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STRATEGIC

STUDIES

INSTITUTE

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is part of the U.S. Army War 

College and is the strategic-level study agent for issues related to national security and military strategy with emphasis on 

geostrategic analysis.

The mission of SSI is to use independent analysis to conduct strategic 

studies that develop policy recommendations on:

• Strategy, planning, and policy for joint and combined 

 employment of military forces;

• Regional strategic appraisals;

• The nature of land warfare;

• Matters affecting the Army’s future;

• The concepts, philosophy, and theory of strategy; and,

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Studies produced by civilian and military analysts concern 

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In addition to its studies, SSI publishes special reports on topics 

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The Institute provides a valuable analytical capability within the 

Army to address strategic and other issues in support of Army 

participation in national security policy formulation.
Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

NIGERIAN UNITY:

IN THE BALANCE

Gerald McLoughlin

Clarence J. Bouchat

June 2013

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

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public release; distribution is unlimited.

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copyrighted.
ii

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Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 Ashburn 

Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010. 

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ISBN 1-58487-577-1
iii

FOREWORD

Nigeria is the key country in Sub-Saharan Africa 

for the success of American policy and interests, but is 

poorly understood by policymakers. Nigeria is an African powerhouse blessed with a large growing economy, 

huge reserves of oil and natural gas, the largest population in Africa, a rich cultural diversity, and powerful 

regional influence. Nigeria is also beset by chronic internal strife and unstable governments, corruption, poor 

human development and human rights records, and is a 

hub for international crime. Although currently enjoying a period of democracy and economic growth, the 

forces that balance Nigerian unity are fragile and may 

yet fatally fracture Nigeria’s polity and state integrity.

To overcome this lack of understanding of Nigeria, 

this monograph analyzes where fractures in the state 

occur and why. It offers practical recommendations 

to U.S. Government officials to support positive outcomes in Nigeria that ensure a stable, prosperous country that can partner with the United States in attaining 

mutual goals. 

This monograph is particularly relevant for government and military officials tasked with responsibilities 

in West and Sub-Saharan Africa, but who may not possess much understanding of Nigeria and its importance 

to the United States. The Strategic Studies Institute is 

pleased to publish this paper as a contribution toward 

a more complete understanding of Nigeria in order to 

advance both its interests and those of the United States.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

v

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

GERALD MCLOUGHLIN is a retired U.S. Foreign 

Service Officer with extensive service in Sub-Saharan Africa, most notably Cameroon, Mozambique, 

and Nigeria. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army War 

College, Hunter College (CUNY), and Southern 

Connecticut State College.

CLARENCE J. BOUCHAT, a retired U.S. Air Force 

lieutenant colonel, is currently a senior researcher

with the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and an 

adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College 

(USAWC) Department of Distance Education. His last 

assignment was as a faculty member of the USAWC. 

Immediately after retirement, he went to Liberia as 

part of a Security Sector Reform team meant to reconstitute a new Ministry of Defense. He has published 

several works concerning security issues in the context 

of Sub-Saharan Africa. Lieutenant Colonel Bouchat 

is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and the 

University of Southern California.

vii

SUMMARY

Nigeria’s continuation as a cohesive functioning 

state is important to the United States due to the bilateral economic relationship, Nigeria’s influence in the 

international community, and its pivotal role for U.S. 

interests in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the importance of Nigeria to the United States, the centrifugal 

forces that tear at the country’s unity and the centripetal forces which have kept Nigeria whole are not well 

understood and are rarely examined. Those who make 

or execute U.S. policy will find it difficult to advance 

U.S. interests in Africa without an understanding of 

the pressures that bind and tear Nigeria.

This monograph examines why Nigeria is important to the United States, and the historic, religious, 

cultural, political, physical, demographic, and economic factors that will determine if Nigeria remains 

whole. It identifies Nigeria’s major fault lines and 

makes policy recommendations for the United States 

to support Nigerians in their efforts to maintain a 

functioning and integrated state and, by so doing, 

advance U.S. interests.

1

NIGERIAN UNITY:

IN THE BALANCE

The existence of Nigeria as a unified state is in jeopardy. Nigeria’s continuation as a cohesive functioning 

state is important to the United States due to the bilateral economic relationship, Nigeria’s role in the international community, and its centrality to U.S. interests 

in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the importance of Nigeria to the United States, the centrifugal forces that 

tear at the country’s unity and the centripetal forces 

that have kept Nigeria whole are not well understood 

and are rarely examined. Those who make or execute 

U.S. policy will find it difficult to advance U.S. interests without an understanding of the pressures that 

bind and tear Nigeria. 

This monograph examines why Nigeria is important to the United States and the historical, religious, 

cultural, political, physical, demographic, and economic factors that will determine if Nigeria remains 

whole. It identifies Nigeria’s major fault lines and 

makes policy recommendations for U.S. support 

to Nigerians in their efforts to maintain a functioning and integrated state and, by so doing, advance 

U.S. interests. 

NIGERIA’S IMPORTANCE 

TO THE UNITED STATES

Nigeria is central to U.S. interests in Sub-Saharan 

Africa and important to U.S interests beyond the African continent. Its value to the United States is best 

understood in the context of post-Cold War Sub-Saharan Africa’s growing strategic importance.1

 This is 

primarily due to Sub-Saharan Africa’s expanding role 
2

in supplying the world economy, including key U.S. 

allies and potential rivals, with oil, gas, and nonfuel 

minerals. This has been highlighted by the expansion 

of efforts of emerging powers to obtain greater access 

to Sub-Saharan African resources and markets with 

China, in particular, achieving notable success.2

In rough tandem with its global role, Sub-Saharan 

Africa’s significance to the United States has grown 

as it supplies a steadily growing amount of oil to the 

United States, and its commercial market is also growing in significance as U.S. companies tap into nonextractive sectors of the Sub-Saharan economy. The 

United States has already become Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest industrial supplier, with American 

businesses exporting over $6 billion worth of goods to 

Africa in 2010 and importing goods from Africa worth 

more than $16 billion.3

In this context, U.S. Government agencies have 

identified specific U.S. economic and related security objectives in Africa as preserving access to 

natural resources, deterring violent extremist activities (especially those linked to international terrorist 

organizations), and reducing maritime piracy and African-based international crime. In addition, ongoing 

American humanitarian interests in resolving destabilizing humanitarian crises, human rights abuses, and 

health crises with implications for global health are 

also often stressed in Africa.4 These objectives should 

not be seen in isolation, but rather as interrelated ways 

to achieve a prosperous and stable Africa that, in turn, 

will help achieve the wider strategic U.S. goal of a benign environment for global security and growth.5

The centrality of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to 

the achievement of these interests is difficult to overstate. Nigeria is the single most important Sub-Saharan 
3

African source of oil for the United States. It supplies 

11 percent of U.S. oil imports, making it America’s 

fourth-largest supplier in 2011.6 Nigeria ranks 10th in 

the world in proven oil reserves with 37.2 billion barrels, 10th in production, and eighth in exports. With 

5.292 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, 

Nigeria rates eighth in the world. However, natural 

gas production and exports rank much lower, since 

this resource has not been adequately harnessed, but 

is anticipated to replace oil as Nigeria’s leading foreign 

exchange earner.7 Nigeria, by virtue of its central location, large population, diverse and dynamic economy, 

and huge oil reserves, is a major power in the region 

and one of the region’s most politically and economically important states.8

 In fact, Nigeria’s potential 

should make it the “great giant [that] . . . will assume 

the natural leadership” of Sub-Saharan Africa.9

Nigeria is also one of the few credible Sub-Saharan 

African security partners for the United States. Nigeria, which helped found the two principal organizations of African states—the African Union (AU) and 

the Economic Community of West African States 

(ECOWAS)—remains disposed and able to act regionally and, to some degree, outside the region. It has 

been a major contributor of military forces to security operations supported by the United States on the 

continent, notably in Liberia and Somalia. It has long 

been the largest African contributor to United Nations 

(UN) peacekeeping operations in Africa and beyond.10

Nigerian leaders often state their ambitions to play a 

larger role on the international scene, and Nigeria was 

elected a member of the UN Security Council in 2011. 

The United States, then, has both significant economic and security interests in Sub-Saharan Africa that 

depend upon Nigeria’s continued constructive inter-
4

national role. Nigeria can play a productive role in the 

region and contribute to global economic growth as a 

large, economically powerful unified state. At best, no 

group of conceivable Nigerian successor states would 

have the resources to continue these positive roles. At 

worst, a collection of failed states would be sources of 

further spreading instability. 

However, Nigeria’s unity is threatened by disruptive forces that come from within its own borders. The 

most immediate threats to Nigeria’s coherence, and 

therefore its ability to support U.S. interests while pursuing its own, are organized crime syndicates, which 

operate major crude oil theft operations, massive drug 

trafficking, numerous cybercrimes, and rampant piracy that affect U.S. (or allied) economic assets.11 At 

the same time, regionally and ethnically based armed 

groups in Nigeria, some linked to international terrorist organizations, have attacked Nigerian targets and 

declared the United States to be their enemy.

Nigeria, then, is a key country that greatly affects 

U.S. interests in Africa. Nigeria is also a major source 

of environmental pollution in the region. Its large 

population routinely suffers from humanitarian and 

health crises. It is a source of criminal and extremist activities. It is also a major source of energy resources, a potentially large commercial market, and a 

stabilizing presence. 

Nigeria’s strategic location, large diverse population, diplomatic muscle, and growing economy will 

ensure that it plays an important role influencing U.S. 

and other global states’ interests in Africa. For these 

reasons, U.S. policymakers need to better understand 

Nigeria and its people in order to best influence it to 

support mutual interests.
5

NIGERIA AS AN ENTITY

The fault lines along which Nigeria may devolve 

were established in the process of its very formation. 

Like most post-colonial African states, Nigeria is both 

a mosaic of tribes, related or allied ethnic or ideological groups, and nations now linked economically and 

politically under a common government in a colonially imposed territorial unit. The British colonial 

government created a unified Nigeria in 1914 to demarcate its area of control from those of its European 

competitors and because its northern protectorate 

was too poorly resourced to stand on its own. It was 

therefore created as a state by externally imposed fiat, 

not for any internal, organic reason. Before the British 

arrived, there was no shared national consciousness, 

culture, or language in Nigeria, nor was there any sentiment to coalesce its peoples into a coherent nation 

under colonial rule. After the formal amalgamation in 

1914, a north–south split in the colonial administration remained as northern and southern Nigeria continued along divergent political, economic, and social 

development trends. The British then further divided 

the south into eastern and western political entities. 

In 1954, the British started Nigeria towards independence under a constitution that reinforced the threeregion system with robust regional governments under a weak federal system. Thus at independence in 

1960, Nigeria consisted politically of Western, Eastern, 

and Northern Regions, which effectively broke the 

south in two, while leaving the north intact.12 These 

regions reinforced Nigeria’s major geographical, cultural, and ethnic groupings with the Hausa and Fulani 

concentrated in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, 

and Igbo in the southeast. This configuration contin-
6

ued past independence until 1966 when the regions 

were abolished during the run up to the Biafran civil 

war.13 The rough borders between these three areas 

may become Nigeria’s major fault lines along which 

the country could divide. 

The British had created a unifying constitution, in 

an attempt to preserve the integrity of Nigeria as single 

unit, but it was an inherently unstable state structure 

that failed to survive for even a short while. Modern 

Nigeria, more so than other post-colonial African states 

with similar arbitrary borders and conjoined peoples, 

emerged “from a colonial state that had never successfully integrated its different constituent parts—indeed 

that never intended to form a coherent ‘nation’ and a 

corresponding national consciousness.”14

With varying success, subsequent post-independence governments repeatedly attempted structural 

reform to build a legal and constitutional framework 

to govern a united Nigeria. Since independence in 

1960, Nigeria has endured three republics, numerous military dictatorships and unsuccessful coups, 

and both British parliamentary and American presidential forms of government, with none able to adequately deliver stability or a sense of unity to the 

country.15 The creation of its governmental structure 

both unified the country as a political entity while 

incorporating fundamental political geographic divisions. Nigeria’s subsequent political evolution has 

not balanced these built-in centripetal and centrifugal 

forces. To understand these tensions, it is necessary to 

examine the underlying religious, cultural, political, 

physical, demographic, and economic forces that hold 

Nigerians together as an entity and threaten the state 

with fragmentation. 
7

CROSS AND CRESCENT

The most important political fault line, the one between the North and the South, is reinforced by their 

different religious orientations. In fact, the role of religious affiliations in Nigeria has become increasingly 

important, grown violent,16 and demonstrates how 

proximity to past foreign pressures “continues to affect many aspects of Nigerian history and culture.”17

Although traditional religious beliefs were once as 

numerous and pervasive as the many ethnic groups 

with which they were affiliated, by some estimates, 

less than 10 percent of Nigerians today exclusively 

practice the animist beliefs of their ancestors.18 Since 

their earliest contacts, Muslim and Christian missionaries have zealously converted indigenous Nigerians, 

so that approximately 50 percent of Nigerians today 

may be Muslim and 40 percent Christian—and both 

now compete directly against one another.19

Christianity was introduced in the eastern part of 

Nigeria during the 15th century by Portuguese traders.20 Non-Catholic forms of Christianity spread under British influence from the coast during the 1800s 

to establish itself among the southeast, central, and 

partially in the southwest and northeast populations 

of Nigeria. With this new faith, some minority ethnic 

groups reasserted themselves against the acculturating dominance of Islamic rule to which northern 

minorities were subordinated, while others embraced the success imparted to the middle class and 

elites that Christian-Western values rewarded under 

British rule.21

Under the British governing system of indirect 

rule, however, Islamic institutions were protected 

where they already existed, which hobbled Christian 
8

missionary activity in these mainly northern areas.22

There were exceptions, however, as with the Yoruba 

of the southwest, who split between the two major 

religions when many Ijebu tribesmen accepted Anglicanism and British rule after a military defeat in 1892, 

while others remained Muslim.23 In the south, Yoruba 

elites tried to use Christianity to forge a unified Yoruba 

political and cultural identity.24 This was partially successful among the Christian Yoruba, while introducing new strains between Christian and non-Christian 

Yoruba. As a side effect, stress on a common Christian 

identity increased ties with Christians in other ethnic 

groups. It also highlighted differences between the 

more Christian South and the North, where Islam had 

already provided a common identity. 

Islam arrived with Arab travelers and scholars 

across the northern Saharan trade routes in the 9th 

century.25 It was slowly adopted in the north and west 

by already reigning dynastic rulers who used Islam to 

legitimize their rule; promote internal unity; organize 

their administrations; and gain the commercial, intellectual, and military advantages of association with 

the greater Islamic community. The Sefawa dynasty 

of the Kanem-Borno Empire of northern Nigeria, for 

example, ruled for over 1,000 years, in large part because of the unity and practices conveyed by Islam. 

