Political Transitions and the Sustenance of Identity Politics in Nigeria

Abstract

The recourse to individual or group identity in the articulation and pursuit of interests by social forces is a major facet of Nigeria’s political process. This is manifested by the increasing deployment of hitherto suppressed identities of ethnicity, religion and regionalism among others, in the contest for political and economic power by various contending forces. It will appear that the resurgence of identity politics is a worldwide phenomenon, and therefore, not restricted to Nigeria. However, the specificity of the Nigerian milieu is conspicuously manifested in various junctures of the national political trajectory, whenever spoils of power are up for grabs. Accordingly, it is hereby contended that identity politics as presently manifested in Nigeria is much a tool for political contest and bargain as it is for personal aggrandizement by the contending political forces. The way out is the total democratization of the national political economy and the attendant institutionalisation of political and economic contest based on popular-democratic grounds as opposed to the prevailing ethno-religious and other primordial grounds.

Keywords: identity politics, contending forces, political trajectory, aggrandisement

DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/9-12-07

Publication date: December 31^st 2019