Ethnic Identity, Democratization, and the Future of the African State: Lessons from Nigeria

The issues of ethnicity and democratization and the prospects for development in postcolonial Africa have long preoccupied scholars. When most African countries gained independence from the colonialists in the 1960s, the ruling elites who inherited state power insisted that Africa could not afford the luxury of democracy because of its potential for exacerbating ethnic pluralism and political conflict, which would be detrimental to the more pertinent projects of development and integration/nation building. The ideology of development and national integration in postcolonial Africa thus became the justification for one-party rule, autocracy, and military dictatorship.