Ethnic and Religious Identity in Nigeria's Political Process

Colonial Roots of Ethnic and Religious Division

To a large degree, post-colonial Africa has been forever and inextricably changed by the colonial experience. Though there is clear evidence that ethnic and religious identity was entrenched as a source of potential conflict, prior to colonization the examples of such conflict were regional and relatively minor. This is supported by Thomson in his case study on Nigeria, where it is noted that much of the defined ethnic identity was in fact supplied by the British government, as were the ethnic and geographic boundaries that are still present today. These boundaries in Nigeria were established for the ease of administration on the part of the British colonial government, and the ethnic identities associated with them now determine which ethnic groups dominate the political process and who, by default, is excluded from such dominance.

Colonialism taught Africans that ethnic and religious differences could be used as a basis for institutional discrimination through the "us and them" mentality of the colonial entities. In many parts of Africa, the infrastructure developed during colonial rule entrenched the separation of the elite from the rest of the population. It therefore follows that African governments would base their neo-colonial systems on standards associated with their colonial past and their colonial educations. Much of the diversity of African nations has consequently not been recognized as valuable, and ethnic and religious differences have been allowed to determine the ruling class — stifling a democratic political process.

This is not to say that ethnic and religious differences are themselves the hindrances, but rather that the colonial experience set these nations up to develop their political systems as models of the colonial governments that vacated their posts when independence was achieved. This remains true even when nations seek and achieve revolution, as the new guard — often of an opposing ethnic or religious identity — is poised to enjoy the power and privilege of the ruling class it has successfully ousted, and often simply falls into a similar routine. Power and privilege corrupt, and this seems to occur again and again on both a large and a small scale. There is clearly no question that the consensus of the literature is that Africa lags behind in political development and in its bid to entrench a political agenda that serves the majority, even in Nigeria — the most developed, wealthy, and populous of the African nations.

Following the European colonization of Africa, many previously independent groups of people were forcefully amalgamated to produce the present states on the continent. This accounts for the polyethnic and multicultural nature of all African states. The experiences of colonialism — including the nature and impacts of different colonial policies and their legacies in postcolonial years — have left many African countries conflict-ridden and crisis-prone. Many of these conflicts, as the literature reveals, revolve around such issues as the right to identity, the right to internal self-determination, the right to group existence, and the right to land and control of resources.

There is, in other words, no place quite like Africa. For most of its history, the continent saw relatively peaceful coexistence among hundreds of neighboring ethnic and religious groups. Prior to British amalgamation, these groups interacted as neighbors with differences and identities that were largely tolerated, each dominating its own local independent political identity. Yet the drawing of strict borders — both national and administrative — for the ease of colonial administration created conflicts that arise from a lack of diverse ethnic and religious recognition and from the expectation that the masses identify as a unified ethnic force, even when their internal diversity and thousands of years of history run contrary to this.

The Neo-Colonial State and African Political Development

Africa lags behind all other regions of the world on all basic human needs indicators — employment, food, safe drinking water, sanitation, healthcare, education, and housing. Moreover, the majority of Africa's peoples are trapped in abject poverty and its consequent deprivation and misery. Elite members of the various ruling classes in Africa, however, along with their families, friends, and supporters, enjoy all the material comforts of life, courtesy of the neo-colonial state.

The legacy of colonial states and their imposed divisions, in the development of a post-colonial Nigeria, leaves even members of the three main ethnic majorities struggling with issues of ethnic and religious identity. Many seek to reinvent their historical foundations as legitimate and to be recognized by the larger body in the political process. As one scholar has observed, "Africa needs a democratically reconstructed state that would be relevant to the lives of the vast majority of Africans."

When Nigeria and other African nations look for models in the wider world, they encounter only the deconstructed colonial bias and find little reason to define their own national identity separately from the administrative and ethnic identities associated with colonialism. The diversity of African nations has not been recognized as an asset but has instead been allowed to undermine progress, enabling ethnic and religious differences to determine the ruling class while the broader population is treated as not only separate but as an acceptable target of discrimination.

Religious Identity as a Political Force in Nigeria

Complicating this situation is the fact that all the major world religions are present in the diverse cultures of Africa. Nigeria specifically has both Muslim and Christian populations, though all other major world religions — as well as some specific to Africa — are represented there as well. At the rise of the twenty-first century, significant challenges were made specifically in Nigeria to embrace Islamic law as the law of the people, seeking an alternative to the inherited form of colonial democracy then dominating the nation. In 1999–2000, twelve states in northern Nigeria declared Islamic law (Sharia) as the criminal law of the state for all Muslims.

This challenged the national legal system but also served as a warning to the nation and others that ignoring diversity — for any reason — will likely create lasting legacies of division. Sadly, the designation of an ethnic minority as Muslim and therefore subject to Islamic law did not unify the political scene. In fact, it further fractionalized it, as the internal conflicts of diversity present within the Islamic world were simply transplanted into northern Nigerian culture. Enforcers went about defining and designating some who self-identified as Muslim as heretical or marginal based on their reformed or non-reformed beliefs and lifestyles.

Those who had sought and supported the idea of Islamic law as a force for galvanizing the ethnic and religious identity of the nation — at least in its northern states — were awakened to the fact that their own interpretations of Islam and their progressive social and political views marked them for surveillance and criminal investigation by enforcers. As Casey's work on northern Nigeria illustrates, the category of the "marginal Muslim" became a tool of political control rather than a mechanism of communal solidarity.

This turn of events did not produce a collective alternative for the nation or even for the regions where Sharia was enforced. It simply added yet another layer of identity conflict. This outcome was compounded by the fact that the religious majority in Nigeria is neither uniformly Islamic nor uniformly Christian — both faiths clearly exist in the nation, and diversity, rather than being treated as an asset, continues to function as a divisive force, both regionally and nationally.

Conclusion: The Ongoing Struggle for Democratic Representation

There are countless examples of conflict in Nigeria, despite its status as definitively the most politically advanced of all African states following its independence from Britain. The fact that Nigeria appears to be devolving through revolutions resulting from the development of both new and old ways of expressing its cultural diversity is not entirely surprising, given its historical underpinnings as one of the jewels of the colonial body. The colonial experience inserted into a relatively peaceful society the ideation of "otherness" and acceptance of social and political control by a singular — and even foreign — governing body.

This fact is not to be taken lightly as the nation undergoes what would seem to be insurmountable conflict associated with the reinvigoration of the rights and identities of both old and new ethnic and religious communities. Social, economic, political, ethnic, religious, and other disparities will likely continue to influence street-level, regional, and national conflict for some time to come, as the nation tries repeatedly to shed the legacy of colonial division.

It is impossible to say whether Nigeria would have developed into a cohesive, democratically ideal state — by Western standards — without the influx of the colonial body. But this is the situation that modern Nigerians are left with, and their ability to create a state where the majority of the people are genuinely represented will likely continue to be a struggle because of it.