International Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences IJBAS-IJENS Vol:12 No:06 5 Tribe and Transition in Nigeria: The Role of Ethno-Political Organizations in The Transition from Military Rule to Democracy, 1993 – 1998 Okechukwu Ibeanu* Abstract-- This essay analyzes the role of ethno-political communities and clans of their members. Recognizing their organizations in Nigeria's quest for democracy. It inquires into incipient political aspirations, a 1935 Colonial Report how their interaction in the recent transition to democracy described them as “young men's clubs of a semi-political curtailed and/or exacerbated politically pertinent conflicts among nature”.[2] By the middle years of colonialism in Nigeria, ethnic groups. It is argued that the salience of ethno-political these “young men's clubs” were speedily coalescing into pan- organizations in Nigeria's recent transition rests, first, on the historical process of state making in Nigeria, specifically on the ethnic organizations like the Igbo State Union, the Hausa- insertion of ethnic groups in the structure of that state with Fulani Jamiyyar Mutanen Arewa and the Yoruba Egbe Omo pertinent effects. Second, military rule and absence of democratic Oduduwa. These pan-ethnic organizations were to become political structures created "mobilizational gaps" that ethnic important actors in the democratic struggles of Nigerian organizations filled. Both factors are germane to a "conflict peoples against colonial rule, which culminated in dynamic" among ethnic groups at the political level of structures. independence in 1960. The salutary roles they played in this Ethno-political organizations purvey such conflicts. Two factors first wave of democratization in Nigeria, including the shaped the general role of ethno-political organizations in the dynamics of their relations with the colonialists and one transition: (a) the importance of various phases of the transition another, has been articulated by some studies.[3] Nevertheless, programme to power sharing among the ethnic leaders; and (b) divisions between ethnic group(s) associated with the incumbent the precipitate decline of Nigeria into authoritarian rule a few authoritarian regime (in-group) and other ethnic groups (out- years after independence, characterized by nearly three group). Both factors made for conflictive ethnic alliances. Still, decades of military rule, has also been blamed on the political 4 individual interests and maneuvers of civilian and military intervention of these ethnic organizations.[ ] Consequently, politicians alike, who led the ethnic alliances thrown up by the when the military seized power and banned all political parties transition, underlined the specific character of conflicts. in 1966, at least 26 “tribal and cultural associations” were also 5 Index Term-- Ethno-political organizations, transition, banned.[ ] authoritarianism, marginalization, conflict. Still, ethno-political organizations remain central in Nigerian politics generally, and in the recent process of ending I. INTRODUCTION authoritarian rule in particular. Some of the organizations that In this essay, we examine the relationship between ethno- emerged in this process include the Egbe Afenifere, literally political organizations and the transition from military rule to meaning persons wishing to protect their interests in civilian rule (democracy?) in Nigeria between 1993 and 1998. association with others and Egbe Ilosiwaju Yoruba We inquire into both how ethno-political organizations (Association of Yoruba Progressives) claiming to represent affected the process of democratization and how the process, Yoruba interests, the Mkpoko Igbo (Union of Igbos) for the in turn, influenced their role(s) in politics generally, and in Igbo, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People exacerbating or ameliorating political conflicts. (MOSOP) for the minority Ogonis, and the Northern Elders Ethno-political organizations are pan-ethnic formations Forum representing or perceived to represent Hausa-Fulani serving, or purporting to serve, the political interests of their interests. Some of them have coalesced into larger inter-ethnic members, their co-ethnics and ethnic homelands. They could and regional ensembles like the Southern Mandate Group be issue-specific movements or organizations pursuing more which purports to represent all ethnic interests in the south of diffuse and generalized ethnic interests. The political role of the country. The primary objective of this essay is to explain ethnic organizations has been well documented by observers the role(s) of ethno-political organizations in the transition to of Nigerian politics.[1] In fact, by the 1920s southern Nigeria democracy in Nigeria which began in 1986, when the then was awash with such organizations with immediate and military government of General Babangida announced its remote political aims, taking their names from respective transition programme. That attempt was botched, perhaps temporarily, with the annulment of the Presidential election in August, 1993. Three months later, the military led by General Sanni Abacha, a prominent member of the Babangida Okechukwu Ibeanu is Professor of Political Science at the University of government, seized power and promised to return the country Nigeria, Nsukka and former visiting Professor at King‟s College London. He to democratic government in 1998. was also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the adverse effects of toxic wastes on the enjoyment of human rights. 121406-9090- IJBAS-IJENS @ December 2012 IJENS I J E N S International Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences IJBAS-IJENS Vol:12 No:06 6 II. ACADEMIC SIGNIFICANCE democratization process. For instance, it will be important to Various studies have examined transitions to democracy in know if ethno-political organizations are more active in some Africa, often situating them within the context of the so-called phases of the process than in others. In addition, there is need „third wave of democracy‟,[6] which refers to the recent to analyze the dynamics of their interactions, the character of experiences of eastern European, Latin American and African alliances and counter-alliances among them, as well as the countries.[7] factors determining the patterns of interaction. Although there are still many dissenting voices calling for Discussions of ethnic identity and its interface with politics in more rigorous examination of the concept of democracy[8], Nigeria is a long-standing one dating to the works of the dominant attitude is that the democracy on offer is settled, anthropologists who worked in the country during the colonial namely liberal/multi-party democracy. This attitude, in most period.[14] Many of these studies tended to romanticize ethnic cases, is both a reflection and a result of the renaissance and identities and the cultural, social and political systems of the resurgence of Tocquevillean and Schumpeterian notions of various ethnic groups. Colonial administrators often drew the democracy as institutional political arrangements and practices flak for being insensitive to the culture, history and language of the West, and democratization as the spread of those of the local people.[15] Increased autonomy for colonized institutions and practices to societies unfamiliar with them. peoples, especially in the cultural sphere, was widely This process is also seen as ineluctable.[9] Contrary to this advocated. In time, it was accepted in colonial circles that position, however, the originality of Africa's transitions is colonial rule by proxy, that is indirect rule through local undeniable.[10] Surely, extra-African influences have impacted Chiefs, was not only cheap and effective, but also good for the on Africa's transition, but democracy is not the preserve of any colonized.[16] It has been noted that this policy contributed nation or group of nations to be spread by proselytizing others. immensely to the emergence of ethnic politics in Nigeria.[17] To be sure, the reversals already being experienced in The next generation of studies emphasized the political- democratic transitions in some African countries and recline mobilization role of ethnicity in Nigeria's march to into authoritarian rule in others, suggest to us the need for a nationhood. Nigerian nationalists and expatriate writers re-examination of the democratic content of African influenced by them came to emphasize the positive transitions. One factor that many will agree is central to such a contributions of the various ethnic identities to the re-examination is ethnicity. The interface between ethnicity independence movement and the social and political and democracy has been a prominent theme in extant development of Nigeria.[18] This went against the grain of literature. Studies have focused on the reciprocal impact of mainstream modernization school that was dominant among ethnicity and multi-party democracy.[11] While some argue a Anglo-American writers in the 1950s and 1960s, which negative impact of ethnicity on democracy[12], others argue a viewed communalism (religious and ethnic) as a pre-modern positive (or potentially positive) link. What is still lacking, phenomenon that is bound to decline with technological and however, are in-depth studies of the concrete experiences of economic development. However, the persistence of multi-ethnic African societies in the light of transitions to communalism in “modernizing societies” like Nigeria led later democracy. That is the major concern of this