From the 1800s onward, the powerful Sokoto caliphate 

ruled smaller Islamic states in northern Nigeria. It not 

only enabled stability and prosperity, but also forced 

mass conversions to Islam when needed.26 During the 

first half of the 19th century, this caliphate became 

the largest system of theoretical political allegiance in 

Sub-Saharan Africa. It never functioned as a centralized government, however, nor was it imposed primarily by conquest. It represented a connected series 
9

of coup d’états by Muslim and Fulani elements whose 

leaders were awarded the title of emirs, but were, in 

effect, independent rulers. The Fulani emirs sought 

to establish better standards of Islamic observance 

and banded together in case of outside attack, but 

otherwise did not interfere in local governance. The 

minor states annexed into larger formations retained 

their identity, even as a common Islamic culture took 

hold.27 Gradually, Islam became “the common culture 

that transcended ethnicity . . .” in the north, and Islamic Sharia law applied “more widely, and in some 

respects more rigidly . . . than anywhere else outside 

of Saudi Arabia.”28

Traditionally, Nigerian Muslims are predominantly Sunni of the Qadiriyya orders within the Sufi movement, the more mystical form of Islam, organized in 

related, but independent, lodges. However, the competing Tijaniyya order was embraced by some Nigerians to counter the entrenched Qadiriyya structure, 

which resulted in frequent clashes over economic and 

political power between the two Sufi orders during 

much of the 20th century.29 Both, in turn, were challenged by the Izala movement. Founded during the 

1970s in the city of Jos (a city marked by violent clashes between immigrating ethnic groups), it vehemently 

opposed the mysticism of Sufism in favor of a more 

“orthodox” and public role for Islam. Izala has particularly attracted young men hoping to change old 

political and religious structures, but this burgeoning 

youthful population is also increasingly attracted to 

more militant armed groups, including Kala-Kato, yan 

Bori, and Iranian-connected groups.30

Although overt Muslim missionary work by Nigerians had traditionally been directed primarily toward 

animists and “backsliding” Muslims, this changed in 

recent times, most markedly in the 1980s. Partially 
10

inspired by foreign Muslim missionaries, some Nigerian Muslims began to direct their efforts towards 

Christians, with often violent rhetoric.31 The most destabilizing of such Muslim groups may be Jama’atu 

Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad or Boko Haram, as 

it is popularly known, formed in northern Nigeria’s 

Borno state in 2002. It has announced plans to tie itself more closely to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb 

and to the Shabab, al-Qaeda’s ally in Somalia. Recent 

American intelligence assessments have reportedly 

found that Boko Haram has trained with al-Qaedalinked militants in camps in the deserts of Mali and 

may seek to expand its campaign of violence beyond 

Nigeria.32 The U.S. Department of State designated 

three of its key leaders as Specially Designated Global 

Terrorists in June 2012.33 Sometimes also called the Nigerian Taliban, it calls for strict observance of Sharia 

law throughout Nigeria, not just the 12 predominately 

Muslim states of the north where it is now used for 

Muslims (although only two states have applied 

it rigorously).34

There is no national or regional organization that 

can exercise religious authority over Islam or Christianity in Nigeria. Both religions have shown a strong 

tendency to divide into sub-sects, often strongly opposed to co-religionists. In addition, both have grown 

in part from politically inspired conversions. Under 

increased economic and social pressure, this tendency 

to divide into ever more fragmented and divisive subsects with political intentions has notably increased 

in modern times. Overt struggles between the major 

groups break out as well. Southeast states, like Cross 

River, resist the northern states’ move to Sharia law 

by implementing “Christian Law” as a counter.35 Religious competition is often politicized, which compounds the many ethnic and regional differences. 
11

Although these religious, ethnic, cultural and regional affiliations are often exploited as the basis for 

discord in Nigeria, they do not necessarily condemn 

Nigeria to factionalization. The Yoruba serve as a 

modern example of coexistence, since many Muslim, 

Christian, and animist Yoruba dwell peacefully, not 

only in the same cities, but also in the same households.36 Even some northern Christians have accepted 

Sharia law as a better way to protect their lives and 

property than the current corrupt system.37 Historically, Nigerians have shown they can tolerate one another and thrive despite their differences. Conflicts are 

generally exceptions that must be managed. They are 

not indicative of inevitable and intractable conflicts in 

greater Nigerian society.38

THE CULTURES AND REGIONS

With a very large population packed into a relatively small but diverse physical region, a remarkable 

number of distinct groups have emerged from which 

Nigerians may draw strength through diversity or 

fracture along acrimonious cultural and regional lines. 

Depending on the characteristics used to distinguish 

its peoples—including language history, ancestral affiliation, food, customs, social organization, housing, 

settlement pattern, and location—there exist between 

200 and 350 different ethnic groups in Nigeria.39 Ten 

groups comprise 80 percent of the population, with 

four language groups—Hausa (21 percent), Yoruba 

(20), Igbo (17), and Fulani (7)—dominating.40 The Igbo, 

Yoruba, and Hausa (the Hausa and Fulani are usually 

considered as allied groups in Nigeria) may be considered as ethnicities or “nationalities” knitted out of 

smaller sub-units that do not necessarily have a trace-
12

able blood relationship, but are united by a common 

culture and language. The Ilesha, Egba, Itshekiri Ijaw, 

and some other peoples of Nigeria, however, may be 

described as distinct tribes.41

Each ethnic group is associated with an ancestral 

homeland with the Hausa and Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, and Igbo in the southeast. This 

means the north is most influenced by Muslim Arab 

traditions and the south by Western British customs. 

The rough divisions between these three areas may 

be considered Nigeria’s major political seams, as they 

divide Nigeria geographically, culturally, and ethnically. However, there are few ethnically “pure” areas. 

The intermixture and interspersing of ethnic groups 

has been a common historical occurrence in Nigeria, 

with 60 ethnic groups living in the small Niger Delta, 

for example, and the northeast area containing nearly 

half of Nigeria’s ethnic groups.42 Rapid urbanization 

has also attracted migrants from throughout the country so that nearly every ethnic group can be found intermingled in major cities like Kano and Lagos.43

The cultural traits of ethnic groups vary greatly. 

The Yoruba are traditionally more urbanized with a 

highly organized social structure. The Igbo are traditionally organized no higher than the clan level; they 

stress individual achievement and personal advancement, and value education highly. The Igbo are often 

“resented by other ethnic groups for their competitiveness and for their success.”44 Cultural differences such 

as these may irritate ethnic relations, especially where 

there is a large successful immigrant minority, which 

accounts for some of the backlash against the Igbo 

that precipitated both the Nigerian civil war and more

recent violence.
13

Before British colonialism, Nigerians’ cultural and 

regional differences could be seen as a source of interdependence, and “each community had specific attributes for which it was known, a specific contribution 

that it made for the overall well-being of the entire region.”45 Prominent Nigerian historian Adiele Afigbo 

noted in southeastern Nigeria that different cultures 

sought ties with each other to leverage their strengths, 

causing so much cultural overlap “that it was impossible to tell geographically where one group of people 

ended and another began.”46 Widespread contact fostered interethnic marriages, occupation-based secret 

societies, cultural exchanges, and complimentary economic relationships that allowed, for instance, largely 

conflict-free relations between the Yoruba and Hausa 

throughout the 20th century, except for two rare instances settled by mediation.47

In many ways, British rule continued the historic 

trend toward Nigerian “coherence”48 by the imposition of English as Nigeria’s official and most common second language; English common law along 

with Islamic and traditional laws; and a more modern economic structure and education system.49 These 

changes also unified Nigerians in an unintended way 

by creating an educated elite at British schools. This 

elite used English to bridge ethnic divides in order 

to ameliorate the effects of colonialism and eventually overthrow it. To protest British rule, these elite 

members encouraged nationalism as “expressed in 

cultural ways, that is, in deliberate efforts to promote Nigerian food, names, forms of dress, languages, and even religions.”50 However, the political 

consciousness that might have enhanced a sense of 

Nigerian nationality and united the disparate ethnic groups within the borders of the former colony, 
14

also took the form of ethnic nationalism, emphasizing local ethnic culture and traditions. Nationalists 

succeeded in wresting independence from the foreign 

colonialists but failed to integrate the country into

a whole. 

As they competed for power, prestige, and associated benefits, nationalist elites sought support from 

members of their own ethnic groups by stressing ethnic differences. Drawing on the British policy of indirect rule, which endorsed or created local leaders 

(but not necessarily inheritable national institutions), 

different cultural and ethnic groups were mobilized 

for objectives that ostensibly ranged from regional autonomy to the total breakup of Nigeria. Their formation of political parties along ethnic and regional lines 

during the colonial period created an aggressive regionalism based on cultural, religious, and economic 

differences.51 For example, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was formed by northern educated elites 

in 1949, while the National Council for Nigeria and 

the Cameroons (NCNC) started as a national political party, but was quickly taken over by Igbo political 

leaders. In the west, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa metamorphosed into a political party, the Action Group, dominated by Yorubas in 1951. These regional political parties sought to advance regional and ethnic interests. 

They did so partially by defining other ethnic groups 

as political rivals.

Although successful in unifying enduring bases 

of local support, this process took ethnic hostility to 

a new level.52 The development of creating and exacerbating friction between the different ethnic groups 

as part of a deliberate political strategy was a major factor in the disastrous Igbo attempt to secede in 

the 1967 Biafra War. In fact, membership in political 
15

parties was primarily determined by ethnicity until 

the 1990s, when ideology and platforms became more 

important. Increased Nigerian nationalism, spurred 

by urbanization, increasing pride in national symbols, and the horrors of the Biafra War, all weakened 

sectionalism in political life.53

MANY PEOPLES, MANY SYSTEMS

Although sectionalism was weakened by the 

emerging national political process, it did not disappear—partially because of the different political experiences of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria. Pre-colonial Nigeria’s many societies governed themselves 

through a variety of political structures with differing 

economic bases. In the north, the Hausa and Fulani 

developed Muslim-based emirates and the caliphate, 

while the southwest had centralized Yoruba and Benin Kingdoms. In the southeast, the geography and 

diffuse settlement patterns supported less centralized, 

more democratic village-based hierarchies. Throughout pre-colonial Nigeria, additional small independent societies resided among these other entities.54

Although these societies were mainly autonomous, 

they maintained “sophisticated interrelationships” 

that recognized commonalities and linkages among 

them.55 British rule of Nigeria through its policy of 

indirect rule, or Native Authority, tried to use these 

pre-existing traditions and structures as the British 

understood them, but was ultimately unsuccessful in 

maintaining cultures or inter-Nigerian relationships.56

Strong British influence in Nigeria began in the 

early 1800s as interdiction efforts against the transAtlantic slave trade. By the 1860s, the British had established themselves in Lagos to better fight slavery 
16

and develop more legitimate trade. In 1898, the British converted lands previously granted to the private 

Royal Niger Company (RNC) in the north, creating 

the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, which was united with the southern protectorate in 1914 to form a 

unified territory.57

The British governed the new union through a 

policy of indirect rule “to protect and empower traditional social structures, thereby making the colonial 

experience as unobtrusive as possible”58 to local inhabitants by using the “institutions they themselves 

had invented.”59 This method was formed and used 

most successfully in the north where established authorities served as proxies for the British. However, it 

came at the expense of societal growth. The north was 

especially hampered in adopting Western education, 

which in turn retarded economic growth compared to 

the south.60 Nonetheless, the British controlled “uncivilized or inappropriate” behavior such as the harsher 

measures in Islamic law.61

Indigenous rule and indirect rule did not coordinate well in the south. This forced traditional cultures 

to change, imposed alien governing schemes, and 

implemented policies that were a “disaster.” Proof of 

these failures were seen in the subsequent riots in the 

southwestern city of Abeokuta in 1918 and Aba in the 

southeast in 1929.62 Inevitably, colonial governance 

changed societies throughout Nigeria, twisting indigenous structures and relations until they were ineffective, but not replacing them sufficiently with Western 

substitutes.63 Thus began the problems that continue 

into today, including competing sectional and sectarian interests and the tendency of political leaders to 

exploit ethnic and religious rivalries rather than build 

national interests and unity.64
17

Subdividing a state composed of ethnic groups in 

conflict is often used as a way to spread power and alleviate minorities’ fears of stronger groups. However, 

in the case of Nigeria, it enabled regionalism and political conflict by entrenching the political parties of 

the three major ethnic groups.65 Independent Nigeria 

continued this practice when the Midwestern Region 

was carved from the Western Region during a violent 

crisis in 1963.66 After Nigeria’s first military coup in 

1966, General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi feared the creeping fragmentation of Nigeria along cultural fault lines. 

He abolished the regions and the accompanying preferential treatment given to indigenous groups in their 

homeland. Rioting began in the north, and a countercoup set in motion the violent ethnic conflicts that initiated the attempted secession of the Eastern Region to 

become Biafra and Nigeria’s bloody civil war.67

The new leader, General Yakubu Gowan, declared 

an emergency and divided the country into 12 states68

to allay fears of domination by any one group and 

to reduce the strength of the oil producing Eastern 

Region.69 Once the Biafran secession was crushed in 

1970, splintering continued with the number of federal states increasing to 19 in 1976, 21 in 1987, 30 in 1991, 

and 36 in 1996.70 Although more minority groups are 

appeased by having greater influence within one of 

the 36 states, not all of the over 250 ethnic groups were 

satisfied since most do not have their own homeland 

by which to control revenues from the central government.71 The major ethnic groups are also unhappy since their influence is diluted—with the former 

Northern Region, for example, now fractured into 19 

states. Whether the existence of these many states will 

act as the balancer against domination by major ethnic groups remains to be seen.72 However, a call for 35 
18

more states was made in 1994, although the current 

number seems firm in the 1999 constitution that established the fourth republic.73

Creating new states attempts to address the problems of ethnic and religious balance, but fracturing 

creates smaller and weaker states, some of which are 

not economically viable without the support of shared 

federal revenues. Many small states also increase the 

relative power of the central government with respect 

to the states and may have been intentionally created 

to remove future threats of secession.74

This fragmented arrangement has also proven so 

politically unwieldy that an informal arrangement of 

six geopolitical zones75 was developed for power sharing among the regional elites, with each of the top federal positions to be rotated among one representative 

from each zone.76 Although a balancing mechanism, 

zoning hardly fosters unity, as each top official may 

not be selected on merit and may represent his zone’s 

interests over that of the country.77 This system was already out of kilter by the election of southern President 

Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, when many Northerners 

felt that this cycle was theirs to fill the presidency.78

The regionalization, fracturing, and zoning of Nigeria 

have not stabilized the competing demands of ethnic, 

religious, economic, and political constituents.

From historic political structures to partisan modern party activities, politics has been a mostly divisive 

force in Nigeria, with strong communal tendencies 

overbearing statewide interests. Colonial governing 

seemed to have reinforced detrimental elements of local 

governing systems without reinforcing positive aspects 

or establishing a better workable arrangement. Modern Nigerians have resorted to factionalizing their state 

to accommodate ethnic fears and aspirations through 
19

a method that seems to have established an unwieldy 

governing system that reinforces fragmentation of 

the state.

