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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Citizenship Status, Statehood Problems and Political Conflict: The Case of Nigeria |
Author: | Idowu, O.O. William |
Year: | 1999 |
Periodical: | Nordic Journal of African Studies |
Volume: | 8 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 73-88 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | political systems political conflicts nationality Ethnic and Race Relations Politics and Government nationalism |
External link: | https://njas.fi/njas/article/view/635/458 |
Abstract: | Empirical evidence suggests that political conflict in Nigeria is about identity. Specifically, political conflict in Nigeria is the outcome of disparate attitudes to the question of citizenship occasioned by the problems of statehood. While a Nigerian nationality is nonexistent, citizenship is operative at the homeland level. The basis of citizenship in Nigeria is the emphasis on geography and location. Since citizenship is defined at the sub-State level, a Nigerian is an alien in another state. Over the years, successive governments and regimes have been defined in terms of a dominant, ruling, group, and subject, excluded, groups. The unbridled ambition perpetually to dominate others, coupled with the struggle to monopolize the resource allocating elements of the State, account for the problems of citizenship and statehood. The effects of the politics of domination and alienation, marginalization and exclusion on the incidence of political conflict are illustrated in the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970, and the crisis that erupted in the wake of the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |