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Ethnic Identity, Political Integration, and National Development: the Igbo Diaspora in Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Chukwuemeka Onwubu
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Extract

In his Path to Nigerian Freedom – the blueprint for the nation-state he had envisioned – Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the man who later came to be one of the leading figures on the Nigerian political scene, stated categorically in 1947:

Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English’ or ‘Welsh’ or ‘French’. The word ‘Nigeria’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 399 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Page 399 note 1 Awolowo, Obafemi, Path to Nigerian Freedom (London, 1947), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

Page 399 note 2 Nigeria Legislative Council Debates: March 20 to April 2 1947 (Lagos, 1947), p. 208.

Page 400 note 1 Etzioni, Amitai, Political Unification (New York, 1965), p. 155.Google Scholar

Page 400 note 2 Cf. Rex, John, Race, Colonialism and the City (London and Boston, 1973), pp. 139–40:Google Scholar ‘many of the so-called underdeveloped countries had in fact been systematically dc-developed by the advanced ones and… over time… the advanced countries were likely to have a vested interest in keeping other nations dependent’.

Page 400 note 3 Ostheimer, John M., Nigerian Politics (New York, 1973), p. 7.Google Scholar

Page 401 note 1 See, for instance, Winch, Robert F. and Greer, Scott A., ‘Urbanism, Ethnicity, and Extended Familism’, in Journal of Marriage and the Family (Lake Mills, Iowa), xxx, I, 02 1968, pp. 40–5;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Winch, Robert F. et al. American Sociological Review (Albany), XXXII, 2, 04 1967, pp. 265–72.Google Scholar

Page 401 note 2 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 48.

Page 402 note 1 Diamond, Stanley, Nigeria: model of a colonial failure (New York, 1967), p. 44.Google Scholar

Page 402 note 2 Diké, K. Onwuka, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885: an introduction to the economic and political history of Nigeria (Oxford, 1956), p. 44.Google Scholar

Page 402 note 3 Shaw, Thurston, Igbo-Ukwu: an account of archaeological discoveries in Eastern Nigeria (Evanston, 1970), Vols. I and II.Google Scholar

Page 402 note 4 Afigbo, A.E., ‘On the Threshold of Igbo History’, in The Conch (New Paltz), III, 2, 09 1971, pp. 205–16.Google Scholar

Page 403 note 1 Flint, John E., Nigeria and Ghana (Englewood Cliffs, 1966), p. 63.Google Scholar

Page 403 note 2 Afigbo, loc. cit. p. 206.

Page 403 note 3 Diké, op. cit. p. 29.

Page 403 note 4 Diamond, op. cit. p. 43.

Page 404 note 1 See, for instance, Lewis, Stephen, Journey to Biafra (Ontario, 1968), pp. 32–3.Google Scholar

Page 404 note 2 Diké, op. cit. p. 28.

Page 405 note 1 See Ottenberg, Simon, ‘Ibo Receptivity to Change’, in Bascom, William R. and Herskovitz, Melville J. (eds.), Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago, 1959), p. 140.Google Scholar

Page 405 note 2 Diamond, op. cit. p. 43.

Page 405 note 3 For further details, see Zik, : a selectionfrom the speeches of Nnamdi Azikiwe (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 242–6.Google Scholar

Page 406 note 1 See Onwubu, Chukwuemeka, ‘Federalism and Social Conflict: a comparative study of the Federations of Nigeria and the West Indies’, M.A. thesis, Michigan State University, 1970, pp. 53–7 and 66–71;Google Scholar also Aluko, S. A., ‘How Many Nigerians?’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), III, 3, 10 1965, pp. 371–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 407 note 1 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 50.

Page 407 note 2 Ibid. p. 49.

Page 408 note 1 Ibid. pp. 32, 48, 53, and 79.

Page 408 note 2 Obiechina, E. M., ‘Introduction’, in The Conch, III, 209 1971, p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 408 note 3 Ukeje, B. O., Education for Social Reconstruction (New York and London, 1966), p. 8.Google Scholar

Page 409 note 1 Green, Margaret M., Igbo Village Affairs (London, 1964), pp. 75–6 and 176.Google Scholar

Page 409 note 2 Awolowo, op. cit. pp. 32 and 79.

Page 409 note 3 Africanus, J.Horton, B., West African Countries and Peoples (London, 1868),Google Scholar quoted by Hodgkin, Thomas, Nigerian Perspectives: an historical anthology (Oxford, 1960), p. 287.Google Scholar

Page 409 note 4 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 48.

Page 409 note 5 Flint, op. cit. p. 63.

Page 409 note 6 Ottenberg, Simon, Leadership and Authority in an African Society: the AJikpo village-group (Seattle and London, 1971), passim.Google Scholar

Page 410 note 1 Uchendu, Victor C., The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria (New York, 1965), pp. 39 and 41–2.Google Scholar This also accords with the views of Jones, G. I., Report of the Position, Status, and Influence of Chiefs and Natural Rulers in the Eastern Region of Nigeria (Enugu, 1956), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

Page 410 note 2 Green, op. cit. p. 75.

Page 410 note 3 Etzioni, op. cit. pp. 35–6.

Page 411 note 1 Lewis, Stephen, Journey to Biafra (Ontario, 1968), pp. 32–3.Google Scholar

Page 411 note 2 Diamond, op. cit. p. 43.

Page 412 note 1 Ibid. pp. 43–4.

Page 412 note 2 The Northern Region spanned a land area about three times the other two Regions put together.

Page 412 note 3 For instance, about two million of the Igbo were politically severed from the Eastern Region, where the population was concentrated, and located in the Western Region; part of the Yoruba population was also assigned to the Northern Region.

Page 412 note 4 Etzioni, op. cit. p. 4.

Page 413 note 1 Awolowo, op. cit. p. 49.