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The Size of States and Political Stability in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Ọmọlade Adejuyigbe
Ọmọlade Adejuyigbe*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
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Extract

…the essential thing is, as John Stuart Mill says, that “there should not be any one state so much more powerful than the rest as to be capable of vying in strength with many of them combined. If there be such a one, and only one, it will insist on being master of the joint deliberations: if there be two they will be irresistible when they agree: and whenever they differ everything will be decided by a struggle for ascendancy between the rivals” (Wheare 1963, pp. 50-51).

The imbalance in the sizes of the former regions of Nigeria (Table 1) had been frequently cited as one of the main reasons for political instability of the federation. For example, the Premier of the Eastern Region and leader of one of the political parties which contested the federal elections of 1964 declared during the election campaigns that

We hold the view that the two worst threats to Nigerian unity are the practice of regionalism which has now been carried into the political field and the fact that the most important principle of federation, namely, that there should not be any one state so much greater than the rest combined that it can bend the will of the federal government. Until these two threats are removed, they labor in vain who labor for Nigerian unity and solidarity (Okpara 1965, p. 5).

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , September 1973 , pp. 157 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1973

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References

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