One basic fact of the Nigerian social formation or the Nigerian State is its composition by multi-ethnic nationalities or multi-ethnic groups.

Interestingly though, both scholarship and experience have not come to terms with the exact number of Nigeria’s multi-ethnic groups. We speak often of the ethnic tripod consisting of the Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo; and the others generally referred to as minority ethnic groups. Sometimes too, in political terms, the minority ethnic groups are referred to together, as the fourth force or fourth dimension.

It is also generally claimed that the minority ethnic groups constitute a dominant majority if it were possible for them to assert political power together, outside the territorial enclave of each minority ethnic group. In the absence of an agreed actual number of the component ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, people often resort to ascribing to the country as made up of "over 250 ethnic groups" or "about 300 ethnic groups". This vagueness or imprecision about the number of ethnic components of the Nigerian State is not caused by absence of academic or intellectual research. On the contrary, the phenomenon of ethnic nationality in the post-colonial social formation tends to defy precision on definitional elements. The best application of five characteristics of ethnic nationality derived from a combination of political sociology and social anthropology that I am aware of, comes from a distinguished scholar at the University of Ibadan, Professor Onigu Otite. The five characteristics are:

a. Share in a common culture and identity, language, history and kinship; this element is also conveyed in the literature as "complementarity of communication".

b. There is the encapsulation of the full range of demographic division of age and gender, and a network of economic political and social institutions.

c. There is, within an ethnic nationality, a differentiation in wealth, status and power, that is, social stratification.

d. There is the element of a homeland or home territory for an ethnic group;

e. Yet, members of an ethnic nationality share co-existence with other groups outside the homeland in the post -colonial state system.

The computation of Nigerian ethnic nationalities by using the above five characteristics have provided a total number of 389 ethnic groups in the country. Interestingly, the majority ethnic groups predominate in only three core areas, namely: the North-West and part of North-East zones and the South West and South-East zones. The ethnographic survey has thus assigned as many as 80 nationalities to Adamawa State, 50 to Bauchi State, 52 to Plateau State, 39 to Taraba State, 32 to Kaduna State, 30 to Cross-River State, 25 to Nasarawa State, 22 to Niger State, 23 to Borno State and 19 to Kebbi State. The other states range between 4 in Kwara and Bayelsa and 17 in Gombe.

The existence of multiple ethnic nationalities does not by itself constitute a problem or an issue with political consequences. It is in the process of social change or modernization that the interest of ethnic groups becomes elevated to the political realm. In fact, contemporary development in Nigeria appears to have elevated ethnic nationalities into the cornerstone of social and political organizations. Contrary to an earlier proposition in scholarship of social change and modernization destroying or weakening ethnic groups or sub-groups. We have experienced more consciousness and activism of ethnic nationalities, as well as the emergence of new groups or sub-groups along with modernizing public policy framework.

Let me explore a little further the politics of social change as it creates and nurtures ethnicity or ethnic nationalism, as I will return later in this presentation to the matter by the way in which it informed the approach which I developed for dealing with the challenges of this phenomenon in the second half of the 1980s when I was President of this Country.

The theories of modernization and liberalism have generally taken the view that as mankind moves from pre-capitalist and tribal stage of social organization towards large-scale industrialization and commerce within the modern nation system, the various primordial ties of religion, kinship, language and ethnic solidarity would gradually lose their hold on a people or community and they would disappear .The expansion of modern capitalism on a world scale was assumed to induce and sustain nationalist and universal values which are incompatible with ethnic nationality .In fact, the new forces of globalisation which have grown from technological revolution would expand communication and mass tourism across the nation and indeed across the world.

In political terms, liberal thoughts assumed that ethnicity and sub-nationalism would disappear in the currency of modernization. In a paper which I delivered in 1998 entitled " Africa and Globalisation: The Challenges of Co-operation and Linkage in the 21 st Century" under the auspices of the Institute of Governance and Social Research based here in Jos, I treated the aspects of globalisation which touch on the assumed reasoning in the relationship between the post -colonial state system, and ethno-nationalities in Africa.

Simply put, the assumptions have not and could not be proven. Indeed, we have observed generally on the continent and in Nigeria in particular, that inter-group conflicts and ethno-nationalities have tended to increase as social horizons of various ethnic nationalism increased in response to the process of modernization. Conflicts, which arise in the process tend to be defined in ethnic or communal terms. Similarly, the different rates of social mobilisation among the ethnic nationalities in the country, have tended to exacerbate social cleavages. Some scholarly observers of the Nigeria development process referred to the consequences of social change and modernization on ethnic nationalism and activism many years ago as "competitive communalism".

