NIGERIA ETHNIC GROUPS

NIGERIA ETHNIC GROUPS

The ethnicity of Nigeria is so varied that there is no definition of a Nigerian beyond that of someone who lives within the borders of the country.
The boundaries of the formerly English colony were drawn to serve commercial interests, largely without regard for the territorial claims of the indigenous peoples. As a result, about three hundred ethnic groups comprise the population of Nigeria, and the country's unity has been consistently under siege: eight attempts at secession threatened national unity between 1914 and 1977. The Biafran War was the last of the secessionist movements within this period.

The concept of ethnicity requires definition. Ukpo calls an "ethnic group" a "group of people having a common language and cultural values". These common factors are emphasized by frequent interaction between the people in the group. In Nigeria, the ethnic groups are occasionally fusions created by intermarriage, intermingling and/or assimilation. In such fusions, the groups of which they are composed maintain a limited individual identity. The groups are thus composed of smaller groups, but there is as much difference between even the small groups; as Chief Obafemi Awolowo put it, as much "as there is between Germans, English, Russians and Turks".

The count of three hundred ethnic groups cited above overwhelmingly enumerates ethnic minority groups, those which do not comprise a majority in the region in which they live. These groups usually do not have a political voice, nor do they have access to resources or the technology needed to develop and modernize economically. They therefore often consider themselves discriminated against, neglected, or oppressed. There are only three ethnic groups which have attained "ethnic majority" status in their respective regions: the Hausa-Fulani in the north, the Ibo in the southeast, and the Yoruba (Soyinka's group) in the southwest.

We must be very careful to avoid the use of the term "tribe" to describe these ethnic groups. "Tribe," Ukpo points out, is largely a racist term. The Ibo and Hausa-Fulani of Nigeria are each made up of five to ten million people, a figure comparable to the number of, say, Scots, Welsh, Armenians, Serbs or Croats. Yet we do not refer to the latter groups as "tribes." The term "tribe" is almost exclusively, and very indifferently, applied to peoples of Native American or African origin. It is a label which emerged with imperialism in its application to those who were non-European and lived in a "colonial or semi-colonial dependency...in Asia, Africa and Latin America". As we are attempting to discard the prejudices of imperialism it is in our best interests to discard the use of the term "tribe" when referring to the ethnic groups of Nigeria.

With that in mind, we should dabble in brief definitions of the major ethnic groups of Nigeria. The majority groups, as stated above, are the Hausa-Fulani, Ibo and Yoruba.