Ethnic politics in Africa: the Nigerian example

Abstract

Every African State is a multi-cultural, multinational and multilingual state, a state that comprises several nations or ethnic-groups different in terms of size, culture, and historical root. Ethnic diversity or pluralism usually inclines to conflict and coercive political behavior in a society1. The ethnic conflicts are usually struggles and wars of subordination, rebellion and hegemony. These are characteristically struggles for autonomy and freedom from exploitation by small groups from large groups, for example the ethnic struggles that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, or by large groups under the thumb of powerful minorities, for example, the wars in Rwanda between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi powerful minority. The bid to gain relative advantage in competitive access to goods and benefits catalyze these struggles or wars. The result is usually a crisis of state power which leads to ethnic unionization, to seize the apparatus of the state as an instrument for seeking advantage or exclusive aggrandizement