THE LAND

Without a well-rooted national, political, or ideological identity, Nigeria can then be seen less as a single 

nation-state and more as a complex region resulting 

from many interacting influences and conflicting pressures over its long rich history. The most basic of these 

influences, the nature of the physical environment itself, has both unified and divided Nigeria. Aspects of 

Nigeria’s physical environment exercise centripetal 

influences, creating a natural unity for the country.79

The widely diverse distribution of natural resources, 

such as the North’s tin, iron ore, coal, limestone, lead, 

and zinc, and the South’s crude oil and natural gas,80

and resulting dissimilar economic opportunities led 

to a robust and complementary economy. This helped 

knit Nigeria together since the time of independence. 

Nigeria’s physical geography also unifies the country through its river systems and the potential for the 

regions to complement one another through human 

activities that harness local natural specialties. The 

Niger River and its main tributary, the Benue, unify 

Nigeria through major waterways and water sheds 

that define the country as a physical region distinct 

from its neighbors. Historically, these waterways are 

the primary lines of communication and commerce 

binding Nigerians together. Even here, however, rapids and falls common to the river systems, and large 

seasonal swings in water flow due to the monsoons, 

curtail navigation along some parts of the rivers.81

The “Y” shape formed by the confluence of the Niger 
20

and Benue Rivers also creates and links three separate regions. Ironically, the very communication links 

between them are sometimes cited as dividing lines 

by Nigerians. 

Nigeria’s vast and diverse land area, about twice 

the size of California or four times that of the United 

Kingdom (UK), can be divided into two physical zones: 

the forest zone of the south with tropical forests and 

tall grass-derived savannah, and the grassland zone of 

the north with natural savanna and near desert condition sub-zones.82 These geographic zones include seven relief zones that, along with proximity to the Gulf 

of Guinea, result in multiple climates ranging from 

humid tropical of the south to the arid semi-desert in 

the north.83 Rainfall defines two distinct seasons, wet 

and dry, the length and intensity of each depending 

on the seasonal dominance of monsoonal dry winds 

from the Sahara and rain-giving winds from the Gulf 

of Guinea.84 Thus the north may receive only 20 inches of rain during its 5-month rainy season, while the 

south may receive 120 inches over 9 months.85

Such physical differences result in varying types of 

vegetation. These differences in vegetation mean differences in the availability of agricultural pursuits, indigenous building materials, and types of settlement 

patterns86 that shaped local cultures in different ways. 

The northern Sahel savanna and semi-desert allowed 

the formation of cattle raising, cavalry, and caravan 

based centralized states, with strong cultural influences from North Africa flowing along well-established 

trade and communication lines. The often impenetrable forests of the south protected the independence of 

small agriculture-based states and larger more egalitarian confederations. The even more difficult terrain 

of the southwest gave rise to the multiple tightly knit 
21

independent communities with separate languages 

that remained highly resistant to outside penetration 

or control. The physical environment allowed or encouraged the formation of communities with fundamentally different ways of life over which a political 

superstructure was imposed. 

Physical geography, then, has helped shape and 

define cultural differences in Nigeria through variation in climate, vegetation and agricultural pursuits, 

availability of mineral resources, and the need to sustain the environment. Over 33 percent of Nigeria’s 

land is arable (compared to 18 percent for the United 

States and 23 percent for the UK).87 Throughout their 

history, agriculture has been Nigerians’ main economic activity, still accounting for 30 percent of gross 

domestic product (GDP) and 70 percent of the labor 

force in 2010.88 Water and land resources are thus critical to social stability throughout Nigeria. Guinea corn 

and palm are the main indigenous food crops in Nigeria, but maize, cassava, yams, rice, and some fruits 

have been successfully introduced over the past 2 centuries.89 These are grown mainly for consumption in 

Nigeria and much of it by subsistence farmers who account for 60 percent of the working population.90 Cotton, cocoa, peanuts, rubber, and palm oil are Nigeria’s 

main commercial crops. 

Climate and soil dictate where crops are grown, 

with more dry-tolerant crops like peanuts, grains, and 

cotton planted in the north; cocoa in the southwest; 

and palm, roots and tubers, and maize throughout the 

south.91 In the north, the raising of livestock is a traditional agricultural pursuit adapted to the ever drier 

environment.92 In the southwest, monsoonal conditions create a beneficial second short dry season that 

allows harvesting of two crops annually to better sup-
22

port an urban culture, while the transitional climate 

of the Middle Belt allows a wide variety of crops like 

tomatoes, yams, and soybeans.93 Fishing is an important source for food and trade along the coast, in the 

Niger Delta, and in the north around Lake Chad, although the latter is diminishing due to reduction of 

the lake.94 Commercial crops have also suffered, with 

cocoa production, the only remaining major agricultural export, dropping from 300,000 tons to 180,000 

tons in 25 years.95

The dry north is particularly sensitive to changes 

in climate, and, since droughts in the 1970s and 1980s, 

the resulting shifts in human and animal patterns. For 

instance, demand for irrigation water among the four 

countries that border Lake Chad has quadrupled— 

much from demand in Nigeria—accounting for half 

of the 90 percent loss of surface area this once major 

body of water held in 1960.96 The overall pressure of 

a rapidly growing population on land resources also 

contributes to over cropping, over grazing, and deforestation, resulting in soil impoverishment, erosion, 

and desertification in the north where the Sahara Desert advances by two to three miles every year.97 The 

natural environment of Nigeria is degrading rapidly, 

pressuring its people, economy, and politics. In addition to an increase in overall stress, one immediate 

effect of environmental change has been increased internal migration with the consequent accentuation of 

existing fault lines or the creation of new ones. 

A clear example of the differences can be seen in 

central Plateau State, which is located in the heart of 

the divide between the mercantile, largely Muslim 

pastoralist peoples of the north and the traditionally 

farming, mostly Christian peoples of the south. Here 

the mass movement of “Northern” herders into farm-
23

ing areas has accentuated existing fault lines between 

different cultures and ethnic groups. Agriculture and 

pastoralism have coexisted side-by-side for centuries, 

and many herding and farming communities in the 

same area have often developed usually beneficial interdependent relationships. However, in the last few 

decades, small-scale conflicts between herders and 

farmers have been repeatedly linked with other ethnic, political, and religious conflicts and escalated into 

widespread violence and displacement of people.

For example, in 2004, President Obasanjo of Nigeria 

declared a state of emergency in Plateau State, 

when herder-farmer conflicts resulted in ‘nearmutual genocide’ of Christians and Muslims and 

more than 20,000 refugees fleeing to neighboring 

Cameroon . . .98

The flow of refugees into Jos, its largest city, combined with outside Muslim and Christian support 

(both Nigerian and foreign) for co-religionists, have 

greatly increased tension. Armed groups such as Boko 

Haram have used the opportunity to stage attacks and 

bombings on civilian targets in an apparent effort to 

expand the conflict, with the Nigerian government 

caught in the middle. 

POPULATION

Shaped by Nigeria’s physical geography, environmental pressures, and economic changes, the settlement and demographics of the population are marked 

by a pattern of uneven distribution. Nigeria’s total 

population of 155,215,000 people as of 2011 makes it 

by far the most populous state in Africa and the 8th 

largest in the world. Its high birth rate of 1.9 percent 
24

(an average of 4.74 children born to a woman during 

her lifetime) means that Nigerian society currently 

counts 41 percent of its population below the age of 

15, and its burgeoning population will double in size 

in just over 37 years at its present growth rate. Such 

numbers strain economic growth and human development, which is demonstrated through related poor 

health statistics: a life expectancy of 47.6 years in 2011 

(220th in the world), 91.5 infant deaths out of 1,000 in 

their first year of life, and 840 maternal deaths out of 

100,000 births, ranking respectively 10th and 9th worst 

in the world. A high risk of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and 

other tropical disease exposure in Nigeria explain, in 

part, these abysmal numbers.99

Nigeria has three main population clusters: the 

north around the city of Kano with a density of over 

100 people per square mile, the southwest with a density of over 140, and the southeast with over 150.100 In 

2010, Nigeria's population was split evenly between 

urban and rural locations, but it is rapidly urbanizing 

at an annual rate of 3.5 percent.101 In 1970, less than 

10 percent of the population lived in towns of 50,000 

people or more. Most of those were in the southwest 

where city living is part of traditional Yoruba culture, 

making them the most urbanized group in Africa.102

In contrast, the Ibibio and Igbo people of the southeast live in a densely populated region, but traditionally dwelled in dispersed compounds or villages, not 

towns, due to the inability of the terrain and vegetation to support larger concentrated settlements.103

Rural to urban migration is the single most important movement of people in Nigeria. Since the 1970s, 

spells of drought in the Sahel have driven environmental refugees from northern Nigeria and neighboring countries into urban slums. Kano’s population has 

increased by 14 fold in just 45 years, to 3.6 million, 
25

making it the second largest city in Nigeria.104 Refugees from politics and violence also drive migration 

in Nigeria. There have been movements after many 

recent ethnic clashes, including one million Nigerians displaced between 1999 and 2004105 and the Nigerian Civil War’s 1.8 million refugees from 1967 to 

1970. Movement goes as far back as the early 1800s 

when thousands founded wartime refugee camps 

that became the modern Yoruba cities of Abeokuta, 

Oke-Odan, Ibadan, and Ijaye.106 Economic opportunity is a third reason for internal migration, as showcased by people of southeast Nigeria whose poor 

agricultural land, high unemployment, and few local opportunities “forced many of the people, most 

especially the Igbo, to immigrate to other Nigerian 

cities as traders.”107 The success of the Igbo as small 

business men and civil servants often make their presence as migrants in other parts of Nigeria resented by 

indigenous people.108

The southwest coastal city of Lagos is the epitome 

of these trends. Its population of 10.2 million makes 

it one of the world’s 25 megacities.109 Encountering 

grinding poverty and lacking the support and restraints of their ethnic cultures, many urban migrants 

have not successfully integrated into their new environs, making this predominately youthful population “prone to lawlessness and violence” and creating 

intercommunal clashes.110 Thus a combination of factors makes for uneasy tensions between migrant and 

local populations.

One demographic indicator of particular interest 

is education, for the divisions it represents and the 

unity it offers. Education is often embraced as the 

means to reverse undesired economic and developmental trends for the betterment of society. However, 

only about two-thirds of the Nigerian population is 
26

literate, averaging 9 years of schooling. The difference 

between male and female literacy is about 15 percent, 

with a 2-year spread in education.111 Unfortunate as 

those numbers are, the regional and cultural differences in embracing Western-style education bode 

worse for Nigerian unity and progress. 

Southern Nigeria readily adopted western education, and the Christianity that went hand-in-hand 

with it, during the colonial period.112

Through this, the Southern elite was . . . able to 

dominate the civil service and other sectors that 

demanded formal educational training. . . . Formal 

education also proved an advantage in raising loans 

from the banks, providing funds to start or consolidate 

new businesses.113

Western-style education grew faster in the south 

than in the north,114 where well-established Islamic 

societies favored their own religious based education systems and, often with good reason, suspected 

a Christian agenda even in allegedly secular Western 

education. These suspicions persist. It is telling that the 

name of Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamic terrorist 

group, means “Western education is sinful” (forbidden by Islamic law); and the group repeatedly attacks 

schools.115 The violence against Igbos at the opening 

of the Nigerian civil war was due in part to Northerners, reaction against a unitary federal government, 

which “aroused fears in the north that the more highly educated Igbos would soon dominate the federal 

government.”116

Thus literacy rates, school enrollment, and success 

in national examinations decrease the further north 

each is measured, and “female literacy is as low as 21 

percent in the northeast and north.”117 Islamic schools 

have not resolved the education gap. In Kano state in 
27

2010 for instance, 80 percent of the 3.7 million of those 

between 5 and 21 years of age are estimated to attend 

some form of Islamic school, either exclusively or in 

addition to a state school. “Many of these neither live 

up to parents’ moral expectations nor impart the skills 

necessary for developing the region.”118

Western-style education remains an important 

means for modern advancement, however, and was a 

crucial element shared by the elite that deposed British 

imperialism and established Nigeria’s modern sovereignty. Common experience in Western-style schools 

“enabled the elite to come together, thus overcoming 

some of the barriers created by ethnic and regional divisions.”119 Education became both a unifying factor 

(providing common ground for those, especially the 

elites, who received it) and a centrifugal factor, particularly in pre-independence days, for those who saw 

it as a Christianizing agent120 or as yet another institution dominated by the South.121

Recognizing education’s divisive and unifying 

potential, Nigerian nationalists used a mass educational program to reform colonial society and address 

the regional educational imbalance to foster national 

integration in the 1960s. U.S. assistance through the 

Carnegie Corporation, motivated partly by Cold War 

politics during the era of decolonization, played a 

significant role in reforming the elitist British educational system. This made it possible for Nigerians to 

link the opening to education for different classes and 

the expansion of access across regional lines to the 

larger project of economic development and nation 

building.122 Most importantly, this effort helped create and spread a common English-speaking national 

Nigerian culture.

The demographics of the Nigerian people hold 

promise as a unifying factor through education and in-
28

tegrated settling, while also posing pressures through 

poorly addressed health needs, rapid population 

growth, poorly managed urbanization, as well as suspicion of Western education by some and inadequate 

literacy for modernization.

THE ECONOMY

Perhaps the greatest single factor shaping the Nigerian economy is the change from a relatively integrated agricultural-based economic system with 

a growing manufacturing based sector to a highly 

concentrated single resource-based economy. In precolonial days, commercial routes united Nigerians 

who traded coastal fish and salt for kola nuts and cassava from the forests; beans, horses, and cattle products from the north; and yams from the Middle Belt.123

Although much of Nigeria’s food today is imported, 

the age-old trade in regionally raised food stuffs continues between north and south, reinforcing their codependency.124 Beyond the roads, river transportation 

networks bind the country, as noted earlier, as do the 

railroads built by the British in the late 1800s and early 

1900s. The railroads improved inter-Nigerian trade in 

food and cash crops, exported minerals from the interior, allowed the spread of ideas, and fostered migration to pursue economic opportunities—thus more 

closely integrating northern and southern Nigeria.125

Nigeria’s economic differences make its regions depend upon and complement one another.

PETROLEUM POLITICS

At independence in 1960, the economy was then 

relatively well-integrated. Agriculture was the main-
29

stay of the economy as well as the cultural base of most 

ethnic groups. In 1964, it contributed 61 percent of the 

GDP and 71 percent of total exports. Nigeria was not 

only self-sufficient in food production, but also was an 

exporter until 1973. 

Economic integration began to unravel as oil rose 

to dominate the Nigerian economy. Since its discovery in 1956, oil has played an ever greater and now allconsuming role in Nigeria’s economy, politics, and society.126 Petroleum’s share of GDP rose from 1 percent 

in 1960 to 26 percent in 1970, and its share of total export revenue grew to 94 percent by 1976.127 As investment shifted, agriculture’s contribution to GDP and 

total exports quickly fell.128 Further undercutting local 

producers, crude oil earnings were primarily used for 

huge imports of consumables.129 This transformed the 

material base of society.130 High government revenue 

derived from easily controllable petroleum created a 

classic “rentier” state, with the government receiving 

revenue streams independent of broadly based taxation and the electorate, and hence largely unaccountable to its people. 

