Benue State University, Makurdi

A Review of the Phenomenon of Separatist Movements in Nigeria

Paul T. M. Angya

Abstract

Though identity politics, minority agitations and struggle are not new to Nigeria, as witnessed by the minority agitations of the 50’s and 60’s leading to the Biafran war between July 6, 1967 - January 13, 1970. The rise of multiple ethnic and tribal agitations today, very often, violent, has reached an alarming point. In the last few years a lot of nationalist (separatist) movements have sprung up representing virtually all the geopolitical zones in Nigeria. They all have one central theme; each group wants to separate their ethnic people from the Nigerian state1. The constitution of Nigeria 1979 would appear to be complicit in this trend. The same constitution that enshrines a “federal character” principle, also provides the principle of indigenety, which makes the right to benefits of federal character dependent upon where an individual’s parents and grandparents were born. The aim of this paper therefore is to review the genesis of separatist movements in Nigeria with a view to proffer recommendations for resolving this debilitating problem. It adopts the doctrinal approach for research, which relies on laws, statutes, regulations, cases, written texts and articles. In that regard, the paper defines and clarifies the concept of separatists movement. It reviews and assesses the root cause of separatist movement in Nigeria. It ex-rays their motivating factor and their current status in the country. In conclusion, the paper is of the view that, solution to the problem of separatist agitations is never to criminalize such groups or clamp their leaders into detention. In several mature democracies separatist groups and purveyors of hate speech such as the KKK in the USA and the British National Party in the United Kingdom are not banned for fear that doing so will drive them underground and glamorize the ideas they espouse. The preference is to draw the ideas they espouse into the market place for political ideas and out-compete them. Finally, the paper recommends that referendum is a time-tested instrument for blunting separatist tendencies in the more mature democracies.

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