Subjectivity and Ethnocentric Leadership Approaches in Tackling the Nigerian Question
International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAH) Ethiopia
Vol. 7 (4), S/No 27, SEPTEMBER, 2018: 88-96
ISSN: 2225-8590 (Print) ISSN 2227-5452 (Online)
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijah.v7i4.9
Subjectivity and Ethnocentric Leadership Approaches in Tackling the
Nigerian Question
Amugo, Frank, & Chinda, D., Izeoma, C.
Department of Foundation Studies
Port Harcourt Polytechnic Rumuola, Port Harcourt
Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
E-mail: frankamugo@yahoo.com;
Phone: +2348037063542
Abstract
Subjectivity has been an all-important concept for academic research, as well as used as a tool for
intervening in social and political life of a people, since the 1960s and 1970s. The idea of subjectivity
had a catalytic impact in changing the terms of the debate in History and Social Sciences, postcolonial
theory, gender studies, cultural and media studies, social theory, and the other disciplines in the
humanities. Subjectivity which relates to the quality of possessing perspectives and experiences,
feelings, beliefs, desires, and power employed in the attempt at explanation for what influences, and
informs people’s judgment about truth or reality. In this paper, we shall attempt to examine the role of
leaders of the Nigerian state in tackling the challenges/problems faced by the various sections of the
Nigerian polity. These problems include, religious crisis, marginalization, resource equity, among
others, and they constitute the National question. The paper concludes that the difficulty in answering
the Nigerian question, to a large extent, result from the influence of subjectivity in viewing and tackling
these problems by successive leaders emerging mainly from the majority tribes of the country.
Key Words: Subjectivity, Leadership, Nigerian Question, Ethnocentrism.
Introduction
Subjectivity is the flip side of objectivity, which relates to state of interpreting and addressing issues
from an impartial viewpoint and devoid of personal, group or sectional idiosyncrasies, feelings and
interest. It is a concept and practice that engender advancement and protection of personal, sectional
and group views and interest in interpretation and addressing the issues of development in human
society.
In the academic realm, subjectivity has been a thorny, controversial and indeed a difficult subject, as it
has been rightly observed that no researcher goes about the selection, handling and interpretation of the
sources and materials with a blank mind. In addressing the Nigerian question, subjectivity has been the
bane of sincere analysis and approach in tackling the problems of disunity, religious intolerance,
impaired development and lack of national socio-economic advancement in spite of the huge human
and material resources nature has inhumed in the country.
In this paper, we shall offer a conceptual clarification of the subject of subjectivity, leadership and the
concept of the National question. We shall thereafter examine the issues of subjective approaches of
some leaders of different sections of the country in tackling the national question and thereafter draw
our conclusions.
Conceptual Clarifications
Subjectivity: Solomon Robert (2005), has defined subjectivity as the condition of being a subject: that
is the quality of possessing perspectives, experiences, feelings beliefs, desires and power. Furthermore,
subjectivity has been used as an explanation for what influences and informs people’s judgments about
truth or reality. The concept of subjectivity equally has to do with the collection of the perceptions,
experiences, expectations, personal or cultural understanding and beliefs specific to a person, or group.
In most instances it is used in contrast to the concept of objectivity which borders on truth or reality,
which is free of any individual or group influence.
According to Walsh (1967) objective knowledge comes as a result of a method that does not depend on
the personal idiosyncrasies and private personal feeling of those engaged in the production of such
knowledge. This presupposes that subjective knowledge comes from a method in which the personal
feeling and perhaps interest are predominant.
Subjectivity is said to be inherent in research and interpretation because according to Passmore (1974),
whenever an academic enquiry begins, the inquirer certainly has beliefs, expectations, and interests.
Furthermore, subjectivity in sources and accounts is evident solely because they only record such facts
as appeared sufficiently interesting to record, so that sources will certainly contain only facts that fit in
with a preconceived theory.
Almost in all the fields in history and social sciences, there are elements of subjectivity in the sources
researchers handle and even in the way they interpret the materials they have so selected. A researcher,
conducting research on subjects of socio-economic or political development of a society, who has to
select from a mass of materials confronting him, is necessarily committed to having judgments and
ascribing relative importance and significance to them according to perceptions and preconceived
convictions.
No wonder Gardiner (1972), has argued that there can be no such thing as a purely “value free” account
in history and general social discourse, since language that is adapted to the description of what people
feel, think, and do necessarily reflects the element of evaluation and appraisal that pervades the whole
texture of human life and experience (p. 433).