A similar crowding out of investment was seen in 

the once promising manufacturing sector. Pre-colonial 

Nigeria had a long tradition of industry that exploited 

available natural resources like cotton for textiles and 

palm for oil processing and soap production.131 During the colonial period, Western economic influence, 

especially a monetary base for the economy, rooted 

quickly and deeply among the coastal societies, but 

was resisted in the more static cultures of the north, 

economically widening the existing physical, cultural, 

and religious gaps.132 These were the foundations for 

larger scale manufacturing starting in the 1950s.133

Over the last 2 decades, manufacturing based on Nigeria’s natural resources continued with the produc-
30

tion of petroleum-derived chemicals and fertilizers, 

paper and pulp, steel, cement, textiles, beverages, food 

stuffs, and rubber products.134 Most of these industries 

are located in vibrant southern Nigeria where natural 

resources, capital, and a better educated work force 

are centered.135 But manufacturing remains starved 

of investment and infrastructure, which is more often geared towards extraction activities. In electrical 

generation, for example, Nigeria produces only 40 

percent of the country’s needs, forcing manufacturers and households to resort to expensive electrical 

generators for power.136 With a heavy focus on oil 

production, a long tradition of manufacturing in Nigeria has been unable to progress sufficiently due in 

large part to poor policies, lack of investment, and 

insufficient infrastructure. 

Nigeria’s economy is large, reflecting its huge 

population and centuries of integration into the global 

economy. The Nigerian economy ranks 32nd in the 

world in GDP purchasing power parity, with $378 billion in 2010, and a very healthy real growth rate averaging over 7 percent since 2003.137 However, a dismal 

economic record for the decades preceding this recent 

spurt dropped per capita income from a promising 

$1,500 during the 1970s to less than $300 in 1998 before 

recovering to $1,470 per capita GDP (official exchange 

rate) in 2010.138 During the worst period (1980-2000), 

Nigeria’s poverty rate doubled to 70 percent where 

it stubbornly remained until 2007 (the latest figures 

available). Even the recent higher growth rates can 

create ethnic friction when development opportunities bring together previously separated groups, with 

new arrivals resented by the natives.139 Nigeria’s great 

economic potential has so far been under-realized, 

with a “scarcity of economic activities foster[ing] competition over resources.”140
31

CORRUPTION

The most harmful effect of the vast sums petroleum brings to Nigeria is almost certainly the equally vast corruption it leaves in its wake. Widespread 

corruption explains much of the poor performance 

in all of Nigeria’s economic sectors. Transparency 

International, the corruption nongovernment organization (NGO) watchdog, rated the perception of corruption in Nigeria’s public sector at 2.4 (where 10 is 

the cleanest government). This places Nigeria at 143 

of 180 countries measured.141 Corruption has dogged 

the government for decades, with up to a quarter of 

oil revenues “disappeared,” and Nigeria’s anti-corruption chief reporting “70% of Nigeria’s oil wealth 

was wasted or stolen in 2003, however, by 2005 the 

number dipped to ‘only’ 40%.”142 The scale of corruption has grown alongside the revenues collected from 

oil, giving the ruling elite easy access to state money and shorting its citizens of economic and human 

development funds.143

Deepening poverty throughout the country is 

widely blamed on Nigeria’s leaders who are often 

seen as “only looking after their own interests.”144 The 

explosion of corruption during periods of military 

rule damaged the military’s legitimacy as an institution and the related claims that it should govern in 

order to “clean up” Nigerian political life.145

In Nigeria, elected office has become one of the 

most effective ways of getting rich and gaining personal power.146 In addition to outright theft, the elite 

also rig the system in their favor to the detriment of 

ordinary Nigerians and the economy by preventing 

repairs to government refineries, for example, to benefit vested interests in imported petroleum products, 
32

or by stalling power plants in order to profit from the 

sales of generators.147 The traditional client-patron relationship in Nigerian societies lends itself to modern 

corruption, where, for instance in the north, “a powerful and wealthy feudal elite” held power for 200 

years through patronage and appeal to religious sentiment.148 Corruption is recognized for its ill effects, but 

official and civil society efforts to thwart it have frequently been opposed or circumvented. Even reform 

through religiously led struggle, or jihad for Muslims, 

has been co-opted, driving some Nigerians into more 

militant Islamic fundamentalism to combat this evil.149

Poor economic conditions, lack of opportunity, and 

outright corruption all contribute to violence within 

Nigeria, often on a regional or ethnic basis.150

The dominance of petroleum in Nigeria’s economy and politics has made the country subject to a 

single, internationally fluctuating source of income, 

has diminutized other sectors of the economy, and 

has made Nigeria one of the most politically unstable 

and corrupt states in the world.151 In particular, the 

concentrated location of oil and accompanying natural gas deposits in (and increasingly off-shore) the 

fragile coastlands area of the Niger Delta had even 

more profound effects. This transformed the Delta 

into “one of the most intractable sources of political 

destabilization, [which] constitutes a profound threat 

to national security, and economic development of the 

Nigerian state.”152

Problems in the Delta.

The Niger River Delta, the source of much of Nigeria’s current wealth, consists of 9 of Nigeria’s 36 states 

and occupies 12 percent of the country’s territory. The 
33

core delta states of Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, and Akwa 

Ibom have more than three-quarters of the onshore 

oil production and half of the regional population. 

The concentration of oil production and population 

has greatly degraded the environment, devastating 

local fishing and farming,153 with little to no effective 

compensation. This results in the paradox that the 

Delta has Nigeria’s lowest standard of living and suffers considerable environmental degradation from its 

rich hydrocarbon extraction.154 Little has been done to 

counter the environmental despoliation caused by unfettered oil exploitation. Flaring of by-product natural 

gas also pollutes crops and air, and is destructive to 

wildlife. Farming and fishing grounds have been ruined, and gas flaring in the Delta is cited as Africa’s 

single biggest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.155 The predominantly rural population, which 

consists of at least 40 different ethnic groups with 

perhaps 250 languages and dialects, has developed 

a common identity of being “Delta people,” without 

a strong sense of being Nigerians. Cities like Warri, 

Port Harcourt, Sapele, and Ughelli have long since 

exceeded their carrying capacity and have little to 

no infrastructure.156

Responding to the destruction of their traditional 

economic and cultural base, much of the population 

at least passively supports a wide variety of armed 

criminal and political groups who kill for hire and 

target Western oil companies for extortion. Smuggling 

of stolen petroleum by sea in exchange for weapons as 

well as cash is endemic (and a significant cause of corruption in the Nigerian military).157 Armed separatist 

groups repeatedly form and reform. Violent clashes 

have resulted in 1,500 deaths annually in the region

and a destabilizing flow of internally displaced per-
34

sons, adding to an already high rural to urban migration rate.158 The Delta has become a significant fault 

line in Nigeria.159 Paradoxically, it may also be a unifying factor, as the other regions appear unwilling to 

either lose the economic resources it controls or allow 

competing groups to gain complete control.

WHAT DIVIDES CAN UNITE

Despite its destructive role, both in the Delta and 

nationally, the oil economy is also a strong unifying 

factor, perhaps the most important at work in Nigeria 

today. Oil revenues distributed by the central government to Nigeria’s states and provinces may be the most 

powerful of all incentives for unity among the many 

disparate economic, religious, ethnic, and regional 

groups. Each faction is beholden to the federal government for its share of the wealth, and with it resulting patronage, increase in government workers, and 

more central government control over the economy.160

Ironically, the distribution of this wealth is often the 

cause of conflict among Nigerians, but, with better 

management, Nigerian oil revenues could be the key 

to stability and progress. The high economic growth 

rates recently achieved in Nigeria may be testament 

to the success of such improved management. As rising standards of living tend to reduce factionalism, 

the new economy and high oil prices reinforce longestablished economic centripetal forces in keeping Nigerians working together.161

Despite its past of poor economic performance and 

rampant corruption, which have stunted and twisted 

Nigeria’s economy to the detriment of many of its people, the economy remains the single most integrating 

force in Nigeria. With a history of regional specializa-
35

tion and resulting trade, respectable current economic 

growth, and vast natural resource wealth to boost economic and human development, Nigerians may see a 

brighter economic future together than apart—assuming that politics and communal strife do not intervene.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY

The ultimate cause behind the regional, ethnic, and 

religious rivalries and conflict, made worse by previous colonial and federal government policies, may 

now be the struggle for control over Nigeria’s wealth, 

mainly its petroleum income. Management of Nigeria’s political economy (a broad concept that looks for 

economic motives behind political and social actions, 

and is concerned about “the interconnection of economic and political structures in social formation”162) 

may well decide Nigeria’s future. Oxford University’s 

Paul Collier explains that the primary motivation for 

conflicts are the opportunities to be gained from them, 

rather than the past grievances endured—meaning 

that regional, ethnic, or religious affiliations may be 

more the traits around which to organize to attain 

political economy ends rather than the real causes of 

violence.163 This political economy explains in part 

why Nigeria is Balkanized today, with disputes exacerbated by institutional weaknesses, identity group 

rivalries in zero sum competition, and political corruption. The political economy is both Nigeria’s most 

important centripetal and centrifugal factor, and its 

management will determine Nigeria’s future unity.

Identity affiliations can be instrumentalized by 

groups to protect or enrich themselves through political power and economic resources, and cumulative 

bouts of violence make each instance of organizing such 
36

instruments easier.164 The Berom, mainly Christian 

farmers from the central Plateau State, are an example 

of an ethnic minority who fear that weak connections 

and lack of patronage from the federal government 

allows dominant groups to displace them or despoil 

their lands with pollution from nearby tin mines. 

They organize as ethnic and economic groups to gain 

protection, autonomy, and control over resources.165

Similar situations concerning the rights of indigenous 

minorities and migrants play out from the Niger Delta 

to northern Kaduna state creating some of Nigeria’s 

largest and deadliest conflicts.166 To alleviate such 

concerns, the federal government has granted larger 

minorities financial considerations for their loyalty to 

the government, and some have been granted their 

own states.167

Institutional deficiencies in Nigeria have abetted 

the scramble for resources and power. As noted earlier, poorly imposed Western structures and systems 

made indigenous methods and modern institutions 

dysfunctional.168 In modern Nigeria, the inadequate 

condition of public services, policing, infrastructure, 

and the bureaucracy result in inequitable distribution 

of public goods and services. The dependence on and 

need for this public distribution, and its effect of corrupting officials and politicians, aggravates “social 

divisions and undermine[s] the legitimacy of government.”169 Organizing identity groups to protect minorities against dominating majority groups, of which 

the Berom are an example, is enshrined in Nigeria’s 

constitution by which state and local governments 

may protect indigenous communities by discriminating against non-natives.170
37

However, competing claims to rights and entitlements create friction between groups where place of 

origin is more nebulous than the constitution envisions, and indigeneship contradicts other constitutional rights guaranteeing all Nigerians freedom from 

discrimination and freedom of movement.171 For example, the Niger Delta violence occurs mainly because 

“Service delivery across the region is appalling and 

heavily compromised by patronage and corruption,” 

despite this region having produced $200 billion in 

petroleum revenues for the federal government during the past decade.172 Out of desperation, some Nigerians, especially the youth, resort to vigilantism or 

ethnic militias to supply policing where it is formally 

insufficient or go so far as violence and terrorism to 

attain their political or economic demands.173 Unfortunately, the laws and structures in place to ensure 

regional and national protections and progress have 

been undermined since independence through poor 

implementation by Nigeria’s elites who have proven 

venal, partisan, self-serving, and lacking in national 

political will.174 Strong leadership can correct the 

problems of weak institutions, but Nigeria has none. 

This lack of strong national leadership encourages factionalism through indigeneship and competition for 

power and resources.

The constitution thus enables partisan leaders to 

exploit the compounding fractures in Nigerian society by organizing groups in self-serving, sometimes 

violent, ways. This is another cause of Balkanization 

in Nigeria and a tradition dating back to the British 

policy of divide and rule. Politics used for private 

ends to enjoy the wealth of public resources is widely 

prevalent in Nigeria.175 Distribution of finite resources and wealth through political power is a zero sum 
38

competition among political elites who exacerbate 

their constituencies’ differences for their own personal 

gain and to deflect attention from overall poor governance and economic conditions.176 Political parties in 

Nigeria seem to organize to economically and politically advance their own elite by doling out patronage 

to clients in arrangements one author described as 

“Mafia-like associations.”177

The instrumentalization of identity is apparent in 

the recurring crises in Plateau State’s capital of Jos. 

Here fear that domination by Muslim Hausa-Fulani 

settlers would displace Christian indigenous elites 

from their privileged position motivated the use of 

the indigenous masses as “pawns on the chessboard 

of the political elite.”178 The expectation of access to 

lucrative powerful positions in government by the 

elite is rampant at state and federal levels and is a pillar of the zoning system described earlier.179 Before 

their proliferation, state governments were fiscally 

self-sufficient, but since the 1960s, the power of states 

has grown relatively weaker as the size of their bureaucracies grew and they began to depend on federal 

subsidies.180 What has not changed is the “desire of 

members of the political class for access to power and 

money,” and need to control the federal government 

and its distribution of revenues that leads to deep 

regional antagonisms.181

The allocation of resource revenues from the federal government is probably the central point around 

which ethnic groups contend, shifting the distribution formula based on who holds power. States that 

produce most of Nigeria’s revenues have been able to 

extract more funds for their development, “the derivation principle.” These funds have grown from 3 percent in the early 1990s to 18 percent, although they are 
39

still not the level of 20-25 percent sought. Some groups 

use threats of violence to gain political and economic 

strength. Ethnically and regionally organized groups, 

like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger 

Delta (MEND), curbed Nigeria’s petroleum output 

by about 25 percent through violence in 2006, driving in part changes in revenue distributions.182 This is 

a successful example of a common method by which 

groups “use violence so that they can gain greater favor from the government.”183 Nigeria’s political economy is a lucrative resource divided among its elites 

who mobilize identity groups based on ethnicity, religious, and regional affiliations although those mobilized masses more often insufficiently benefit from 

their participation.

Weak institutions and mobilization of identity 

groups are often exploited by Nigeria’s ruling class 

for their own selfish benefit. Political and economic 

corruption, then, may be the origin of the fighting 

over the political economy, and the violence derailing 

further Nigerian unity and development. Economic 

gains from holding office are the primary motivation 

of politics in Nigeria.184 Distorted traditional forms 

of the client-patron relationship have co-opted constituents of politicians, civil servants, and the military 

into making political corruption a venue by which 

connected Nigerians are enriched. Voters are often 

convinced that they gain when their identity groups 

benefit by the actions of politicians, and are mobilized 

to their service—legitimate and otherwise.185

The enriched elite and their associates, then, must 

protect their power to continue to derive these benefits. Thus, to maintain political position, corruption in 

modern Nigeria has been essential through electoral 

fraud, killing and imprisoning opposition members, 
40

use of violence and intimidation, extortion and outright stealing to name just some methods.186 Nigerian 

elites employ competing identity groups to ensure the 

future of their power and economic bases, and address 

their constituents’ “political anxiety” and “collective 

fears of the future,” which the elites callously create 

or reinforce.187 Unfortunately, the perception that the 

masses in these identity groups benefit from factional 

politics is misplaced, because the greed and lack of accountability of its leaders, especially at the state and 

local levels, leave little to trickle down. This accounts 

for the miserable state of the Niger Delta communities despite billions in revenue now allocated to these 

states.188 Since the elite depend on resource distributions rather than taxes for funds needed for governing 

and their illicit personal revenues, they have grown 

dismissive of their constituents except when needed 

to mobilize in support of the elite’s interests.189 Local 

militias and terrorist groups, like MEND and Boko 

Haram, are a reaction against the corruption of local 

ethnic and religious elites. Their aim is to gain more 

control of power and resources for the constituents 

rather than their corrupt representatives and leaders.190 Economic and political corruption by Nigerian 

elites has hijacked the political economy of Nigeria, 

leaving in its wake a fractured and impoverished 

country and a roiling citizenry.

