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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The politics of deceptive scapegoatism: 'illegal aliens' and domestic social order in Nigeria
Author:Mou, D.ISNI
Year:1986
Periodical:The Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies
Volume:28
Issue:3
Pages:297-318
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:foreigners
deportation
Abstract:The Nigerian political elite has often evoked the notion of 'alien' as a symbolic action to ensure mass conformity, quiescence and, consequently, the preservation and reinforcement of the prevailing social order. The 'politics of deceptive scapegoatism' has been practised in Nigeria since precolonial times and has most recently been evidenced in the January-February 1983 mass expulsion of foreign workers and jobless 'aliens'. The process takes place within the context of widespread socioeconomic anxieties. The problems themselves are never actually addressed. Given the extensive inequalities in Nigerian society, symbolic dramatization of 'enemies', whether internal or external, is likely to remain a persistent phenomenon, whose future victims cannot be readily predicted. Bibliogr.
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