Tribe and Transition in Nigeria: The Role of Ethno-Political Organizations in The Transition from Military Rule to Democracy, 1993 – 1998

This essay analyzes the role of ethno-political organizations in Nigeria's quest for democracy. It inquires into how their interaction in the recent transition to democracy curtailed and/or exacerbated politically pertinent conflicts among ethnic groups. It is argued that the salience of ethno-political organizations in Nigeria's recent transition rests, first, on the historical process of state making in Nigeria, specifically on the insertion of ethnic groups in the structure of that state with pertinent effects. Second, military rule and absence of democratic political structures created "mobilizational gaps" that ethnic organizations filled. Both factors are germane to a "conflict dynamic" among ethnic groups at the political level of structures. Ethno-political organizations purvey such conflicts. Two factors shaped the general role of ethno-political organizations in the transition: (a) the importance of various phases of the transition programme to power sharing among the ethnic leaders; and (b) divisions between ethnic group(s) associated with the incumbent authoritarian regime (in-group) and other ethnic groups (outgroup). Both factors made for conflictive ethnic alliances. Still, individual interests and maneuvers of civilian and military politicians alike, who led the ethnic alliances thrown up by the transition, underlined the specific character of conflicts. Index Term-Ethno-political organizations, transition, authoritarianism, marginalization, conflict.