Despite its complex past, reason for hope remains 

for unity among Nigerians, especially as the Fourth 

Republic matures politically. Historian Adiele Afigbo 

believed Nigerian unity could be rebuilt through the 

lessons of its pre-colonial histories, in which differing ethnic, religious, regional, economic, and political 

groups complemented one another and settled differences more constructively than today, although not 
41

conflict free.191 Recent political events also may indicate that Nigeria’s fractious past is ending, with four 

consecutive elections for executives with successful 

transfers of power and the 2011 poll showing a marked 

improvement over previous ones, as signs of cooperation. The election in 2011 of President Jonathan, a minority Ijaw from the impoverished Niger Delta state 

of Bayelsa, may be a welcome change from business 

as usual.192 As Nigerian citizens experience the current federal political system, they are gaining a more 

tolerant view of its workings, even among skeptical 

northern Nigerians.193 The single strongest factor in 

preserving Nigeria is perhaps that no powerful group, 

from the military to the minorities, seriously wants to 

dismember Nigeria, all seeing the economic advantages of unity, even while fighting over its spoils.194

Nigeria today hangs in balance with unity or devolution both possible. The result depends upon how its 

leaders guide Nigeria through its crises and manage 

its extreme and violent elements.

FAULT LINES

Nigeria already possesses the characteristics of a 

shatter belt, the fracturing of a region under persistent 

stress from external forces. Parochial interests created 

by religious, cultural, ethnic, economic, regional, and 

political secessionist tendencies, as outlined herein, 

are endemic in Nigeria. Under such stresses, Nigerian 

unity may fail. Should Nigeria’s leaders mismanage 

the political economy and reinforce centrifugal forces 

in Nigeria, the breaks to create autonomous regions 

or independent countries would likely occur along its 

previously identified fault lines.195 Having already experienced one brutal civil war, Nigeria is at risk for a 
42

recurrence of conflict or dissolution, especially since 

some of the underpinning motivations of the war remain unresolved.196 From 1999 to 2006, 14,000 Nigerians were killed across the country, and three million 

Nigerians were displaced in intercommunal clashes.197

Should Nigerians be unable “to reconcile the imperatives of nationhood with entrenched regional, 

ethnic, and religious identities,” they could split under conditions similar to recent successions in Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Yugoslavia, or the de facto break 

in Somalia.198 Indeed, East Timor, Eritrea, Croatia, and 

Somaliland indicate that the weakest point of failing 

states is along relict colonial borders. Each of these 

contiguous states was administered separately by different colonial masters before being poorly merged together prior or subsequent to independence. Of more 

interest for Nigerian unity is that this may also occur 

between regions separately administered by a common colonial power as occurred between Malaysia 

and Singapore, and North and South Sudan, where 

differences proved irreconcilable after the departure 

of British administration. At least some of the resulting regions and states of a possible Nigerian devolution may divide along such internal lines.

Although the two protectorates that formed modern Nigeria formally existed for only short periods (14 

years from 1900 for the north, and 8 years from 1906 

for the south), they themselves were formed from earlier autonomous protectorates (the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos to the west, a smaller Protectorate 

of Southern Nigeria to the east extending westward 

across the Niger River to include modern Ebo state, 

and a very recognizable Protectorate of Northern Nigeria).199 This north-south colonial border represents a 

myriad of persistent physical and human differences 
43

in Nigeria that endure today as a relict political boundary. As early as 1905, the northern border of southern 

Nigeria was delimited by the British as a straight line 

from the German Kamerun border 10 miles south of 

Takum due west to Ida through then uncharted territory, to follow westward the approximate northern 

borders of present day states Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, 

and Oyo.200 Although this line has been adjusted subsequently to reflect better knowledge and evolving 

circumstances, its essence has remained little changed 

to the current era.201

The two protectorates that joined to form the 1906 

Protectorate of Southern Nigeria are also important in 

any possible future devolution story because they approximate a second fault line in modern Nigeria along 

the Niger River and its Delta, which demarcates the 

traditional areas of the Yoruba and Igbo. The western Lagos protectorate was acquired by the British in 

1861 and grew in size until 1886 when the territory 

was first administered directly from Lagos itself. After 

the Berlin Conference in 1885, the British established 

the separate Oil Rivers Protectorate spanning from the 

Niger Delta to Old Calabar. In 1893, this protectorate 

was expanded westward to the Lagos protectorate 

and northward to the Niger River port city of Idah 

(Ida or Idda) 40 miles south of Lokoja, approximating 

the later boundaries of the 1906 Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. Unlike the territorial self-government of 

Lagos, however, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria 

was administered directly from the Colonial Office in 

London.202 The 1906 amalgamation of southern Nigeria proved fleeting, however, when in 1939 the British split it again along the Niger River, confirming the 

deep differences between the more urban and centrally organized Yoruba as the Western Province, and the 
44

village-oriented sub-tribal stage of development of 

Sobo, Igbo, and Ibibio Eastern Province.203 Again colonial administration reflected traditional differences 

that persisted in manifesting themselves throughout 

Nigeria’s history and started a long sequence of fracturing in Nigerian political states.

In turn, these early colonial regions reflected 

closely the outline of 19th century pre-colonial states 

and peoples with the Fulani Sokoto Caliphate and 

Bornu Kingdom to the north; Igbo, Ibibio, and related 

peoples’ communities to the east; and a collection of 

Yoruba dominated states to the west, including the 

Kingdoms of Benin and Warri. Only the Igala, Idoma, 

Tiv, and Jukun people along the south bank of the 

Benue River were outside of the 1960 Northern Region 

to which they would be a part.204 Early British administrators recognized the divergent interests of these 

western, eastern, and northern regions, but were compelled to merge them because the northern protectorate could not economically sustain itself. In one form 

or another, these internal regional boundaries proved 

durable for a century.

The administrative lines that separated the protectorates also roughly demarcate a series of other physical and human differences within Nigeria that have 

sharply delineated its people, as outlined throughout 

this monograph. Physical geography, which is the 

foundation for human activities such as agriculture, 

housing structures, settlement patterns, and other cultural activities helped to form the different regional, 

ethnic, and cultural groupings in Nigeria. Such groups 

may complement each other, adding to Nigeria’s diversity and strength through trade, diplomacy, and 

diffusion of ideas, as often occurred in the region’s 

pre-colonial history.205 However, if the differences are 
45

mismanaged or accentuated for political reasons or 

personal gain, such groupings could become the entities around which to rally in defense of perceived and 

antithetical group interests, as may occur in political 

economy disputes. 

The lines of division were recognized in 1939 when 

three divisions were officially constituted by the British as the Eastern, Western, and Northern Provinces 

with strong regional governments organized differently in order to allow governing to reflect each separate heritage. These divisions were along significant 

internal borders that separated Yoruba affiliated people to the southwest, from Igbo affiliated people in the 

southeast, and from the Hausa-Fulani people in the 

north. This attempt at federalism was insufficient to 

prevent further Balkanization within independent Nigeria. It eventually fragmented into 36 states. Within 

this subsequent fragmentation, the north-east-west 

internal borders running as described remained virtually unaltered. They continued to act as powerful 

psychological borders and fault lines.

The perseverance of such fault lines is due to the 

endurance of the underlying factors that caused them. 

The identity and history associated with these divides 

make them a convenient rallying point for the disaffected and threatened. Such was the case in 1967 when 

the people of the southeast, led by the Igbo, seceded 

from Nigeria as Biafra in the disastrous civil war. Here 

the differences in peoples and regions were not just 

theoretical, but a manifest reality in which one-half to 

two million people died,206 emphasizing the significance of such divisions in devolution. Recent conflict 

between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria reminds 

us that the north-south border could be another 

fracture point. 
46

These geographic fault lines are reinforced in Nigeria by easy to obtain public resources, such as oil, 

which make a rentier state more prone to secessionist 

movements. This is especially true when the resource 

is spatially concentrated and the economy dependent 

upon it, but its economic impact to the source region 

would be diluted through sharing with others in the 

country. Not only does this help to explain why recently discovered oil spurred Biafra to secede, but 

also why other ethnic groups such as the Ibibio, Efik, 

and Sobo acquiesced to the Igbo effort. The most obvious reason for secession was that Igbos were attacked 

in the north in 1967, although not the other natives 

from the southeast. However, economic control over 

a lucrative resource is a powerful incentive to create 

a political community within a contiguous, if ethnically diverse, region, especially if the resource may 

then finance the rebellion as occurred in Nigeria’s 

southeast.207

Before the civil war started, however, a different 

arrangement in Nigerian politics further illustrates 

this point. Before 1965, Nigeria’s main source of income and major export was cocoa, produced in the 

southwest by the Yoruba. Then Nigerian politics was 

dominated by a northern and southeastern alliance 

in order to receive their share of cocoa revenue. “The 

discovery of oil . . . destroyed the rationale for this political alignment. Very rapidly, a new coalition formed 

between the North and the South-West against the oil 

rich South-East.”208 In Nigeria today, a cultural and 

political entity is developing in the Niger Delta among 

the many groups that see themselves as “Delta People,”209 in reaction to their powerlessness over the rape 

of their environment and worst standard of living in 

Nigeria despite being the source of the country’s oil 
47

wealth. The region is more geographically compact 

and resource rich than Biafra and hosts Nigeria’s 

only serious, if currently dormant, liberation movements in the Nigerian Delta People’s Volunteer Force 

and MEND.210

The divides painted in broad brush here are not 

as sharp as presented. The Middle Belt, the southern 

band of the old northern protectorate,211 is a transition 

area of cultures, physical geographic influences, and 

allegiances that encompasses 180 native ethnic groups 

and defies easy assignment to the Northern Region 

and its colonial and Islamic predecessor territories, 

since the Middle Belt was never fully absorbed by 

them.212 The border is just as indistinct in the Niger 

River delta where not only is the river hard to define, 

but also the many overlapping tribes are difficult to 

categorize into Yorubaland or Igboland. The cosmopolitan nature of Nigeria’s cities and some of its regions, such as the northeast, represents all manner of 

religious, ethnic, cultural, economic, and other affiliations from across Nigeria.

Although indistinct lines and intermingling of 

allegiances and economic interests in Nigeria make 

devolution difficult and unattractive, these factors do 

not make it impossible. India and Pakistan split after 

independence in 1947 under similar circumstances 

with a bloody partition, followed by decades of intermittent war fueled by political, religious, and ethnic 

interests. The difficulty of a Nigerian split, should it 

occur, and the economic stakes involved, may predetermine that it will also be violent, as the two Sudans 

are demonstrating. 

Forced migration could also solve the problems 

of intermingled peoples of different allegiances and 

indefinite boundary lines in Nigeria. In Nigeria, the 
48

history of what is now referred to as ethnic cleansing 

goes back over 200 years, as seen in the original establishment of some Yoruba cities as war time refugee camps. Ethnic cleansing was rampant during 

the Nigerian civil war when over two million Igbos 

fled east to Biafra, escaping retribution for the Igboled military coup attempt that precipitated the civil 

war.213 Recent bouts of ethnic and especially religious 

conflict in northern Nigeria has already begun to force 

minorities out of cities. Thus, classic lines for violent 

devolution exist in Nigeria, exacerbated by many 

regional differences.

SOLUTIONS

What is Being Done? The Nigerian Response.

To avoid devolution, the Nigerian government 

has managed centrifugal forces through a variety of 

means. They have encouraged a sense of national 

consciousness through the use of inclusive nationalist symbols ranging from use of the flag and the common currency, to the bold step of relocating the capital 

from the South’s Lagos to the more central location 

of Abuja.214 More substantially, since economic wellbeing and open responsive political systems are important to citizens to avert civil conflict and splintering,215 there have been significant efforts to improve 

the economic well-being of Nigerians as a whole 

and make the Nigerian government more effective 

and responsive. 

Nigerian anti-corruption measures have had some 

positive effect. The government has recently implemented more market-oriented reforms to the economy along International Monetary Fund requirements, 
49

and has begun a public-private program to improve 

power generation and distribution, and road networks.216 Strong economic growth averaging over 7 

percent GDP expansion during the past decade also 

helps to contribute to economic well-being despite 

deeply rooted centrifugal forces, as was also true 

of Yugoslavia from the 1950s to 1970s in overcoming the intrastate ethnic horrors perpetrated during 

World War II.

Politically, there is also hope for the unity of Nigeria in its legal and power sharing arrangements. Civil 

society is still active and the legal establishment has 

been surprisingly effective. The Nigerian Supreme 

Court, for example, has played an important role in 

preserving the federal system by balancing the demands of the states vis-à-vis the central government.217

The ruling party often brings smaller opposition 

groups together under a “big tent,” offering incentives 

for cooperation and stability. This use of negotiation 

to share power has significantly restrained the use of 

violence, which would otherwise be the only method 

of obtaining power by competing political blocs.218

Ethnic and regional power brokering (such as the 

de facto rotation of the top six federal government 

posts among different groups) and repeated structural 

changes to the constitution and the government have 

acted as both centrifugal and centripetal forces. They 

have helped temporarily alleviate regional and ethnic 

tensions. They also weaken the long-term legitimacy 

of the state, however, by making it more the result 

and object of elite power brokering, which effectively 

excludes marginalized groups. This undercuts other 

claims of state legitimacy, such as representation of 

national interests or popular support.
50

What Is to Be Done? The U.S. Role.

Since the fate of Nigeria is an important national 

interest to the United States, the U.S. Government 

should engage with Nigerians to assist, as it best may, 

with improving Nigeria’s stability and prosperity, 

and supporting its sovereign integrity. U.S. interests, 

as described in the opening section of this monograph, 

would be damaged to varying degrees by Nigeria’s 

collapse into a collection of successor states. U.S. action alone will not preserve Nigeria, as centripetal 

and centrifugal forces are deeply rooted in Nigerian 

society. Nigeria’s future will be decided on the ability of Nigerians to successfully manage their political economy, sustain centripetal forces, and contain 

centrifugal forces.

Small Foot, Big Footprint.

By using the low cost, nonintrusive approach 

outlined here that strengthens centripetal forces in 

Nigeria, the United States can reinforce an important 

strategic partner that “has consistently bent but never 

broke.”219 U.S. efforts should be aimed at strengthening institutions that can build a unified Nigeria and 

mitigate the damage if Nigeria splinters by making 

successor states more viable. These efforts should 

include expanding the U.S. diplomatic presence, 

supporting anticorruption measures at the top and 

bottom, improving the quality of non-partisan and 

technical advice to government officials, and focusing 

and enhancing security cooperation activities. 