Given the above conceptual reality, tackling national issues that relate to the Nigerian question has
indeed been a difficult task for the Nigerian leadership since independence. The various leaders that
have steered the affairs of the country seem to have been driven by subjective sectional pursuits and
priorities, thereby jeopardizing the unity and socio-economic advancement of the country.
Leadership: There abound different definitions of leadership. However, leadership could be said to be
an accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistance as well as a combination of
strategy and character. In this regard the importance of character over strategy for leadership cannot be
overemphasized. It is a process of social influence by which a person influences others to accomplish
an objective and directs the organisation in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent.
Consequently, a leader is expected to demonstrate qualities, which embrace but not limited to good
character, vision, tact, prudence, and ability to lead by example. This is because people basically ascribe
leadership to those who they feel can most enable them achieve important goals or objectives (Ogeidi,
2012). Leadership therefore, is a body of people who lead and direct the activities of a group towards a
shared goal.
History has shown that no nation of the world grew and enjoyed steady development in virtually all
spheres of its national life without experiencing good and selfless political leadership. This is largely
because qualitative growth and development has always been an outcome of good governance.
Achebe (1984), contended that the root cause of the Nigerian predicament should be laid squarely at the foot of bad leadership. The trouble with Nigeria, Achebe argued, is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. Achebe posits that there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character, the Nigerian land, climate, water, air, or anything else, rather the Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability
of its leaders to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which is the hallmark of true leadership. Similarly, Ihonvbere (n.d.) averred that African leaders have thrown good governance over-board as they busied themselves with the construction of dubious ideologies, personality cults and looting the treasury. This according to him, is coupled with economic mismanagement, rabid corruption, irresponsible political behaviour and squander mania, the near abandonment of the state by its very custodians weakened it and made it largely irrelevant to the daily lives of the people. Such a state Ihonvbere further posited has no room for the rule of law, social justice, human rights, and constitutionalism. All these were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency, the hunger for power and the arrogance of a political elite with only a tenuous relationship to real production.
Consequently, the state of Nigeria’s contemptible socio-economic development has been a direct consequence of the actions and inactions of the leadership class that has managed the affairs and wealth of the country since independence. As it were the development of Nigeria since independence has always been in the hands of a political leadership class that showed more interest in private, group or ethnic gains than in the general wellbeing of the Nigerian state.
The National Question According to the Marxist-Leninist theory the national question crises with the struggle of nations and peoples for national liberation and for the most favourable conditions possible for their social development. This is viewed against the backdrop that the most important aspect of the national question is the unification of the working people, regardless of their nationality, in the struggle against all forms of opposition and for a progressive social system. However, Stalin notes that the solution of the national question is possible only in connection with the historical conditions taken in their development.
As it were, the national question in Nigeria arose from the diverse characters of Nigeria as a plural and multi-ethnic society. This is as a result of the imbalance created by the amalgamation in 1914 of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria by the British Colonial administration for their economic gains. The accompanying challenges is manifest as the few political elites that have access to the privileges of the state manipulate the structure at the expense of the larger population. The inability of the elites to meet the needs of the citizens, made manifest in the exclusion, domination, lack of development, marginalization, inequality, injustice and insecurity and protecting the lives and welfare of the various ethnic groups in the country have exacerbated and deepened the national question.
The heightened and continual political and ethnic crises have raised the questions of whether Nigeria should continue as a country or disintegrate. Nigerian nationalist and early political leaders from the country’s inception had expressed their resentment for bringing the different ethnic groups under one umbrella to be called Nigeria. For example, late Obafemi Awolowo has said that “Nigeria is not a nation: it is a mere geographical expression” (Awolowo, 1947:47). In the same vein, Abubakar Tafawa Belewa re-echoed the same feeling when he asserted that “since the amalgamation . . . in 1914, Nigeria
has existed as one country only on paper . . . it is still far from being united. Nigerian unity is only the
British intention for it” (Belewa, 1947, p. 208).
This feeling of doubt about the unity of Nigeria, was not only expressed by Nigerian early nationalist
and political leaders, some British colonial officials shared the same sentiments (Chimee, 2008). For
instance, Alan Burns (1954), stated that there is no Nigerian nation, no Nigerian language, and no
Nigerian tradition and that the very name was invented by the British to describe a country inhabited
by a medley of formally warring tribes having no common culture and only united when they are
governed by a single power.
The dictionary meaning of the word or concept of nation underscores the positions and arguments of
the aforementioned Nigerian leaders and foreigners. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines
nation as “a country considered as a group of people with same language, culture and history, who live
in a particular area under one government: an independent nation”. Webster’s Universal Dictionary and
Thesaurus, equally defines nation, as “a people of common territory, descent, culture, language or
history; people united under a single government” Going by the foregoing definitions, Nigeria do not
qualify or fit into the concept of a nation, given the fact that Nigeria has divergent cultures, languages,
descent and history among the different ethnic groups subsumed in Nigeria.
