There are four sets of stakeholders in the Nigerian project: the ethnic nations, the interest groups – some 47 of whom are mentioned in the Government Modalities for the National Conference, the individual Nigerians and the governments – federal and state. In our view, the ethnic nations are the best suited to negotiate or rather re-negotiate the terms of our unity as well as to serve as necessary pillars for building a nation – certainly not the organised private sector, not the youth organisations, nor the individual Nigerians.
Ben Nwabueze
The reasons for the view are cogent, if not incontestable:
(i) The ethnic nationalities are the territorial and cultural foundation of the Nigerian state. Nigeria has no territory other than, ordifferent from, the traditional territories inhabited by its constituent ethnic nationalities from time immemorial – Yorubaland, Igboland, Hausaland, Tivland, Kanuriland, Edoland, Itsekiriland, Ijawland, Ibibioland, etc, with their various cultures. It is thus the ethnic nationalities and their traditional territories, not so much the autonomous individual Nigerians, that constitute the Nigerian state, and give it life and existence.
(ii) The ethnic nationalities are the original and primary stakeholders in the Nigerian project. It is the ethnic nationalities that ceded or granted the sovereignty over their territories to Britain, and on which British jurisdiction in Nigeria rested, which therefore makes them the original and primary stakeholders in the Nigerian state.
(iii) The Nigerian state is, in reality, a union of these ethnic nationalities. This fact needs to be expressly affirmed in the constitution. There is, happily, precedent in Africa for such an explicit constitutional affirmation. The Constitution of Ethiopia 1995, which is the product of bloody, armed ethnic conflicts, bestows in explicit terms such recognition and status as well as a distinctive role on the ethnic nations. It enshrines ethnicity as the basis for holding the country together as one, given the age-long violent conflicts between the constituent ethnic nations.
Those, like me, Christopher Clapham and other commentators, inclined to criticise the unusual part played by the ethnic nationalities in the making of the Constitution of Ethiopia 1995 and the equally unusual role given to them in it, must make allowance for the fact that the unusual role was dictated by the danger of imminent disintegration arising from bloody ethnic conflicts, and that, had the unusual role not been given, the country might well have splintered into its diverse pieces. It was the part played by the ethnic nationalities in the making of the constitution and the role given to them in it that saved the country from the brink of imminent disintegration. I, as constitutional adviser to the Provisional Government, was present at some of the acrimonious discussions among the ethnic nations, and witnessed the intransigent mood that characterised the discussions.
Critics must, therefore, bear in mind that federalism in Ethiopia is the product of bloody ethnic conflicts. In more precise terms, it was the creation of the ethnic nationalities, each of whom intransigently insisted on recognition of, and respect for, the individuality of its group, and in consequence of which therefore ethnicity has to be explicitly written into the constitution. The enshrinement of ethnicity in the constitution finds expression in the provisions (i) recognising the ethnic nationalities as the legal entities constituting the Ethiopian state; (ii) defining “the territorial jurisdiction of Ethiopia as comprising the territories” inhabited by the ethnic nationalities (art. 2); (iii) requiring the States of the Federation to be “delimited on the basis of the settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people concerned” (art. 46(2)); (iv) bestowing on them the designation, “the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia” which runs through the entire constitution; (v) setting out the constitutive attributes characterising each of them as a nation, i.e. a group that has “traditionally and for a long time inhabited” separate, identifiable area of the territory known as Ethiopia, and marked apart from other groups by “a large measure of common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of language, belief in common or related identities and a common psychological make-up” (art. 39(5)).
The constitution further acknowledges the ethnic or racial nations as the creators of federalism in the country by the recital in the preamble: “We, the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia, have therefore adopted, on 8 December 1994 this Constitution through representatives we have duly elected for this purpose.”
It is they, “the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples”, whose distinctive attributes are defined in art. 39(5), who, at meetings during the bloody crisis in 1991 – 94 when the country was at the brink of disintegration, agreed to bury their antagonistic divisions and, in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, “to continue to live together in equality and unity as one community”, and to federate together under the name “The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia” (art. 1).
It is “the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples” who adopted the Constitution, fired by a conviction of the need to hold the country together as “one political and economic community in order to create sustainable and mutually supportive conditions for ensuring respect for our rights and freedoms and for the collective protection of our interests”, in particular for “advancing our economic and social development”.
Federalism in Ethiopia is thus not the creation of pre-existing state authority or authorities or individuals, as in most other federal systems in the world.
Reflecting the unique place of the ethnic nationalities as the creators of the federal system, article 8(1), (2) & (3) of the constitution affirms that “all sovereign power resides in the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples”, and that “this Constitution is an expression of their sovereignty.” Their unique place is further reflected in the provision in article 39(1) that “every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession”; as well as “the right to a full measure of self-government which includes the right to establish institutions of government in the territory that it inhabits and to equitable representation in state and federal governments”, and the right “to express, to develop and to promote its culture and to preserve its history”.
Language being an important aspect of each group’s culture, all the languages are put more or less at par and accorded “equal state recognition” (art. 5(1)), none being subordinate to the other, as by the privileged status previously accorded to Amharic as the official language throughout the state. Its position is now reduced to just that of “the working language of the Federal Government” (art. 5(2)), while “members of the federation may by law determine their respective working languages” (art. 5(3)). The equality of the languages reinforces the provision in article 47(4) that “member states of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia shall have equal rights and powers”.
Significantly too, the nations, nationalities and peoples are made the constituent units or “members” of the federation, with the designation “states”, and are entitled to have their own flags and emblems (art. 3(3)); each of them, either singly or together with others, as with “the State of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples”, constitutes a “state” under the constitution (art. 47(1)). The Constitution recognises in every “nation, nationality or people” included in an existing State, “the right to establish, at any time, its own State” (art 47(2)).