What happened in the defunct Soviet Union during the second half of the 1980s when its economy and society completely broke up, was a product of the opening up and restructuring of the economy and political spaces. Under the administration of Mr. MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, the two strategies of perestroika and glasnost (economic reforms and political liberalization) were formulated and implemented.

Within five years, the Soviet empire had collapsed with its East European allies, and among other consequences, the collapse gave rise to renewed assertiveness by the various ethnic nationalities of that empire. Today, the old empire has been reduced to the main State of Russia and a large number of other independent States with claims to membership of the United Nations. The point in all of this is to emphasize the social and economic foundations and processes of ethnic resurgence or revivalism across the world, including Nigeria.

Ethnicity or ethnic nationalism has historically been part and parcel of the political process, economy and statecraft of Nigeria. It gave rise to the colonial investigatory committee usually referred to as the Willink Commission, which became the precursor of the multiple creations of sub-system states in the country between 1963 and 1996. In the mid-1960s, ethnic tensions contributed in no small measure to the environment of the military coup of January 1966. There is evidence to link the Nigerian civil war to the consequences of ethnic nationalism.

The phenomenon of ethnic nationalism appeared to have been subdued by the Federal victory in the civil war. The national policies and programmes of reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction in the post-1970s period also appeared to have hastened the cause and course of unity and national integration. The original federalist credo was "unity in diversity". Indeed the replacement of the old Nigerian national anthem by the post-civil war national anthem, currently in use, stood the reality of ethnic nationalism upon its head. The old national anthem had appropriately postulated, "though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand", whereas the new anthem attempts to play down the multi-ethnic composition of the country.

It should, however, be acknowledged that there was positive experience arising from the major post-civil war policies and programmes of both the federal and state governments.

The national development plans, the gradual retreat in the salience of regionalism, increased concentration of power at the federal/national level, coupled with the new political order of centralization of resources and responsibilities, the build-up to the making of the 1979 constitution, the many social exchange programmes in human resources and culture by the " state governments through the unique characteristics and consequences of military rule all of these and many more areas to public policy provided a seemingly accelerated unification of the structures of the Nigerian nation - state. Although there were a variety of experiences of ethnicism and ethnic tensions, they were largely de-emphasised or suppressed by prolonged military rule. Indeed, in the elections to local and state governments preparatory to the return to civil rule between 1987 and 1991 under the regime in which I was President, Nigerians freely contested and won elections in various parts of the country outside their states or local governments of origin. Examples of the states where this phenomenon was experienced included: Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and Plateau where non- indigenes were elected to office.

The situation has unfortunately become worse in the past three years of the "present leadership of the 4th Republic. Some of the fears in many States today consist of "so-called settlers" who would face the ethicists barricade in the next series of elections.

There was, obviously, an appearance of a lull in the salience of ethnic nationalism as a fundamental factor in the political process. However, the aftermath of the inconclusive presidential election of June 1993 and the unique excesses of the military regime under Gen. SANI ABACHA nurtured a resurgence of ethnic nationalism reminiscent of the crises leading to the civil war. By May 1999 when the military exited from governance of the country and was replaced by the 4th Republic, the normally liberal environment provided by democracy for the exercise of freedom and liberty, engendered an unprecedented wave of ethnic activism and political tensions across the country. There has been undue intensification of ethno-regional nationalism since 1999, demanding a renegotiation of the federalist foundations of the Nigerian State. Foundational issues, which I had justifiable reasons to describe in 1987/88 as "NO GO Areas" in the constitution-making process of the late 1980s, appear to have been worrisomely re-invented in recent times.

Ethnicity is currently a huge social movement and human investment across the country. It is not only nurtured around the structure and ideology of ethnic nationalities, it is also increasingly becoming a preferred mode of loyalty by Nigerians as opposed to loyalty to the Nation-State.

It is therefore an important subset of the national question in Nigeria. Legitimization of ethnic nationalism involves a system of social insurance and a first line or prime loyalty for ethnic nationalities.

For the first time since the civil war, the Nigerian Nation-State is increasingly being characterized by social ingredients of retreat and doubtful legitimation. There has been, even, an underground articulation and subtle organisation by the champions of ethnic nationalism for a dismantling of the federation or secession from Nigeria. Certain ethnic nationalities are known or alleged to articulate and to establish institutions and symbols of autonomy, including those of armed militias for defence of their ethnic territories, and for offence against other nationalities.

Explaining ethno-nationalism appears no longer as difficult as resolving its challenges and manifestations. Ethnic nationalism is rooted in the colonial social formation of the country .The phenomenon is, thus embodied in the disarticulated economy of the society by colonialism such that the experience of being a Nigerian citizen and being a member of an ethnic nationality can be extremely traumatizing. The primary source of the phenomenon is the nature and character of the Nigerian State.