Historical Antecedents: The British Role
The British has been implicated in creating the conglomeration of the divergent entities that make up
Nigeria, especially in the events that led to the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, and after. The varied
peoples were brought together to serve the imperial interest of the British by sheer force and not
necessarily as a result of the desire of the people to develop existing linkages of pre-colonial inter-group
relations. The different groups and tribes were not made to embrace one another as a people having a
common interest and destiny.
Ademoyega (1981) blamed the British for the Nigeria’s political problems. He notes that it stems from
the carefree manner in which they took over, administered and abandoned the government and the
peoples of Nigeria. He also sees the unwillingness of the British administration to make efforts to bind
the country together and unite the heterogeneous groups of people as part of the problems that bedeviled
the country at independence. He further notes that the evil that outlived British administration was
political non-advancement, whereby they forcibly grouped the political state of Nigeria along ethnic
groups.
For Kirk-Greene (1974), the British colonial masters were responsible because of their political and
fiscal policies aimed at satisfying their administrative and economic desires without regard to the
people. Thus Madiebo (1980), noted the determination of the colonial masters to ensure an
uninterrupted economic exploitation of the country even after independence. This they achieved only
by ensuring that the effective political and military powers were left in the hands of that part of the
country they could trust.
Consequently, Richard’s constitution of 1946 divided the country into unequal three regions in line with
the constitutional provision of the Federal system of government. It consisted of the Northern Region
with the Hausa/Fulani majority, the Eastern Region with the Igbo and the Yoruba in the Western
Region. These were the three major ethnic groups that dominated the political scene of Nigeria, an
indication that the Colonial Government did not work against ethnicity in the country.
Shortly after independence, the struggle to consolidate the legacy of political and military dominance
of a section of Nigeria over the rest of the Federation began with increased intensity. Madiebo (1980)
also asserted that the political struggle and the consequent drifting apart of the various people of Nigeria
went on over the years unchecked to an extent that the Federal Parliament was reduced to an inter-tribal battle field. For him, the three major tribes in Nigeria; Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa were fraught with
intolerance, ethnicity and suspicion. These factors were to further polarize the country, especially as
issues of national interest were given sectional interpretation. Apparently, Nigeria’s problem was
derived from the tension which arose as a result of competition and hostilities of the larger ethnic
groups.
With the granting of independence Nigeria was now beset by settlings of political problems which
stemmed from the lop-sided nature of the political divisions of the country and the type of the lasting
Federal Constitution and the spirit in which it operated. These factors were, however, proved to be
strong factors of disunity largely because of the British divisive role in the colonial era and the inability
of Nigerian leadership during the post-colonial era to stem the tide of disunity. The anxiety and struggle
for power and concerns for the distribution of resources brought about misunderstanding and strained
working relationship among the ethnic groups. The country was engrossed with different types of
problems, following the marginalization and domination of the minority group, by the majority and the
agitations that arose therefrom. The regimes in the regions brought corruption, nepotism and ethnic
sentiments into the country. With these, came thuggery, killing and rigging of elections to the Federal
Legislature in 1964 and into the Western House in 1965. The Tiv war against the oppressive Sarduana’s
Government of Northern Nigerian showed no sign of abating (Ademoyega, 1981).
One of the acts of the British in achieving their agenda was the creation of the Sabon Gari, a
phenomenon targeted at separating the Southern visitors from their Northern hosts, all in an effort to
further isolate the two groups. This deepened the division between the two groups and engendered
distrust and mutual suspicion, making integration difficult. In the area of education, the colonial
educational policy of the colonial administration ensured divergence and no form of commonality. This
was to shield the north from the Southern rapid western educational exposure (Olusanya, 1967).
These policies and deliberate efforts at accentuating the primordial divergence among the different
ethnic groups, especially between the northern and southern tribes mid-wived a crop of nationalist
leaders from different backgrounds, fighting different causes while pretending to fight for a common
agenda, or build a United Nation State. The British has therefore structured the country in a skewed
way that has created political domination, disunity, minority fears, religious intolerance, unfavourable
fiscal policies and lack of development. This situation has given rise to crisis of state and therefore the
national question.
National Problems Arising from the National Question
From the inception of the country, myriad hydra-headed problems have arisen, threatening the existence
of Nigeria and hampering the peace and overall development of the country, this is in spite of the
enormous human and material resources and potentials of the country. These problems include, fears
of the minority groups, fiscal policy crises, tribal favouritism and nepotism, religious uprisings, and
emergence of ethnic protests, movements and militias.
