Fault Lines in Nigeria's Political Culture: The Politicisation of Ethnicity in Historical Perspectives

Scholarly works on politics in Nigeria unduly exaggerate ethnic factor in explaining political behaviour despite the ambiguity of the concept. Since ethnicity lacks a precise meaning, the social scientists that use it to analyze African Politics use it merely distort rather than expound reality. For instance, the ancient Greeks who were its earliest exponents defined it restrictively as a tribe or a nation, which suggests tribal homogeneity and a status of nation hood, despite the heterogeneity that characterises urban centers and most nations outside the Greek world. Herodotus the Greek historian explained its basic features as: shared descend; language, religion and customs (Wikipedia), which constitutes its contemporary definition. Thus, the Oxford Dictionary of Politics[i] (2003:177), stated that “the only working general definition of ethnicity is that it involves the common consciousness of shared origins and traditions whether these are factual or invented’. But in Nigeria where inter-ethnic marriages and even ethnic assimilation have over the years blurred most of its basic features the use of such ethnic categories as Hausa, Yoruba, Fulani, Tiv in a restrictive and exclusivist sense is not only ahistorical but also a mystification of reality.

[i] Oxford Dictionary of politics (2003) Oxford University press