1 - Reconstructions, Resilience and Relevance: Political Elites and Ethnic Mobilization, 1999–2019

Summary

Before corruption became the bogeyman of all problems in Nigeria, ethnicity – or tribalism as it was known for a long time – was the ubiquitous monster: it divided the people, provoked conflict and war, derailed governance, prevented rational utility of resources and revenues, slowed down economic development, and made the country a crippled giant. There is every reason, therefore, to want to combat or wish it away. In this chapter, I analyse how, in the first twenty years of the country's Fourth Republic, ethnicity retained a prime agency role in politics very much against the grain of theoretical formulations of detribalization and reconstructions of the structural bases of ethnic identities and interests that were intended to diminish the reaches of its mobilization. Taking insights from elementary concepts of resilience theory as a point of departure, the chapter locates the resilience – in this case continued relevance – of ethnicity in the adaptive formations of political elites who, through ethno-regional, zonal, and cultural political associations, have exploited the frames of political contestation especially at the national level to keep the fires of emancipation-seeking ethnicity burning. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first presents the theoretical lenses offered by resilience theory and the resurgences of retribalization over detribalization. The second examines the character and operations of ethnic organizations and their leaders and how they have exploited the arenas of political contests to advance the cause of ethnic constituents; the third presents the conclusions.

A Short Theoretical Take

Resilience theory was developed in social work and psychology to study how people respond to, bounce back from, or overcome, the challenges of coping with adversity, change, and other system-rocking events and situations. It has been applied to the larger social science field in studies of adaptation and transformation to change, especially those that produce positive outcomes (Stark 2014). This does not however make resilience a subset of systems theory as some of its critics suggest because neither stability nor adaptability nor positive outcomes are ontological requirements (cf. Olsson, et al. 2015). As used here, resilience has no such intent. Given the wide range of multidisciplinary interests in resilience the concept has been defined in diverse ways, but most relate resilience to agency and sustainable outcomes.