At the verge of independence, the people of the Niger Delta had raised serious fears of their minority
status and possible marginalization and exploitation in a Nigerian state. These avid fears of the Niger
Delta led to the inauguration of the Willink’s Commission of 1958, whose unsatisfactory report of 1959
made the people more apprehensive in the Nigerian state that emerged in 1960. The people’s
apprehension became accentuated following the coup d’etat of 1966. The region’s people feared the
possibility of their oil potentials being hijacked by the majority tribes, leading to Isaac Boro’s
insurgency and declaration of a Niger Delta Republic in 1966. In the Middle belt of Nigeria, the minority
tribes of that region embarked on several riots, like the Tiv riots, all in protest of marginalization in a Nigerian State.
The fiscal policy of Nigerian state has been source of discontent among the different sections of the
country. Oyovbaire (1985) has argued that fiscal policies had been a recurring and topical question that
has generated political strain in the history of Nigeria. Fiscal and financial operations had largely fuelled
the conduct of debate on the Nigerian question. Fiscal formulas of the Nigerian State which feature
fiscal centralism in a federation has been the underlying fiscal instrument of the Nigerian state for the
marginalization and exploitation of the oil producing minorities, leading to the agitation for resource
control and the attendant crises.
The structure of the country that divided the country into three unequal parts along tribal lines of three
major tribes, leaving other numerous tribes as minorities underlie the rivalry, mutual distrust among the
majority tribes and fears of the minorities. While the major tribes engage in mutual rivalry and fear of
domination, the minorities are left with fears of marginalization and exploitation, as well as, agitation
for attention and equity. Pilkingston (1958) had offered that “the colonial division of Nigeria into
regions and each with a separate ethnic group dominating all others was a slant to unit” (p.219). It was
the fear of domination of the North by the South after the january15, 1966 coup d’etat in which Major
General Aguiyi Ironsi, a southern Igbo emerged as Head of State that exacerbated the fears of the north.
This development brought about the counter coup and the events that led to the Nigerian civil war.
This has heightened the state of ethnic and religious intolerance, insecurity and strife, class division,
lack of trust, political crisis, amongst others. According to Adejo (2004) between 1953 and 1972 over
17 major religious conflicts took place between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. In 1982, there were
the Jos Crisis, the Reinhard Bornke riot of 1991 in Kano, the Gideon Akaluka crisis in 1994, among
others. The carnage was so devastating that it prompted reprisal attacks in the southern parts of the
country. Among the Muslims, there have been conflicts between different sects of Islamic movement.
In 1980, the country witnessed the maitatsine crisis, and the Shiite attacks of 1996 and 1997. This
conflict started in Kano and gradually spilled over to other northern states like Kaduna, Bauchi and
Katisna. Other religious disturbances experienced in the country especially in the Northern part include,
the Sharia violence, Bin Ladin fanatics, Boko Haram and Jihad threats.
These fears have led to ethnic formations such as Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Arewa Consultative
Forum. The deep lines of division are equally seen in the Nigerian legal system. The declaration of
Sharia law and the insistence of its practice and implementation in most Northern States means
operation of two legal systems in one country. Furthermore, the national question has become most
manifest in the emergence of contemporary protest movements and rebellion against the Nigeria state.
At the inception of Nigeria, beginning from Isaac Boro’s protest and insurgency, Nigeria has witnessed
various protest movements. Such protest movements and rebellions include the Biafran secession, Tiv
riots of 1960s, the OPC of the Yoruba, MASSOB/IPOB of the Igbos, MOSSOP of the Ogoni, MEND
and Militancy of the Niger Deltas, to current Boko Haram insurgency and killer herdsmen. The Nigerian
State has not known peace, unity and true development. These protest movements are expression of
deep discontent, and mistrust arising from the obvious differences among the different sections, groups
and tribes that have been forced by history to co-exist under the umbrella of the Nigerian State. These
problems and realities of the Nigerian State are what have kept the national question unanswered.
Attempts at Addressing the National Question
It is the view of this paper that, the national question has remained unanswered and unresolved as a
result of the subjective interpretation of the question and the parochial approaches adopted by leaders
of the different sections of the Nigerian State, in addressing the National question.
