Historicizing Ethnic Minorities’ Movements and State Creation in Nigeria, 1946–1967

Abstract

Minority groups’ agitation for justice and fair representation in Nigerian politics has been a recurring theme in political discourses. Colonial administrative policies laid the foundation for ethnic rivalry and domination by lumping together diverse ethnic minorities with extremely incongruent majority groups in a federation. The unwieldy structure of the colonially designed federation made it difficult for minority groups to express their full political rights and assume significant leadership positions in the national politics. The domination of the minority groups in the federation, however, did not go unchallenged. This chapter explores the origins of the ethnic minorities’ agitation for autonomous states in the federation and the instrumentization of ethnic and regional associations as platforms for the struggle. It argues that, although ethnic minorities sustained the struggle for autonomous states and fair representation in the national politics until 1966, they could only gain ascendancy and create states for themselves after the 1966 coups and the Hausa–Igbo clashes that followed.