Neither Citizens nor Settlers: Contested Identity of Northern Cameroons in Nigeria

Abstract

Citizenship is decisive in determining people’s belonging and claim of rights to tangible and intangible resources. Citizenship links the people to the agency of the state; it is not an end in itself. It provides the political, social, economic and environmental spaces for competition among different people in any political community. In Nigeria, these competitive spaces have rendered citizenship increasingly contested in contemporary times, defining some people as citizens and some others as settlers. The contested nature of citizenship in Nigeria is informed by indigeneity as occupying the centre stage of making claims to citizenship of Nigeria. The case of the Northern Cameroons people in Nigeria is undetermined, given the historical and political trajectories that led to their incorporation after the 1961 plebiscite. This fundamentally raises pertinent questions, whether they are citizens or settlers, which require understanding the dynamics surrounding the contest.

Keywords: Citizenship, contested identity, indigeneity, Northern Cameroons, Nigeria.