During the first republic, the founding fathers, with the British who laid the foundation of the Nigerian
polity, seeing the diverse nature of the state, fostered unity in diversity through the regional arrangement. This period saw some genuine development at the regional levels before the corruption at the centre, tribalism and religious sensitivity marred the first regime. The various regions pursued the
development of their natural endowments and potentials. The Northern region became producers and
exporters of groundnut, as well as, hides and skin. The Western region concentrated in the production
and exportation of cocoa while the Eastern region engaged in production and exportation of palm
produce (palm oil and kernel). Through these huge agricultural activities, the various regions recorded
great strides in physical and social infrastructural development of their various regions. For instance, in
the Western region, the great Cocoa house was built, as well as the establishment of the first television
station in Africa and introduction of free education.
The politics of the centre which was fraught with corruption, nepotism, tribalism, religious insensitivity
brought tension in the polity and marred the peace and progress of the state. The subjective
interpretation of the January 1966 group and counter coup by the leaders of the north, South and eastern
sections plunged the country into 30 months of a bloody civil war in which the Igbos were nearly
exterminated. Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi emerged as the first military head of state and introduced a
unitary system through decree 34. The move was interpreted by the North as an agenda of the Igbos to
control the civil service and Nigerian polity which elicited reactions of up-rising in North that led to the
pogrom of the Igbos and the counter-coup that led to death of Major General Ironsi. It was the events
that followed, which eventually led to the Nigerian Civil War.
Tocqueville (1964) had offered that “a long war always almost reduces nations to the wretched
alternative of being abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success” (p.86). This was true of
the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War as both sides experienced the import of this averment. The
Igbos are yet to recover fully from the effects of the war. The long period of military rule in Nigeria,
headed mostly by the north witnessed entrenchment of unitary institutions, especially in fiscal policies,
while paying lip service to federal arrangement and practice in the drive to control the oil resources of
Southern Niger Delta. The military intervention in the Nigerian politics from 1966 brought the
expansion of the financial hegemony of the central government in Nigeria.
Adaleje cited in (Azaiki, 2003) observes that; “the centralizing imperatives of military rule, the
fragmentation and proliferation of states; the exigencies created by 1967-1970 civil war, the federal
government control of the huge revenue from the oil industry, all combine to entrench and ensure
financial supremacy of the central government”. The short lived second republic under Alhaji Shehu
Shagari of northern extraction adopted completely the structure and policies of the British and military
without any attempt at restructuring the country, or changing the national policies that gave rise to the
national question. The military leaders who took over from Alhaji Shehu Shagari, are from Northern
Nigeria. They pursued policies based on ‘even’ development of the states and local governments they
created to be sustained with the oil resources of the minorities of the Niger Delta. This policy is
antithetical to the practice of true federalism and only a subjective approach of the Northern military
leaders in answering the national question.
At the end of the military rule in 1999, the military had drafted and handed a constitution over to the
civilian regime containing their views and decisions as to how the country should be run. The military
leaders’ views and interpretation of the national question is therefore subsisting in running the affairs
of this country to date. The eight years of rule of civilian administration under General Olusegun
Obasanjo merely towed the lines and structures set down by the military. Fiscal federalism which would
have firmly made Nigeria a true Federal State was jettisoned, still leaving the national question
unanswered.
Dr Goodluck Jonathan from the Niger Delta South-South Nigeria who ruled the country for six years
did not equally record much achievement, in the issue of answering the national question. The over
bearing nature of the people who brought him to power in “cage” and the nature of the constitution of
the National Assembly did not enable him to effect any significant changes in the polity. The report of the National Conference he convoked even with the “no go area” that would have made some difference
has been jettisoned by the present administration of the country led by President Muhammadu Buhari.
These situations are responsible for the state of affairs in the country where disunity, lack of true
development, religious unrest, frequent mass protests, heightened insecurity, militancy and ethnic
protest movements and militias, has become the order of our days.
Conclusion
The foregoing has shown clearly that the faulty foundation of Nigerian state structured by the British
colonial masters for their imperial interest, and without consideration of the diverse nature and history
of various ethnic entities they constituted into a country, engendered the national question, in the drive
to develop their sections of the country with the oil money without any sincere attempt of answering
the nagging national question. It has also been shown that the national leaders after independence,
especially, the military had pursued sectional interests in the interpretation and tackling of the national
question.
It is our considered opinion that tackling the problems associated with the national question such as
disunity, minority fears, problem of fiscal policy, religious intolerance, insecurity, official corruption
and ethnic protests, movements, and insurgency can only succeed if the leaders and the people of the
different sections or ethnic nationalities of the country come together in true sovereign national
conference and agree on how to live together with a new constitution. Only a truly consultative and
participatory process can put the national question up for democratic debate and negotiation without
resort to violence. Such a consultative process could be utilized to mobilize and educate the people
politically, establish new rules of politics, reconstruct institutions, and redefine the foundations of
governance.
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