Ethnic Discrimination in Nigeria

• The working paper examines ethnic discrimination and national belonging in Nigeria by Daniel Tuki, December 2024.
• The study investigates how Nigerians' experiences of ethnic discrimination relate to their sense of national identification versus ethnic identification
• It finds that discrimination prompts Nigerians to prioritize their ethnic identity.
• According to regression analyses, experiencing discrimination diminishes national identification.
• Negative effects of discrimination on an exclusive feeling of national identification are greater than its positive effect on ethnic identification.
• Findings held across various discrimination measurements, using data of 36 African nations.
• For Nigerians, Igbo ethnicity correlated with prioritizing ethnic identity over national identity.
• The reverse was true for the Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani ethnicities.
• The study is acknowledges Jeff Conroy-Krutz, Brian Howard, and Roisin Cronin for their help

Introduction

• Nigerians show a weak sense of national belonging.
• Ethnicity, religion, and language, not nationality, define personal identity in Nigeria.
• Most African states are politically unstable because people are more loyal to primary groups than to the state.
• In 2020, 35% of Nigerians reported experiencing ethnic discrimination in the past year.
• 36% feel Nigeria is more divided than united.
• Nigeria's first prime minister, Tafawa Balewa, said Nigeria only existed on paper.
• Obafemi Awolowo called the country a "mere geographical expression”.
• These statements are understood when viewed against the background of Nigeria's creation and the relationships between the major ethnic groups.
• The 1914 amalgamation merged the Northern and Southern regions.
• The British merged the regions for administrative ease, disregarding ethnic and religious differences.
• It was easier to establish the Nigerian state than to nourish the Nigerian nation with both, eluding, British officials and Nigerians.
• Sir Ahmadu Bello called the amalgamation a mistake.
• In 1958, one of the major fault lines in Nigeria was the rivalry between the Southern provinces and the Muslim North, isolated by controlled acculturation.
• Religion is practiced along ethnic lines, accentuating divisions and hatred.
• Northern Nigeria is primarily Muslim with a sizable Christian minority.
• The Southern Region is predominantly Christian with a significant number of Muslims, especially among the Yoruba.
• Muslims are concentrated in Northern Nigeria because the region was under an Islamic caliphate (Sokoto Caliphate) for a century until the British conquered it in 1903.
• The Muslim emirs requested the British to respect their religious customs.
• Lord Lugard stated that "Government will in no way interfere with the Mohammedan religion" during his 1903 speech at Sokoto.
• After amalgamation, the British maintained distinct administrative approaches in the Northern and Southern regions.
• In Northern Nigeria, they largely kept existing systems and utilized traditional institutions for governance.
• Southern Nigeria experienced integration of British values due to its openness to Western culture.
• The Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba constitute Nigeria's three major ethnic groups.
• The Hausa/Fulani are predominantly Muslims and the Igbo are predominantly Christians.
• Both religions are almost evenly represented among the Yoruba.
• Nigeria's population is almost evenly split between Christians and Muslims.
• Some Nigerians still practice traditional religions, but this number is insignificant.
• Christian missionary activity in the South led most to substitute Christianity for traditional religions.
• Regional divisions hindered national unity after independence in 1960.
• The nationalists worked together to secure independence, nationalist movements in Africa tended to fragment due to the pursuit of ethnic interests.
• Nigerian nationalists kept one eye on the British and the other on their ethnic and regional competitors.
• The British government divided Nigeria's Southern Region into the Eastern and Western regions in 1939.
• Regionalism, hinged on ethnicity, then became entrenched in Nigerian society.
• During the 1950s-1960s, each region had a leading political party whose support base consisted mainly of members of the dominant ethnic group residing there.
• The Hausa/Fulani were the main supporters of the Northern Peoples' Congress (NPC).
• The Yoruba were the main supporters of the Action Group (AG).
• The Igbo were the main support base of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).
• Political leaders focused on regional interests over the broader needs of the Nigerian population neglecting that "leaders must build the nation before they can build the state".
• Moreover, major parties punished constituents who voted for the opposition by withholding infrastructure and social amenities.
• Despite ethnicity's salience, there is a lack of quantitative studies on how individual experiences of ethnic discrimination are related to Nigerians' sense of belonging to their nationality.
• The study investigates whether Nigerians who experience discrimination are more likely to prioritize their ethnic identity over their national identity
• It tests this relationship for the larger African population, and how belonging to major ethnic groups influences the likelihood of identifying with nationality relative to ethnicity.
• Prior studies testing the rejection-identification and rejection-disidentification theories focused on immigrants and racial minorities in Western countries
• There is generally, a lack of studies testing these theories among different ethnic groups with a superordinate nationality in Nigeria and the African continent.
• Robinson's (2014) seminal work used both individual- and country-level variables to examine how modernization, colonial experience, and ethnic diversity influence the likelihood of Africans identifying with their nationality relative to their ethnicity.
• Robinson found that educational attainment, employment, and residing in an urban center increased the likelihood of individuals feeling closer to their nationality than their ethnicity.
• Robinson’s regression results also showed that ethnic diversity and the partitioning of ethnic groups across artificially created state borders increased the likelihood of prioritizing national identity