It can also be argued with confidence that in multiple ways, civilian and military regimes in the post independence period had themselves increased the variety and complexity of the phenomenon.

When ethnic tensions surged with menace to the new democratic order since 1999, the initial reaction was that it was the product of previously bottled-up disenchantment or dissatisfaction of various ethnic-nationalities. But by now in 2002, this initial perspective appears quite thin in content. In fact some manifestations of ethnic nationalism are the reactive excesses of the elected governments in 1999; and others are the product of selective injustice meted out to certain ethnic nationalities by the governments.

The overall consequences of contemporary ethnic nationalism consist of the following, among others:

* agitation for self degeneration with the rationalisation for a national conference or sovereign conference of ethnic nationalities renegotiate the foundations of the Nigerian national project;

* wastage of enormous human and material resources in ethnically inspired violence encounters, clashes and even battles;

* increasing gaps in social relations among ethnic nationalities including structural suspicions and hate for one another the ever shifting arena of ethnic nationalism spanning regions and zones, communities and neighbourhoods, reactive and vengeful reprisals in locations outside the ethnic territories;

* threat to security of life and property and disinvestments of local and foreign components with continuous capital flight and loss of confidence in the economy;

* the heightening of fragility of the economy and political process;

* the exacerbation of violence and more violence, together with erosion of legitimacy and also disinvestments in the political process;

* frustrations in "competitive communalism" for the ingredients of power, authority and status in the political economy including activities in the private sector;

* as already indicated before, poverty of leadership behaviour in attempts to respond to the escalating ethnic nationalism across the country.

I believe in the unity and indivisibility of Nigeria. I believe in the framework of the federation subject to a conscious resonation of Nigerian federalism. I also believe that the future stability of the country rests on the sustenance of democracy. The country should continue to sustain and deepen its republicanism.

There are three areas of social reality in the country’s social connation, which the beliefs I have stated above and which the challenges of ethnic nationalities pose for governance, should be borne in mind. The first is Nigeria consisting of the people’s attitude towards traditionalism and traditional institutions including attachment to ethnic homeland.

With all the manifestation of modernity, and of the effects of globalisation, the Nigerian State is heavily traditional in structure, thought processes and perspectives. Our experience to date suggests that rather than traditionalism being eliminated in the course of social change and modernisation, our inherited social reformation has tended to preserve large elements of traditional values, orientations and structures. Nigerians are engrossed in the pursuit of modernity yet respectful of traditionalism. The second area of social reality which ethnic nationality rests upon is retention by Nigerians of "double homes and even "multiple homes". The Nigerian citizen is at once at home in his place of residence and occupation as he is equally at home in his ethnic nationality or locality of origin. No matter the number of years of residence by the Nigerian in a different part of the country or even abroad, he willingly upholds responsibilities and obligations in his ethnic nationality.

In fact in recent times, depending on availability of wealth and capacity for mobility, the Nigerian can conveniently retain "homes" and discharge obligations in London or Manchester, Paris, New York or Dallas just as he does the same in Nigeria in more than one location.

This experience contrasts with the typical American citizen who, once he relocates from one district or state to another and he remains at the new location for a specified period, cuts off filial attachment to, let alone discharging obligations and responsibilities in his previous place of abode. The typical American is not as attached as the Nigerian is, to his family place of birth, or traditional locality .The third area of social reality is that of the federal character principle which the country has elevated from being only a social structure, to a constitutional imperative.

For me, by the mid-1980s, I had developed a fair perspective about the challenges posed by ethnic nationality for governance. I was conscious of and convinced long before the wind of social change in defunct Soviet Union and Eastern Europe about the necessity for a thoroughgoing and systematic reforms of our economy, society and political process, in order to assist in creating a better space for the multiple nationalities of the country. This was the basis of the economic reforms and democratisation of the political process, which the regime that I led, undertook between 1985 and 1993.

The regime may not have fully succeeded in its self-imposed resonator programmes, yet I believe that Nigerian ethnic nationalities, in order for them to be productive and comfortable in the political system require to be involved in an environment in which they can be made to participate in productive activities by themselves, rather than being reliant upon State- driven activities. They should also be made to participate in all levels of statecraft. It is not easy to compartmentalise the application of my views here. I wish however to draw attention to some of the critical ones because I believe that a sustained leadership commitment to elements of structural reforms would go a long way to reducing ethnic nationalism even if ethnic nationalities will continue to be part of the pillars of the Nigerian federation.