The constitution not only defines the distinctive attributes of the ethnic groups coming within the designation “the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia” (art 39(5)), but specifically identifies by name the ethnic groups covered by the designation, namely, the Amharas, Tigreans, Oromos, Afars, Somalis, the Banshangul/Gumuz Peoples, the Gambela People and the Harari People; the eight specifically named are supplemented by the addition of “the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples” (art. 47(1)).
The recognition of ethnicity as the basis of the federal arrangement under the constitution is again reflected in the provision in article 49(5) to the effect that “the special interest of the State of Oromia in Addis Ababa, regarding the provision of social services or the utilisation of natural resources and other similar matters, as well as joint administrative matters arising from the location of Addis Ababa within the State of Oromia, shall be respected. Particulars shall be determined by law.”
Apart from the recognition of, and respect for, the special interest of the Oromos in Addis Ababa, government, both federal and state, is enjoined to “respect the identity of Nations, Nationalities and Peoples” (arts 85(2) and 88(2)). This is supplemented by the directive in article 87(1) that “the composition of the national armed forces shall reflect the equitable representation of the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia.”
The ethic nationalities are given other significant roles in the constitution, which it is not necessary or appropriate to go into here.
Nigeria should not wait until bloody, armed conflict erupts and engulfs it before taking a cue from Ethiopia. We should nip such a development in the bud.
(iv) The ethnic nationalities are a sociological reality. Ethnic nations and tribes in African society are a sociological reality, even in the urban centres newly emerged as accompaniment of the new state system created by colonialism. The ethnic nation or tribe is integral to, and an organic part of, what constitutes the traditional society in Africa. The basic unit of the society for social and, to some extent, economic life, is not the atomic family of a man, his wife (wives) and children, but the extended family embracing several related families which together make up a clan. Several related clans make up a tribe. The traditional African society consists of a collection of such tribes; it does not, and cannot, therefore, exist apart from its constituent tribes. Abolish the tribes, and the traditional African society also disappears from existence. Tribes in traditional Africa should not therefore be thought of as inimical to society; they are the heart and the soul of African society. It is possible that they may, as we march towards greater and greater urbanisation, cease to have significance in the non-urban areas too. But until that time comes, it is as well to recognise the tribes as a sociological reality and as necessary pillars for building a nation.
As every African indigene is born into a family and becomes a member of the extended family structures which make up the clans, tribes and ethnic nations, the tribe is not external to us as individuals. We all, as such individuals, however educated and “detribalised”, belong to, and form part and parcel of, the tribes. So, when the ethnic nationalities negotiate or act, all of us are part of it, or are at least represented.
The ethnic nations can no more be wished away or banished than we can disregard our own individuality, notwithstanding their proneness or their susceptibility to be exploited to cause inter-tribal violent conflicts. “For most of us,” writes Professor Claude Ake, “these social formations and group identities are not externalities, but the core of our being; it is by these identities that most of us define our individuality.” For most Africans, AIan Merriam also says, “the reality….. is not the centralised state, rather a mixing of the political with the social structure in a formulation which rests upon villages, tribes and, at the most, regions”.
Prof. Arthur Lewis is no less emphatic and insistent upon this. “Any idea,” he says, “that one can make different peoples into a nation by suppressingor turning a blind eye to the religious or tribal or regional or other affiliations towhich they themselves attach the highest political significance is simply a non-starter. National loyalty cannot immediately supplant tribal loyalty; it has to be built on top of tribal loyalty by creating a system in which all the tribes feel that there is room for self-expression.”
“Rather than consider ethnicity and nationalism as contradictory and opposed,” Prof. Ade Ajayi has suggested, “it is better to think of a gradation of loyalties from family to community, to linguistic group or state, and to the nation.” A national unity in which the ethnic nations have no part can only be, in Robin Luckham’s apt expression, a “seamless” one, and therefore liable, sooner or later, to break apart into its several component parts.
It follows from the character of the ethnic nations in Nigeria, as in the rest of Africa, that a national conference in which they (the ethnic nations) do not constitute the pivot or focal point will not be able to address effectively and decisively the problem of unity and the creation of a new and better Nigeria.
Constituting the conference with ethnic nationalities as the main unit or basis of representation was rejected as unrealistic for various reasons, viz the uncertainty about the exact number and identity of ethnic nationalities in the country (the 389 identified and recorded in a research conducted by Prof. Otite, formerly of the University of Ibadan, is disputed); the difficulty of devising an equitable and acceptable method of representation for the ethnic nationalities (equality of representation regardless of population is considered inequitable); the large number of delegates that may be thrown up by representation based on the ethnic nationalities, a number that may be so unwieldy as to be almost unmanageable; the rancorous rivalry between the ethnic nationalities, especially between the big and small ones. Yet, intractable as the problem may seem, it is not unamenable to rational solution (no problem is), if comprehensive and serious enough effort is made to solve it.
The long and short of what has been said is that the existence of the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and the haunting problem it poses to its unity and to nation-building is a reality. As earlier stated, a haunting problem is not solved by pretending that it does not exist, which is like running away from reality. What we are doing is simply running away from reality; reality will not go away by our running away from it, but will remain to haunt us.
The recognition of the ethnic nations must be extended to their organisations, although the latter did not exist in pre-colonial times; they emerged in response to the altered social and economic conditions of life under colonialism. They serve many useful purposes in providing welfare support and assistance to members of their tribes and in enabling the tribes to serve other useful social and economic purposes in the harsh, competitive environment that came in the wake of colonialism. They are, therefore, a social necessity. To deny them recognition is to deprive the tribes of much meaning and effectiveness as organic institutions of society.