Nigeria’s wealth and deep political involvement 

in international affairs greatly insulate it from outside 

pressure.220 However, the United States can signifi-
51

cantly assist Nigerian efforts by focusing on key issues 

where the United States has particular strengths and 

interests at stake. This would include the central issue 

of the management of the political economy where 

the United States can play a useful role with a whole 

of government approach helping develop the institutional and physical infrastructure necessary for the 

state and the economy to function. This should not be 

taken as a recommendation to increase the absolute 

value of U.S. assistance to Nigeria. Nigeria is already 

the second largest recipient of U.S. bilateral foreign 

assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa, following only 

Kenya.221 However, new targeted low cost measures 

would be useful and should make existing programs 

more successful.

To be effective, a whole of government approach 

is necessary. The unified combatant command for 

the region, U.S. African Command (AFRICOM), with 

its declared intention of integrating the expertise of 

military and civilian officials, should spur the creation 

of an interagency coordinating group, specifically 

focused on Nigeria, as similar focused groups have 

been created for countries(such as Iraq and the Philippines) facing similar challenges to national unity 

with similar implications for U.S. interests. The chair 

of this coordinating group should have sufficient 

stature to represent the United States or participate 

in the U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission, other bilateral groups, and international donor conferences. 

The formation of such a group would signal recognition of Nigeria’s increasing importance to policymakers just as the creation of AFRICOM was intended to 

signal U.S. recognition of Africa’s increasing strategic 

importance in 2007.222
52

Security Assistance.

As part of a unified, whole of government U.S. 

strategy, security assistance can be particularly useful 

in a country where the military is traditionally influential. Nigeria has received counterterrorism assistance 

from the United States, including $2.2 million for the 

development of a counterterrorism infantry company 

and $6.2 million aimed at building the capacity of the 

counterterrorism unit and tactical communications interoperability. The United States should also consider 

more fully supporting the counterinsurgency oriented 

approach President Jonathan has taken in the Delta. 

His amnesty and jobs program has seriously weakened existing rebel groups. This is in contrast to the 

more counterterrorism oriented approach taken by 

the Nigerian government with respect to Boko Haram. For instance, seizing the close relatives of alleged 

members clearly seems to have produced actionable 

intelligence for further raids on Boko Haram cadre. 

However, it has not addressed the causes for Boko Haram’s rise and will likely spur more revenge attacks. 

Boko Haram itself grew out of the forcible suppression of an earlier, similar movement. 

Nevertheless, Boko Haram has increased the level 

of sophistication in its attacks and expanded the range 

of attacks southward despite the fact that it has little 

appeal to non-Northerners.223 If this trend continues, 

the United States should consider using its own intelligence capabilities to better target Boko Haram’s 

leadership. However, the elimination of Boko Haram’s 

leadership by any element could have permanent effects only if there is a corresponding effort to address 

the more fundamental centrifugal forces outlined 

herein that create the political space in which Boko 

Haram and any likely successor organization operate. 
53

In and Out of the Delta. 

To support the more broadly based counterinsurgency approach that the Nigerian government is 

apparently using in the Delta, which is designed to 

reduce the conditions that cause insurgencies, the Department of Defense (DoD) should offer organizational and logistical support through its U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers for infrastructure construction that both 

enhances security and creates mass employment opportunities. Successful projects should at least temporarily reduce the number of the local unemployed who 

have formed a recruiting pool for the armed militias. 

The United States should also be willing to provide 

direct security protection for such projects, where 

Nigerian forces are unable to do so. While Western 

oil companies have been willing to fund such infrastructure projects in the Delta, adequate technical and 

management of logistical support has been difficult to 

obtain due to the security situation.

Given the scale of U.S. interests in the region and its 

obvious importance to Nigeria, the United States and 

Nigeria should jointly commit themselves to forming 

a coordinated strategy for Delta regional development, which should include the multidonor Niger 

Delta Planning Group, civil society, and the private 

sector.224 Although numerous plans for regional development projects already exist, many of which have 

integrated local input, few have been implemented to 

any effect.225 Vigorous United States support for plans 

that have already been created locally and with local 

input, incorporated into a coordinated strategy with 

Nigerian government support, could have a powerful, 

energizing effect while insulating the United States 
54

against charges of foreign interference. A similar approach should be taken in other troubled regions, such 

as Central Plateau State.

This kind of approach, using the U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers, could be especially important in terms of 

road construction in other key regions, such as Central 

Plateau State. Passable roads foster local commerce, 

particularly small farm-based agricultural commerce, 

and tie the regions together. Of course, they also make 

it possible for Nigeria’s security forces to operate. Unfortunately, since 1991, Nigeria has lost 31,500 kilometers (km) of paved road, which has deteriorated into 

gravel (although petroleum is the major component 

of asphalt). Other key infrastructure that helps keep 

Nigeria together is similarly neglected. The once wellrun railroad system has declined dramatically. Nigerian ports are among the least efficient in the world due 

to poor government management policies and lack of 

support.226 Much of the deterioration is due to local 

bandits or other armed groups and an absence of an effective government presence. U.S. security assistance, 

with possible additional technical and management 

support, for such infrastructure projects would greatly reinforce the forces that hold Nigeria together. Both 

the existing National Guard linkage and the new U.S. 

regional brigade for West Africa should be used along 

with Nigerian forces on such projects. This would 

also create the opportunity for expanded training on 

peacekeeping operations for Nigerian troops who will 

be deployed outside the country on peacekeeping operations. It would also give American forces valuable 

expertise in West Africa.

Although such projects would have a developmental effect, they should be seen and managed as security 

assistance projects that are part of an integrated counterinsurgency approach. Such a cohesive approach 
55

would best be coordinated, if not managed, by AFRICOM. It is the U.S. organization best equipped to lead a 

broadly based counterinsurgency strategy.

Into the Regions.

Although the fate of the country will likely be decided by internal tensions, the United States has had 

little contact with, and even less understanding of, 

the regions outside of the former capital, Lagos, and 

the current capital, Abuja. Since Nigerian fault lines 

are regionally and ethnically based, the United States 

should make every effort to understand the regions 

beyond these cities. Opening or reopening small U.S. 

Embassy posts in Nigeria’s three most important regional center cities, the North’s Kano, the Southwest’s 

Ibadan, and the Southeast’s Port Harcourt, would allow the United States to acquire direct knowledge of 

critical regions and issues along Nigeria’s geographic 

fault lines. It would be especially important that they 

reach out to local religious leaders with whom there 

has been little to no contact. Such mini-posts should 

have “regional military attachés” to liaise with regional Nigerian commands. To make best use of these positions, service as a “regional military attaché” should 

be tied to assignments in AFRICOM.

An important function of such officers would be 

to identify Nigerians who could participate in expanded training and exchange programs, including 

the International Fellows Program at the U.S. Army 

War College. After their posting, these officers would 

also bring back first-hand knowledge to the staffs and 

commands to which they are assigned.

Without a sustained presence, it is difficult to see 

how the United States can expect to understand local 

dynamics or forge relationships with regional leaders. 
56

This is particularly important as the most prominent 

threats to both Nigeria’s future and U.S. interests are 

regionally based. The continuing conflict in Plateau 

State and the city of Jos, the attacks on oil installations 

in the Delta, and Boko Haram’s sectarian attacks are 

all examples of regionally based threats that have implications for Nigeria’s future as a state. This proposal 

is a relatively low cost, high-visibility way to show 

U.S. interest in Nigeria and its people, while learning what policies the United States can best adopt to 

protect its interests.

Corruption.

Corruption, particularly petroleum-related corruption, is a central cause of the weakening of the Nigerian state at all levels. It is also an obvious issue for 

the United States to help address. The Nigerian government has had some success with anticorruption 

measures that should be taken further by the United 

States. Technical assistance by U.S. anti-fraud units to 

the relatively new Sovereign Wealth Fund to better 

manage petroleum revenue could also be very effective.227 This type of assistance is only lightly intrusive 

on internal Nigerian affairs, but offers the benefits of 

making officials more honest in their dealings and returns a larger percentage of Nigeria’s annual wealth 

back to government control.

While trying to throttle demand for smuggled oil, 

the United States can also help reduce the ability of 

smugglers to transport and sell stolen oil. Successful 

Nigerian crackdowns on piracy and smuggling have 

caused pirates and smugglers to operate further along 

the West African coast in international waters beyond 

the range of Nigerian patrol boats. Nigeria has been 
57

given modest amounts of training and equipment for 

its coastal forces by the United States. However, both 

coastal and maritime capacities are limited. A similar 

lack of capacity and regional cooperation in the area 

as a whole means that there is currently little prospect 

of a comprehensive regional strategy.228 With good relations with the countries involved, the United States 

should make efforts to help forge a regional interdiction strategy, with possible additional support to both 

Nigeria and neighboring Gulf of Guinea countries. As 

a third party, the United States can play a useful role 

as an “honest broker” in forging a regional agreement 

for interdiction in the Gulf, with some degree of assistance and support eventually required from the U.S. 

Coast Guard and Navy. 

As part of this effort, the United States should support Nigerian initiatives to develop and use oil tagging (chemical identity marking of oil at its point of 

origin) and a certification scheme to track the theft 

and sale of “blood oil” in order to control smuggling 

and corruption from bunkering.229 Combined with expanded technical assistance to Nigerian and foreign 

financial institutions to track ill-gotten wealth, this has 

the potential to help remove a major source of funding for weapons by separatist groups in the Delta and 

help reduce the possibility of arms smuggling. By 

reducing demand and degrading the ability of smugglers to transport stolen oil, this approach should increase the flow of legitimate oil into the world market as well as the flow of legitimate revenue to the 

Nigerian government.

As much of the arms and oil smuggling is done 

through the Delta itself, a land presence will be required. Much of the Delta has no government military or police presence. Here again, use of the region-
58

ally aligned brigade to train local forces for security 

and police duties in what is essentially a domestic 

peacekeeping operation would be extremely helpful. AFRICOM’s insistence on the importance of civilian protection in this kind of operation would be 

especially valuable for a long-term solution for this 

critical region.

Soft Power.

As noted, the U.S. funded Carnegie CorporationNigerian cooperative project of the 1950s was used 

successfully to help build a common Nigerian national 

consciousness. However, there has been no sustained 

follow-up, and the declining educational system has 

become a priority target for groups such as Boko Haram. To strengthen this important centripetal force, 

the United States should encourage the formation of 

a new cooperative program between Nigeria and private U.S. institutions to similarly reform Nigeria’s educational curriculum for the 21st century. Combined 

with an expanded academic exchange program at the 

university level, this could have profound effects over 

the long term in shaping a national consciousness and 

perhaps intercultural tolerance. This should be linked 

with an expanded AFRICOM supported exchange 

and curriculum reform program supporting the same 

values within Nigeria’s military and security-related training institutes, such as the Nigerian Defence 

Academy and the National Institute of Policy and 

Strategic Studies.

In a similar fashion, the United States should fund 

and support a cooperative project to establish a robust 

interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. 

Although there have been several attempts by Chris-
59

tians and Muslims in Nigeria to improve relations and 

reduce violence, they have tended to fade out over 

time. The United States has a well-established tradition of organizing more enduring interfaith linkages 

and programs and could be a useful third-party intermediary in building on these Nigerian-led efforts. 

Unlike Nigerian government agencies, the United 

States is not perceived as captured or dominated by 

various regional power blocs. It can therefore supply 

political cover to independent Nigerian efforts, serving as an honest broker and funder. The United States 

Institute of Peace-supported Interfaith Mediation Center, a joint Christian–Muslim effort, has already had 

success in resolving conflicts between Christians and 

Muslims in the Middle Belt and in the North.230 U.S. 

support for Nigerian-led efforts, exercised through 

experienced private and quasigovernmental American institutions seen as neither Christian nor Muslim, 

would be very helpful. Through such means, the United States could build a national mediation network 

based in the regions, while establishing useful ties 

to Nigeria’s religious institutions. Given the importance AFRICOM attaches to local conflict resolution in 

peacekeeping operations, it would seem useful to form 

linkages with mediation centers. Assistance to resolution of local religiously-linked disputes, whether it is 

done through engineering, agricultural, or security 

support, have proven time and again to be critical in 

restoring peace to troubled regions from the Philippines to the Balkans. Assistance offered by the regionally aligned brigade and National Guard operations, 

in conjunction with the Nigerian military with which 

military-to-military linkages already exist, would be 

useful in themselves and offer peacekeeping training 

that would be useful in any context.
60

Governance. 

While there are extraordinarily talented individuals within the Nigerian civil service, the government 

as a whole often lacks the managerial depth to fully 

manage the political economy. This is most telling in 

Parliament, which is the only place where all regional 

and ethnic groups have a chance to be represented, 

but which often lacks the technical capacity to fully 

analyze its decisions. Helping Nigerians train and 

resource nonpartisan parliamentary staff and institutions, such as the equivalent of the U.S. Congressional 

Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service, would be enormously useful. Similar programs 

throughout the civil service, focused on management 

and technical areas, could help revitalize the once 

proud civil service that was damaged during the periods of authoritarian rule. Including Nigerian civilian 

government executives in strategic studies programs, 

such as those at one of the colleges at the National Defense University (NDU), would support both better 

understanding by key Nigerian civilian leaders and 

strengthen productive civil-military relations with the 

Nigerian officers attending these programs. The Nigerian government currently does not send civilian 

government defense leaders to NDU, but they do to 

the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) Senior 

Leaders Seminar, where select Nigerian military and 

civilian leaders meet with equivalent U.S. and other 

African leaders for 2 weeks of illuminating frank discussions on important African security issues. The 

ACSS Next Generation of African Security Sector 

Leaders Course does the same thing for mid-level 

leaders. Focusing on rebuilding or strengthening services to existing leaders and institutions should make 

assistance more acceptable and effective in practice.
61

AFRICOM.

In sum, the United States should take a whole of 

government approach in forming a strategy for Nigeria. The DoD would play a key role, most notably 

through AFRICOM, in this unified U.S. effort. 

As part of a broad effort of internal peace building 

with the Nigerian government, the DoD should offer 

organizational and logistical support through its U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers for infrastructure construction that enhances security, diversifies and strengthens 

the economy, and creates mass employment opportunities. However, unless the United States commits 

to a foreign internal defense stance in Nigeria, which 

seems doubtful and Nigerian acceptance of a foreign 

operational force within its borders even more so, 

coordination among U.S. agencies, NGOs and international government organizations (IGOs), and major U.S. and other national corporations already in 

Nigeria would be the best way to enhance economic 

development. In some parts of Nigeria, security remains a major obstacle. However, this obstacle could 

be defused by convincing the federal government to 

partner in meaningful consultation and execution of 

such cooperative efforts with local societal groups, 

governments, and economic organizations. Recent 

U.S. experience with stability operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan makes the DoD an informed and experienced participant within the interagency and international effort, but caution must be exercised regarding 

which lessons are applied. They must also be done in 

a way that complements the complexities of the Nigerian environment. The U.S.-Nigeria Binational Commission may be the best venue to bring together the 
62

United States, Nigeria, NGOs, and private ventures 

for coordination and implementation, since two of its 

priority topics are economic and infrastructure development and social service delivery.

