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Settler Communities and the Crisis of Nationality in Nigeria

Ademola Adeleke, Department of History & Strategic Studies,
University of Lagos
sarlek@yahoo.com

One of the axioms of Nigeria’s political history is the statement made by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, that Nigeria is a geographical expression. The import of the statement was that Nigeria was a colonial creation which had failed to fuse its heterogeneous and culturally diverse population into a Nigerian nation. Forty years after independence the statement remains true and relevant, as evidenced by the numerous internecine conflicts between so-called settlers and indigenes in all the geopolitical zones of the country. Indigenes are those who claim ancestral origins to the place of abode. They consider themselves the rightful owners of the land and see the settlers as foreigners even when the latter have occupied the same places of abode for generations. Yet, both the indigenes and the settlers are Nigerians. There is therefore a crisis of nationality in Nigeria, reflecting the failure of the state to fuse the country’s 250 or so ethnic nationalities into one nation. The paper explores the nature and context of this crisis and concludes that its resolution lies in the country’s ability to maintain symmetry in the distribution of power among the various ethnic nationalities.