the Kuteb appeared to
have been the version initially accepted by the colonial authorities,
suggests the Chamba as a warrior group, conquered and displaced the more
numerous Kuteb around 1830. The Kuteb on the other hand, who make a
strong historical claim over the area in addition to being the most
populous in Takum area refute the claim by the Chamba to have conquered
them at any point in history, and even cite colonial records in support
of their position. The Chamba whom they claim migrated from the The
rule of the Kuteb in Takum was later codified by the government of the
Northern region in 1963. The
situation was however, reversed in 1975 when the Chamba, apparently
using their influence in the military government that followed the
collapse of the First Republic, got the then Benue Plateau state
government to amend the 1963 law. The amendment ensured the eligibility
of two Chamba families to contest and ascend to the Ukwe throne,
increased the representation of the Chamba and Jukun on the Kings
Selection Committee to three, while reducing that of the Kuteb to two
thus ensuring advantage for the Chamba. In
1976, a riot broke out between the Chamba and Kuteb in Takum.
The cause of the riot was the alleged manipulation of electoral
wards by the Secretary of Takum local government, a Chamba, to give
electoral advantage to Chamba contestants. The victory of a Chamba
candidate where the Kuteb constitute the majority was not acceptable to
the latter. Some of the allegations were later confirmed by a government
panel, which had been set up to investigate the communal disturbances.
However, renewed violence between the two communal groups has its
roots in the process of democratising the local government, which
commenced in 1987. The
numerical strength of the Kuteb had conferred on them electoral
advantage in the elections that had been organised since then until the
outbreak of violence in 1997. Although
it would appear on the surface as tension between democratisation and
multi-ethnic existence, it has a deeper basis in contestation over
identity and for control of local power and resources. The
crisis in Ife/Modakeke is fuelled by the same dynamics despite the fact
that it pitches one sub-Yoruba group against another. The Modakeke who
are believed to be refugees from the Yoruba wars that followed the
breakdown of the Old Oyo empire are believed to have come from Oyo.
Political tension and conflicts leading to the death of thousands of
people had characterised the relationship between the two communal
groups over the last two decades. The reasons for the conflict between
the two communities seem to have been generated by disagreements over
the creation of new local government areas. It goes to show that the
question of access to local power is at the core of the unending
conflict between the two communities. In
putting forward proposals for ensuring harmony and a just balance
between constitutional provisions on citizenship and rights and their
practical applications, three pertinent observations are necessary: There
is a clear dilemma between individual and group rights in The
notion of ‘indigeneity’ entrenched in the 1979 Constitution is at
variance with the Nigerian public law tradition. It has seriously
compromised the definition of citizenship in the Independence
Constitution, which conferred citizenship on all those whose communities
had been in the Nigerian territory by The
result is that a significant number of Nigerians are being excluded from
access to certain rights and privileges conferred by public
institutions. They include employment in the public service, government
contracts, admission in schools, access to privileges such as
scholarships, training opportunities, health facilities and even access
to vital resources such as land and water (for farming, grazing and
fishing). It is vital for the political health of the country that the
constitutional provisions that have been used to buttress discrimination
against other Nigerians be addressed with urgency. Citizenship
and Constitutional Reform Issues
There is need for the political will to confront the issue of building a
system of national citizenship in the country through a reform of the
Nigerian Constitution. With specific reference to the provisions on
citizenship, the following constitutional amendments would be necessary. The
concept of indigene should be completely deleted `from the Nigerian
Constitution because it produces a majority of losers rather than
winners. Since the majority of Nigerians are settlers, there is a need
to address the issue of residency rights for Nigerian citizens in the
places where they live and work. There should be a constitutional
provision, which provides that a Nigerian citizen who has resided
continuously for a period of five years in any state of the federation
and performs his/her civic duties including paying taxes, shall be
entitled to all the rights and privileges of the state. This will be in
accord with the practice in most federations, and will strengthen
efforts at national integration. When this provision is made, it would
mean that anybody who has spend five years in a state can have any
political appointment and access to all rights and privileges currently
restricted to indigenes. Given
the numerous problems suffered by women who have married outside their
states of origin, there is need for specific protection. The
Constitution should state in express terms that a woman married to any
man from a state other than her own should have the rights to choose
which of the states to claim as her own. Similarly, there is need to
amend Section 26 (2) (a) such as to give foreign men married to
Nigerians the opportunity to acquire citizenship, a right foreign women
married to Nigerian men already have. At
a more general level, it would be useful to devise means for the
promotion of social citizenship in the country. The provisions on social
and economic rights, which are not justiciable should be made
justiciable. This is important because poverty and the lack of access of
most Nigerians to the basic means of livelihood is the primary cause of
a lot of communal strife we have been having in |