Federal Character Principle and Business Languages of the National Assembly of Nigeria: Learning From Experience

Abstract

Nigeria is ethnologically heterogeneous and therefore highly diversified culturally. The adoption of federal system as the constitutional model of government for the nation was influenced more by this understanding than even by the geographical size of the country. The knowledge of diverse nature of Nigeria also prompted the inclusion of federal character principle in most of the Nigerian constitutions to avoid predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic groups over others. The same constitutions, however, contradict and forfeit the notion of federal character principle by imposing three Nigerian languages as the business languages of the National Assembly. Drawing from experiences, the work argues that the imposition of languages on vastly diverse state like Nigeria will rather than bring unity result in disharmony among various groups. It recommended good governance among others as panacea to Nigeria’s lingering disunity and political instability. The work adopted descriptive method in its analysis.

Keywords: Federalism, language, hegemony, ethnicity