To foster a unified approach, AFRICOM should 

lead the creation of an interagency coordinating group, 

specifically focused on Nigeria and threats to its national unity. AFRICOM already has ties and liaisons 

to all of the major U.S. agencies involved in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as better staff and resources with 

which to manage an interagency effort. However, in 

this role, AFRICOM may best be used as a behind the 

scenes “back room staff” supporting and coordinating the work of the State Department, the U.S. Agency 

for International Development (USAID), and other 

agencies to keep a civilian face on U.S. Government 

involvement.

The interagency coordinating group effort should 

include in its focus Nigeria-based or related transnational security threats in West Africa. Here the 

military’s natural focus and lessons learned from 

experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan will be informative. Using this group to augment U.S. engagement 

through the Binational Commission is appropriate, 

given its focus on Nigeria’s regional security role and 

recent bilateral discussions on security in the crucial 

Niger Delta region.

As part of this coordinated effort, AFRICOM 

should use the U.S. regional brigade for West Africa to 

expand linkages and build institutional memory of issues and processes that both Nigerians and Americans 

consider important. This should be done by building 

upon the existing Nigerian military and California 

National Guard relations. Training local forces for security and police duties to professionalize their efforts 
63

and legitimize their use in the eyes of their citizens 

would be an important advance in Nigeria’s stability. 

Assuming a U.S.-supported regional agreement for 

oil and weapons smuggling interdiction in the Gulf 

of Guinea, AFRICOM should use the U.S. regionally 

aligned brigade to train local forces in land-based interdiction, and the Coast Guard could do the same 

for maritime. However, Nigerian sensitivities might 

dictate that such training not occur in Nigeria, or at 

least only in a classroom. However, such opportunities would also provide the regionally aligned brigade 

with valuable cultural understanding and a meaningful exchange with a force that has also conducted 

peace and stability operations in which both sides 

may learn from each other. Additionally, AFRICOM 

should expand its exchanges with Nigeria’s military 

and security-related training institutes and assist with 

their curriculum and institutional reform. This should 

be coupled with the broader suggested effort focused 

on civilian institutions. AFRICOM, and other U.S. 

DoD-related institutions, should include civilian Nigerian government executives in expanded strategic 

studies exchange programs.

CONCLUSION

Nigeria’s future as a unified entity is under threat 

along distinct and identifiable fault lines. These threats 

are reflections of internally generated centrifugal 

forces that compete with the counterbalancing centripetal forces that have held Nigeria together since 

it was formed. However, new factors have greatly 

frayed the Nigerian union. Religion has increasingly 

become more divisive in Nigeria and has exacerbated 

tension along the fault lines. The concentration of vast 
petroleum wealth has exercised a tremendous disruptive force on the economy and the government. The 

explosive growth of corruption may well hollow out 

the Nigerian state as it destroys the economic and 

political systems that support it. Nevertheless, there 

are powerful centripetal forces at work. Regional and 

ethnic groups fear domination by other neighboring 

groups without the protection of a unified state. The 

Biafran War and local clashes have made clear the potential cost of separation. For most groups, it is still 

more economically advantageous to share in the larger national economy. Long-standing cultural, historical, and economic ties still bind the country together. 

Although not yet robust, there has been an evolution 

of a national consciousness within a common historical experience and a shared English-speaking culture. 

If centrifugal forces triumph over centripetal forces, U.S. interests will be damaged. Under grave threat 

of devolution, Nigeria’s integrity and prosperity are 

not only possible, but also can be positively influenced 

with judicious U.S. policies and should be a priority 

for U.S. policymakers. Although Nigeria’s fate is primarily in Nigerian hands, it can be positively affected 

by American actions. Nigeria’s future is in balance 

and the United States should help tip the scales. By 

helping Nigerians protect Nigerian interests, it will 

help protect its own.

64
65

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ENDNOTES

1. Anthony Lake and Christine Todd Whitman, More Than 

Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach toward Africa, Report 

of an Independent Task Force, Washington DC: Council on Foreign 

Relations, 2006, p. 3. 

2. Alexis Habiyaremye, “CHINAFRIQUE, AFRICOM, and 

African Natural Resources: A Modern Scramble for Africa?” The 

Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Vol. 12, 

No. 1, Winter 2011, p. 79.

3. The Atlantic Council, J. Peter Pham, “Why Nigeria Matters,” The New Atlanticist Policy Blog, April 2011, available from 

www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/why-nigeria-matters-0.

4. Lauren Ploch, Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and 

the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, July 22, 2011, pp. 14-19.

5. “Statement of Gen. Carter F. Ham, Commander, United 

States Africa Command before the House Armed Services Committee,” Hearing before the House Armed Service Committee, April 3, 2011, Washington, DC U.S. Government Printing 

Office, p. 3.

6. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Nigeria,” August 2011, available from www.eia.gov/countries/cab.

cfm?fips=NI.

7. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The 2011 World Factbook, 

2011, p. Nigeria - Economy, availabale from https://www.cia.gov/

library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html; and Uzoigwe, 

“Nigeria to 1960,” p. 3.

8. EIA. 

9. G. N. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960: An Overview,” Levi Nwachuku and G. N. Uzoigwe, eds., Troubled Journey, Nigeria Since the 

Civil War, Dallas, TX: University Press of America, 2004, p. 4.
74

10. The UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara 

(MINURSO), the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), the African 

Union/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), the UN 

Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), 

and the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), in addition 

to those working as UN forces in places as distant as Haiti and 

Timor-Leste.

11. The United States is particularly interested in the security 

of the Gulf of Guinea, primarily because of its importance in exporting oil from West Africa to North America.

12. Maurice Iroulor Imoh, The Development of an Atlas of the 

Nigerian Political Evolution, Masters Degree Thesis, Columbus, 

Ohio: The Ohio State University, 1977, p. 85.

13. Toyin Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, Westport, CT: 

Greenwood Press, 2001, p. 17; Simeon H. O. Alozieuwa, “Beyond 

the Ethno-Religious Theory of the Jos Conflict,” Africa Peace and 

Conflict Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 26, available from www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/APCJ_Vol3No2Dec2010.pdf; and Toyin Falola, The History of Nigeria, Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 

1999, pp. 11, 68-69.

14. Ashley Jackson, “Nigeria: A Security Overview,” The 

Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 96, 

No. 392, October 2007, p. 588. 

15. Isaac O. Albert, “The Sociocultural Politics of Ethnic and 

Religious Conflicts,” Ernest E. Uwaizie, Isaac O. Albert, and 

Godfrey N. Uzoigwe, eds., Inter-Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution in Nigeria, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999, p. 70.

16. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 30; International 

Crisis Group, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, Africa Report 168, Abuja/Dakar/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 

December 20, 2010, pp. 16-20, available from www.crisisgroup.

org/~/media/Files/africa/west-africa/nigeria/168%20Northern%20

Nigeria%20-%20Background%20to%20Conflict.pdf; and Falola, The 

History of Nigeria, p. 7.
75

17. Reuben K. Udo, Geographical Regions of Nigeria, Berkley, 

CA: University of California Press, 1970, p. 8; and Falola, Culture 

and Customs of Nigeria, p. 31.

18. CIA, “Nigeria - People and Society.”

19. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, pp. 6-7; and 

Alozieuwa, p. 22.

20. Yushau Sodiq, “Living in a Pluralistic World: Constraints 

and Opportunities,” The Muslim World, Vol. 99, No. 4, October 

2009, pp. 652; and Christopher Hewitt and Tom Cheetham, Encyclopedia of Modern Separatist Movements, Santa Barbara, CA: 

ABC-CLIO, 2000, pp. 54-55.

21. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 5.

22. Ibid.; and Peter M. Lewis, Nigeria: Assessing Risks to Stability, Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 2011, p. 4, available from csis.org/files/publication/110623_

Lewis_Nigeria_Web.pdf.

23. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 56; and Hewitt and 

Cheetham, pp. 54-55.

24. Wale Adebanwi, “The Clergy, Culture, and Political Conflicts in Nigeria,” African Studies Review, Vol. 53, No. 3, December 

2010, pp. 121-142.

25. Salisu A. Abdullahi, “Ethnicity and Ethnic Relations in 

Nigeria: The Case of Religious Conflict in Kano,” Judy Carter, 

George Irani and Vamik D. Volkan, eds., Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: Perspectives from the Front Lines, Upper Saddle River, NJ: 

Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009, p. 292.

26. Abdullahi, p. 292; Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 19, 28; 

and ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 3.

27. Roland Oliver, The African Experience, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 157.

28. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 3.
76

29. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 40; ICG, Northern 

Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 6; and Abdullahi, p. 293.

30. The Kala-Kato sect is also known as Maitatsine. Abdullahi, p. 293; ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. i and 

14; Lewis, p. 11; and Conerly Casey, “Mediated Hostility, Generation, and Victimhood in Northern Nigeria,” Judy Carter, George 

Irani and Vamik D. Volkan, eds., Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: 

Perspectives from the Front Lines, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson 

Prentice Hall, 2009, p. 281.

31. Yushau Sodiq, “Can Muslims and Christians Live Together Peacefully in Nigeria?” The Muslim World, Vol. 99, No. 4, 

October 2009, p. 656.

32. Tony Johnson, “Boko Haram,” Update: December 27, 

2011, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, December 27, 

2011, www.cfr.org/africa/boko-haram/p25739.

33. Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, “Terrorist Designations of Boko Haram Commander Abubakar Shekau, Khalid 

al-Barnawi and Abubakar Adam Kambar,” U.S. Department of 

State, Washington, DC, June 21, 2012, available from www.state.

gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/06/193574.htm. 

34. Scott Stewart, “The Rising Threat from Nigeria’s Boko Haram Militant Group,” StratFor Security Weekly, November 10, 2011, 

available from www.stratfor.com/weekly/20111109-rising-threatnigerias-boko-haram-militant-group?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_

medium=email&utm_campaign=111110&utm_term=sweekly&utm_

content=readmore&elq=a33db215cff347ffb5222bf4c45fb5d7; and ICG, 

Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. i.

35. Jonathan T. Reynolds, “Nigeria and Shari’a: Religion and 

Politics in a West African Nation,” History Behind the Headlines, 

Vol. 2, 2001, p. 217.

36. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 40.

37. Reynolds, p. 217.
77

38. Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, “The Works of A. E. 

Afigbo on Nigeria: An Historiographical Essay,” History in Africa, 

Vol. 33, 2006, p. 158. 

39. The website www.onlinenigeria.com/tribes lists 371 tribes by 

name and location. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, pp. 4, 

6; Alozieuwa, p. 26; ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, 

p. 2; and Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 5, 18.

40. The other major ethnic groups include: Kanuri, four million; Ibibo, 3.6 million; Tiv, 2.5 million; Ijaw, two million; Edo 1.7 

million; Anana, Nupe, Urhollo, and Igala each around 1.2 million 

in 2000 in Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 206. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 5; and Michael A. Blessing, Nigeria’s Center(s, of 

Gravity: A Complex and Violent Operational Environment, Carlisle, 

PA: U.S. Army War College, 2008, p. 18, available from www.dtic.

mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA478387&Location=U2&doc=GetTR

Doc.pdf.

41. Adebola Ekanola, “National Integration and the Survival 

of Nigeria in the 21st Century,” The Journal of Social, Political, and 

Economic Studies, Vol. 31, Fall 2006, p. 280.

42. Blessing, p. 18; and Freedom C. Onoha, “Climate Change, 

Population Surge and Resource Overuse in the Lake Chad Area: 

Implications for Human Security in the North-East Zone of Nigeria,” Donald Anthony Mwiturubani and Jo-Ansie van Wyk, eds., 

Climate Change and Natural Resources Conflicts in Africa, Pretoria, 

South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2010, p. 30, available from www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/ISS_Climate

ChangeandNaturalResourcesConflictsinAfica.pdf.

43. Abdullahi, p. 293.

44. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 45.

45. Falola and Heaton, p. 158.

46. Falola and Heaton, pp. 158-159.
78

47. G. N. Uzoigwe, “Assessing the History of Ethnic/Religious Relations,” Ernest E. Uwaizie, Isaac O. Albert, and Godfrey 

N. Uzoigwe, eds., Inter-Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution in 

Nigeria, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999, p. 15; and Falola 

and Heaton, p. 157.

48. Uzoigwe, “Assessing the History of Ethnic/Religious 

Relations,” p. 7.

49. Udo, p. 1; and CIA, “People and Society,” and

 “Government.”

50. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 77, 83.

51. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 206.

52. Ekanola, p. 287.

53. Matthew Todd Bradley, “Inter-Ethnic Antagonism in PostColonial Nigeria: Ethnicity vs. Symbolic Nationalism,” Journal of 

Cultural Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006, p. 71.

54. Abdullahi, p. 292; Falola and Heaton, p. 169; and Uzoigwe, 

“Nigeria to 1960,” pp. 10-11. The non-centralized societies include 

Igbo, Ibibio, Ijo, Tiv, Idoma, Angass, Yako, Mbembe, and Ekoi. 

55. Falola and Heaton, pp. 157-159.

56. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 17.

57. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960,” p. 13. Uzoigwe believes that 

the British imposed the north-south factionalism on Nigeria then, 

when none existed before in Nigerian history.

58. Falola and Heaton, p. 161.

59. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 70.

60. Ibid., p. 73.

61. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 17.
79

62. Falola and Heaton, p. 161; Falola, The History of Nigeria, 

pp. 72, 74; and Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 17.

63. Adekeye Adebajo, The Curse of Berlin: Africa After the Cold 

War, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, p. xiii.

64. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 2; Uzoigwe, 

“Assessing the History of Ethnic/Religious Relations,” p. 8; and 

Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 11.

65. J. Ademola Yakuba, “Ethnicity and the Nigerian Constitutions,” Ernest E. Uwaizie, Isaac O. Albert, and Godfrey N. 

Uzoigwe, eds., Inter-Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution in 

Nigeria, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999, p. 39; and Falola, 

The History of Nigeria, pp. 92, 109.

66. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 104.

67. Casey, p. 279; and Falola, The History of Nigeria, 

pp. 116-118.

68. Six states from the north, three from the secessionist east, 

and conversion of Western and Midwestern Regions and Lagos 

Federal Territory to states.

69. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 122, 129.

70. Lewis, pp. 5-6; and Yakuba, p. 39.

71. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 227-228.

72. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 8; Uzoigwe, 

“Assessing the History of Ethnic/Religious Relations,” p. 16; and 

Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 11.

73. Yakuba, p. 39. 

74. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 226; and ICG, Nigeria: 

Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, Africa Report 119, Abuja/

Dakar/Brussels: International Crisis Group, October 25, 2006, 

p. 2, available from www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/westafrica/nigeria/Nigerias%20Faltering%20Federal%20Experiment.pdf.
80

75. Northeast, northwest, north-central, southeast, southwest, 

and south-south geopolitical zones.

76. Abdullahi, p. 292; and Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 202.

77. Yakuba, p. 40.

78. Lewis, p. 8.

79. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960: An Overview,” pp. 5, 7.