The 1999 Constitution as a variant of the 1979 and 1989 constitutions, was built to sustain the post-civil war political order, which is now generally acknowledged to contain numerous imperfections. The general complaint is that the political order has become top heavy and should therefore be re-examined. The entire constitutional order should be reviewed so as to further empower the states, local governments and communities. In fact what has been happening since 1999 by way of implementing that constitution is, to say the least, quite disappointing and perfunctory.

The federal character principle is by itself not bad. But like other government efforts or commissions in the country such as the Code of Conduct Bureau, it is not being properly endowed to carry out its responsibility of injecting social justice, equity, integrity and merit in the composition of the decision-making status in the country in the states, and even in the localities.

As in the above observation about the federal character commission, it is sad that the acclaimed noble objectives of the National Youth Service Corps scheme and unity colleges have virtually collapsed or eroded in the country. Government needs to return to the drawing board on these schemes so that appropriate reform can be undertaken. In fact those that may have little or no experience about being attached to the homelands of their ethnic nationalities can become much better Nigerian citizens than the current near wastage of the time spent by NYSC graduates.

The Nigerian State is, through its formation, part and parcel of the challenges of ethnic nationalism. As a power site, the State is neither neutral, objective nor just, in organisation nor discharge of its responsibilities. It may sound difficult particularly for those who are in authority yet there is need to re-examine how to re-constitute the Nigerian State so as to endow it with a modicum of neutrality, objectivity and justice in its operation. I confess to the fact that although this matter was examined by a Presidential Committee which I empanelled in 1986/87 to provide a policy direction on the national question, unfortunately, the report of that committee which worked under the leadership of A. V. M. Shekari (rtd) as well as the recommendations of the Political Bureau on this matter were not implemented before we exited from office.

The phenomenon of multiple homes or double homes, which I pointed out earlier, will need to be tackled. This is important because the country could easily and unwittingly enact a process in which some Nigerians would enjoy more citizenship rights than others. In fact, there is currently an exercise of political gerrymandery in which ladies married outside their state of origin, rather than going into politics in constituencies of the communities or states into which they are married, are also being prompted to return to their parent’s communities or states of origin to contest election. I am told that this PDP bizarre devise is to accommodate the women aspirants for elective office whose husbands’ state of origin appear hostile or inhospitable to them and their husbands. I wonder whether the PDP is aware of the constitutional implications of this otherwise good gesture for gender justice.

This is the image, rightly or wrongly, that comes out in the present Alliance for Democracy (AD), which is wholly located in the homeland of an ethnic nationality. A multiparty democracy creates a greater democratic place but also creates a leverage for an intensified multi-ethnic nationalism. The two party system was intended to reduce the role of inter-ethnic squabbles in the body politick integration.

I drew attention earlier in this paper to the poverty of leadership. It may be debatable whether Nigerians have experienced good leadership since 1999 in terms of forging national integration among the multiple ethnic nationalities in the country. There are observers who would argue strongly that the nation today has grown worse in terms of inter group relationship than in the period before 1999. There is no doubt that this experience is a product that directly emanated from public policy and leadership style. I believe that the quality, content, profile and temper of political leadership can go a long way either in undermining multiple ethnic nationalisms or in promoting national integration.

The most fundamental underlying forces, which propel ethnic nationalism in Nigeria, are those of pervasive poverty, mass unemployment, and underdevelopment of productive forces, and non-absorbance of the economy. The absence of developed productive forces constrains the transformation of the structures of the economy and society. Mass poverty and unemployment creates alienation and insecurity, which in turn encourage Nigerians to experience and prefer accommodation within the social insurance system of ethnic nationalities. In this regard, people are easily excited about injustice of other groups against their own groups. Poverty also creates frustration and divisiveness. At the level of government it makes the control of the State and its enormous power apparatus very vicious.

I must say that I have more confidence in having the private sector in Nigeria predominate, rather than undue reliance on foreign investment. What I have in mind here is, if you do not mind the illustration, some of the things which I inaugurated when I was President such things as the Directorate of Food, Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), employment of women and of the youths through skills acquisition by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and such other programmes, that can empower generations of craftsmen, designers and tailors, fish producers and sellers, small scale farmers and so on.

I have drawn attention to the pervasiveness of ethnic nationalism in our political process and economy. Social change and modernization cannot destroy and eradicate the phenomenon, particularly in a multi-ethnic Nigerian State which also exhibits a huge backlog of poverty. Purposeful leadership however, can tackle the challenges which multi-ethnic nationalism poses for governance. In fact, we need to appreciate that our cultural and social diversity constitutes an asset rather than a liability.

The task before leadership at all levels of governance is the use to which government apparatus and public resources are ordered around public policy in order to reduce the destabilizing dimensions of multi-ethnic nationalities, and the forging of a wholesome Nigerian State within the federation.