Ethnicity and Identity Crisis: Challenge to National Integration in Nigerian

Abstract

Nigeria’s large number of ethnic groups, inequalities among them in size, resource endowment, education and access to state power and resources, her highly developed and factionalized indigenous bourgeoisie, makes her ethnic situation perhaps the most complicated in Africa. The experience has been equally bad and sad, spanning a bloody civil war (1967-1970) and perennial threats to the survival of the country, and one of the 1990 abortive coup d’ etat, whose organizers planned to dismember the country. Today in Nigeria, there is serious rivalry among the ethnic groups over issues such as power and resource sharing formula; the status quo is being resisted by the minor ethnic groups especially in the Niger-delta region that produces the bulk of crude oil in the country which Nigeria depends today for most of its foreign exchange. The objective of this paper therefore, to examine and provide answers to the following questions: what is ethnicity? To what extent has ethnic identity affected national integration in Nigeria? What steps has been taken to address the fall out of the various ethnic identity motivated crisis in Nigeria? As a guide to answering the overarching research questions, historical overview of ethnic nationalism in Nigeria and its challenges of national integration were documented and some proactive measures were discussed.