80. CIA, Nigeria-Geography; and Falola, Culture and Customs 

of Nigeria, p. 9.

81. Udo, p. 2.

82. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960: An Overview,” p. 3.

83. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 3; and Falola, The 

History of Nigeria, p. 2.

84. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 2; and Udo, p. 3.

85. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 3.

86. Ibid., pp. 2-3; and Udo, pp. 8-9.

87. CIA, “Nigeria - Geography,” “United States - Geography,” 

“United Kingdom - Geography.”

88. CIA, “Nigeria - Economy.”

89. Udo, p. 6.

90. Blessing, p. 16.

91. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 12; Lewis, p. 5; 

and Udo p. 3.
81

92. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 143-144; Onoha p. 25-26; 

Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 12; and Adebajo, p. 124.

93. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960: An Overview,” p. 3.

94. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 2-3; and Onoha, pp. 25-26.

95. Blessing, p. 16.

96. Onoha, pp. 24-28.

97. Udo, p. 4; Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 199; and CIA, 

“Nigeria - Geography.”

98. Mark Moritz, “Understanding Herder-Farmer Conflicts in West Africa: Outline of a Processual Approach,” Human 

Organization, Vol. 69, No. 2, Summer 2010, p. 138.

99. CIA, “Nigeria - People and Society.”

100. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 4.

101. CIA, “Nigeria - People and Society.”

102. Udo, p. 5; and Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 8.

103. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, pp. 2-3.

104. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 22. 

105. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, 

pp. 12-13.

106. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 33.

107. Albert, p. 72.

108. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 45.

109. CIA, “Nigeria - People and Society.”
82

110. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 22; and 

Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 33.

111. CIA, “Nigeria - People and Society.”

112. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 42-43.

113. Ibid., p. 78.

114. Ibid., p. 10.

115. Scott Stewart, “The Rising Threat from Nigeria’s Boko 

Haram Militant Group;” and ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to 

Conflict, p. i.

116. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 45.

117. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 10.

118. Ibid., p. 10.

119. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 77.

120. Yushau Sodiq, “Can Muslims and Christians Live Together Peacefully in Nigeria?” The Muslim World, Vol. 99, No. 4, 

October 2009, p. 650. 

121. Ekanola, p. 286.

122. Ogechi Anyanwu, “The Anglo-American-Nigerian Collaboration in Nigeria’s Higher Education Reform: The Cold War 

and Decolonization, 1948-1960,” Journal of Colonialism & Colonial 

History, Vol. 3, Winter 2010, pp. 183-202.

123. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 27; and Falola, Culture and 

Customs of Nigeria, p. 11.

124. Udo, p. 7.

125. ICG, Northern Nigeria: Background to Conflict, p. 5; and Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 12.
83

126. Fidelis Allen and Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, “Oil, Politics, 

and Conflict in the Niger Delta: A Nonkilling Analysis,” Africa 

Peace and Conflict Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 32, available from www.

humansecuritygateway.com/documents/APCJ_Vol3No2Dec2010.pdf.

127. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 138.

128. Ibid., pp. 112, 132.

129. Nahzeem Mimiko, “Between Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia: The Abacha Coup, the National Conference, and Prospects 

for Peace and Democracy in Nigeria,” Social Justice, Vol. 22, Fall 

1995, p. 129. 

130. Allen and Okeke-Uzodike, p. 33; and Bonnie Ayodele, 

“Silence on Climate Change and Natural Resources Conflict 

in Nigeria: The Niger Delta Region Experience,” Donald Anthony Mwiturubani and Jo-Ansie van Wyk, eds., Climate Change 

and Natural Resources Conflicts in Africa, Pretoria, South Africa: 

Institute for Security Studies, 2010, p. 111.

131. Falola and Heaton, pp. 170-171.

132. Imoh, p. 57.

133. Udo, p. 8.

134. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 9; and CIA, 

“Nigeria - Economy.”

135. Stewart.

136. Adebajo, p. 125.

137. Lewis, p. 7; and CIA, “Nigeria - Economy.”

138. The use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Purchasing 

Power Parity (PPP) is a relatively new method of measuring a 

country’s economic production, rather than the previous method of calculating GDP based upon an official exchange rate. PPP 

measurements reduce the error that transitory U.S. dollar, the 

usual medium used to ensure like comparisons, exchange rate 
84

spikes induce, and accounts for the difficulty in obtaining common basic necessities for living. Using the GDP PPP usually increases the amount of economic production per person in lesserdeveloped countries, thereby reducing the perception of poverty 

suffered when compared to unadjusted figures. Since this comparison starts with figures computed with the official exchange 

rate at the time, a GDP per capita of $1,470 based on the 2010 

official exchange rate is also used. The bottom line is that the average share of a Nigerians’ slice of the country’s economic pie has 

remained stagnant over 40 years and dipped considerably in the 

interim, despite Nigeria’s enormous natural resource wealth. The 

GDP PPP in Nigeria for 2010 is $2,500, ranking it 175th lowest in 

the world. These comparisons are based on data from the CIA 

2010 World Factbook, “Nigeria - Economy”; and Falola, The History 

of Nigeria, p. 16.

139. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 206.

140. Lewis, pp. 9-10, 12-13.

141. Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions 

Index 2011,” available from cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/.

142. Blessing, p. 17.

143. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, pp. 12-13.

144. Ike Okonta, “Nigeria’s Homegrown Terrorists,” Project 

Syndicate, October 6, 2011, available from www.project-syndicate.

org/commentary/okonta11/English?utm_medium=referral&utm_

source=pulsenews. 

145. Daniel Agbiboa, “The Corruption-Underdevelopment 

Nexus in Africa: Which Way Nigeria?!” The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter 2010, p. 474.

146. Abdullahi, p. 298; and Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 14.

147. Herman J. Cohen, “Africa: A Light at the End of the 

Tunnel?” Air and Space Power Journal–Africa and Francophonie, 

Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall 2010, pp. 11-12, available from www.academyof

diplomacy.org/publications/article_archive/Africa%20by%

20Cohen.pdf.
85

148. Okonta.

149. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 36, 152, 209.

150. Casey, p. 276.

151. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 198.

152. Paul S. Orogun, “Resource Control, Revenue Allocation 

and Petroleum Politics in Nigeria: The Niger Delta Question,” 

GeoJournal, Vol. 75, 2010, p. 459.

153. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 199.

154. Allen and Okeke-Uzodike, p. 33.

155. Ibid., p. 39; and Ayodele, p. 114.

156. Akpomuvie Orhioghene Benedict, “Breaking Barriers 

to Transformation of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: A Human Development Paradigm,” Journal of Sustainable Development, 

Vol. 4, No. 3, June 2011, p. 211.

157. Judith Burdin Asuni, Special Report: Blood Oil in the Niger 

Delta, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, August 

2009, p. 6. 

158. Annegret Mahler, Nigeria: A Prime Example of the Resource 

Curse? Revisiting the Oil-Violence Link in the Niger Delta, Hamburg, 

Germany: German Institute of Global and Area Studies, January 

2010, p. 13.

159. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, The Political Economy of 

Secession, Washington DC: World Bank, Development Research 

Group, 2006, pp. 217-219.

160. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 230; and Lewis, p. 6.

161. Lewis, pp. 2, 7.
86

162. Alozieuwa, p. 23.

163. Ibid., pp. 29-30.

164. Chris Kwaja, “Nigeria’s Pernicious Drivers of Ethno-Religious Conflict,” Africa Security Brief, No. 14, July 2011, p. 4, available from africacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/AfricaBrief

Final_14.pdf; Chris Newsom, Conflict in the Niger Delta: More than a 

Local Affair, Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, June 

2011, p. 3, available from www.usip.org/files/resources/Conflict_

Niger_Delta.pdf; and Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 91.

165. Alozieuwa, pp. 25, 29-30; ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering 

Federal Experiment, p. 13.

166. Ibid., p. 25; and Kwaja, p. 4.

167. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 206.

168. Adebajo, pp. 1-2.

169. Lewis, p. 9.

170. Alozieuwa, p. 26; Kwaja, pp. 1-2.

171. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, 

pp. 3-4, 12.

172. Newsom, p. 5; and Falola, Culture and Customs of 

Nigeria, p. 25.

173. Casey, p. 285; and Uwazie, pp. 116-117.

174. Albert, pp. 70, 77; and Kwaja, p. 1.

175. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 107-108 Abdullahi, p. 

295; Kwaja, p. 3; and Muhammad Sani Umar, “Weak States and 

Democratization: Ethnic and Religious Conflicts in Nigeria,” J. 

Craig Jenkins and Esther E. Gottlieb, eds., Identity Conflicts: Can 

Violence by Regulated? New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 

2007, p. 265.
87

176. Lewis, pp. 1, 8; Newsom, p. 7; and Abdullahi, p. 295.

177. Ibid., p. 5; and Albert, p. 81.

178. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 91; Kwaja, p. 2; and 

Alozieuwa, pp. 29-30.

179. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, p. 

9; and International Crisis Group, Lessons from Nigeria’s 2011 

Elections, Africa Briefing 81, Abuja/Dakar/Brussels: International Crisis Group, September 15, 2011, p. 8, available from www.

crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/west-africa/nigeria/B81%20-%20

Lessons%20from%20Nigeras%202011%20Elections.pdf.

180. Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 130, 155; and ICG, 

Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, p. 5.

181. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, p. 21; and 

Casey, p. 276.

182. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, pp. 

5-6; Lewis, pp. 10-12.

183. Abdullahali, p. 296.

184. Alozieuwa, p. 27; Falola, The History of Nigeria, 

pp. 103, 170.

185. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 153; and Falola, Culture 

and Customs of Nigeria, p. 13.

186. Falola, Culture and Customs of Nigeria, pp. 22-24; and 

Falola, The History of Nigeria, pp. 164, 176-179.

187. Alozieuwa, pp. 24, 27; Abdullahi, p. 297.

188. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, p. 9.

189. Falola, The History of Nigeria, p. 171.

190. Uwazie, pp. 116-117.
88

191. Falola and Heaton, pp. 170-171.

192. Lewis, p. 7; and ICG, Lessons from Nigeria’s 2011 

Elections, p. 11.

193. Umar, p. 269.

194. Okonta; and Uzoigwe, “Assessing the History of Ethnic/

Religious Relations,” p. 16.

195. Adebajo, p. 328.

196. Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, “Understanding 

Civil War: A New Agenda,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 46, 

No. 1, February 2002, p. 5. 

197. “Timeline-Ethnic and Religious Unrest in Nigeria,” 

Reuters, January 24, 2012, available from www.trust.org/alertnet/news/timeline-ethnic-and-religious-unrest-in-nigeria/; and ICG, 

Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, pp. 12-13.

198. “South Sudan’s Referendum-Geopolitical and Geostrategic Implications,” ISS Seminar Report, New Muckleneuk, South 

Africa: Institute for Security Studies, February 22, 2011, p. 1.

199. Imoh, pp. 53-54, 57.

200. Topographic Section, General Staff, Lagos and Southern Nigeria, Map 2084, London, UK: War Office, General Staff, 

Topographic Section, 1905. Modern southern Nigeria is defined 

by the northern borders of Cross River, Enugu, Anambra, Delta, 

Edo, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo states, and also contained what would 

become Akwa Ibom, Abia, Imo, Rivers, Ogun, and Lagos states. 

Samuel Aryeetey Atoh, “Africa South of the Sahara,” Douglas 

S. Johnson, Viola Haarmann, Merrill L. Johnson, and David L. 

Clawson, eds., World Regional Geography, Upper Saddle Brook, NJ: 

Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010, p. 438.

201. A. E. Kitson, Southern Nigeria Map, London, UK: 

Royal Geographical Society, 1913; Nigerian Surveys, Southern 

Provinces of Nigeria Map, Lagos: Nigerian Surveys, August 

1930; and Survey Department, Map of Nigeria, Lagos: Survey 

Department, 1953.
89

202. Imoh, pp. 53-58; Topographic Section, General Staff, 1905.

203. Ibid., p. 80.

204. Ibid., pp. 49-50.

205. Ibid., p. 47.

206. Hewitt and Cheetham, p. 45; and American School of International Service, “The Biafran War,” Washington DC: American University School of International Service, November 1997, 

available from www1.american.edu/ted/ice/biafra.htm.

207. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, The Political Economy of 

Secession, pp. 4-9.

208. Ibid., p. 17.

209. Benedict, p. 211.

210. ICG, Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment, pp. 

8, 16; Blessing, pp. 7-9; and Collier and Hoeffler, The Political 

Economy of Secession, p. 18.

211. Including the modern states of Kwara, Kogi, Benue, 

Plateau, Taraba, Niger, and southern two-thirds of Adamawan 

states. Imoh, pp. 47-53; and Atoh p. 438.

212. Uzoigwe, “Nigeria to 1960,” p. 8; and Imoh, pp. 49-50.

213. “Biafra/Nigeria,” Dinah L. Shelton, ed., Genocide and 

Crimes Against Humanity, Vol. 1, 2005, Seattle, WA, available from

eNotes.com. www.enotes.com/biafra-nigeria-reference/.

214. Matthew Todd Bradley, “Inter-Ethnic Antagonism in 

Post-Colonial Nigeria: Ethnicity vs. Symbolic Nationalism,” 

Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2006, p. 71.

215. Barbara F. Walter, “Does Conflict Beget Conflict? Explaining Recurring Civil War,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, 

No. 3, May 2004, p. 372.
90

216. CIA, “Nigeria - Economy.”

217. Rotimi T. Suberu, “The Supreme Court and Federalism 

in Nigeria,” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2008, 

pp. 451–485. 

218. Lewis, p. 14.

219. Levi Nwachuku and G. N. Uzoigwe, “Preface,” Levi 

Nwachuku and G. N. Uzoigwe, eds., Troubled Journey, Nigeria Since the Civil War, Dallas, TX: University Press of America, 

2004, p. xix. 

220. Adonis Hoffman, “Nigeria: The Policy Conundrum,” 

Foreign Policy, Vol. 101, Winter 1995, p. 146.

221. Lauren Ploch, Nigeria: Elections and Issues for Congress, 

Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, January 19, 

2012, p. 17.

222. Ploch, Africa Command, p. 1.

223. Nigeria Country Report May 2012, The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2012, pp. 4-5, 11-12.

224. Niger Delta Working Group, Briefing Paper on 

Nigeria’s Niger Delta Prepared for the U.S.-Nigeria Binational 

Commission, Washington, DC, September 2010, available from 

ndwgnews.blogspot.com/p/about-ndwg.html.

225. Niger Delta Development Commission, available from 

www.nddc.gov.ng/masterplan.html.

226. Blessing, pp. 20-21.

227. ICG, Lessons from Nigeria’s 2011 Elections, p. 14.

228. “West Africa: Regional Piracy Response Will Take Time,” 

OxResearch Daily Brief Service, October 19, 2011, available from 

relooney.fatcow.com/SI_FAO-Africa-2012/Oxford-Piracy_2.pdf.
91

229. Asuni, pp. 14, 16.

230. United States Institute of Peace, “USIP in Nigeria,” available from www.usip.org/node/7329/#nigeria.
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