Nigeria began to move towards independence following the Second World War. Divisions quickly arose between the largely Christian south, dominated by the Ibo in the east and the Yoruba in the west and the centralized, Islamic north. For a variety of reasons, including proximity to the seaports and to the capital, Lagos, and access to western education through Christian missionaries, the south had enjoyed advantages of economic success, civil service jobs, and educational benefits throughout the colonial period. As the country moved towards independence, growing concern developed among the northern elite that a newly independent Nigeria would fall under the dominance of the south. As the British negotiated their exit in the late 1950s, a variety of concessions were won by northern elites to prevent southern domination and secure the political hegemony of the north.
Independence was achieved in 1960 following nation-wide elections. The civilian government endured a series of political crises until 1965 when the military was invited by the government to step in and settle the various disputes. The military stepped in forcefully in 1966, removing the civilian government and beginning a pattern of coups and counter-coups that would continue until 1996, punctuated by brief periods of civilian rule.
Following independence, the colonial state was not restructured to any significant degree. Established clientelistic relationships were maintained and the primary concern of the majority of independence politicians was personal power and wealth accumulation. As a result, the state was strong and expansive during this period and adopted a top-down
development model that was nothing short of extravagant, particularly during the oil boom of the 1970s and early 1980s. Although some effort has been made toward creating a more equitable environment, including the creation of 36 states and over 774 local government areas, Nigerian governments, in general, have made few substantive efforts to encourage cooperation and trust amongst the nation's diverse citizens.
Military rule, violent coups and endemic corruption actively opposed by an active and engaged polity have characterized Nigerian history. Nigerians have witnessed ten officially known coups, six of which were successful, resulting in an impressive record of seven military and four civilian governments in less than thirty years. During this period, Nigeria averaged a new head of state every three and a half years. Major religious and ethnic divisions continue to play a key role in Nigerian power politics and strongly influence both resource allocation and access to public service employment.
General Ibrahim Babangida came into power in August 1985. During his tenure in office, Babangida engineered a lengthy democratization process, complete with consultations with Nigeria's top intellectuals and key interest groups, and instituted a mandated two-party system and a new constitution. Babangida also oversaw a destructive attempt at implementing a Structural Adjustment Program during which the standard of living of most Nigerians fell severely, so that by 1998 per capita income was a quarter of what it had been two decades earlier.
It was anticipated that Babangida's laborious democratic transition program would facilitate a transfer of power to a democratically elected civilian government by 1990, then 1992 and finally 1993. When the presidential election was held on June 12, 1993, observers
were pleased with the orderliness of the process (by Nigerian standards) and Moshood K. O. Abiola, a Yoruba Muslim, clearly emerged as the victor. Babangida, however, believed that he could play on Northern fears of a Yoruba president, and annulled the elections, citing unsubstantiated election irregularities. Nigeria erupted in wide spread protests and international condemnation was immediate. Babangida chose to step aside, handing power to a carefully chosen transitional government under Chief Ernest Shonekan. However, the new government failed to establish legitimacy and was unable to overcome the political anarchy that Babangida had left in his wake. The stage was set for General Sani Abacha and his military regime to move in and begin a period of authoritarianism and repression.
Abacha came into power following an unsuccessful eight-year democratic transition program under General Ibrahim Babangida and ruled the country as head of State from 1993 to 1998 until he died suddenly in June 1998. It must be pointed out that during this particular regime, Nigeria faced tremendous opposition from the International Community over human rights abuses, culminating in Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth. Indeed, at this period, Nigeria was treated like a pariah nation, tolerated only by a few and abandoned by other countries, including her traditional allies like Britain and Canada.
In his article “Nigeria-civilian Rule’’ Globalsecurity explains that with the sudden death of General Abacha in June 1998, General Abdulsalami Abubakar headed the new military administration, and was immediately confronted with the Herculean task of drawing Nigeria back from the brink of collapse and restoring her image. Admirably, his administration rose up to the occasion. The issue of human rights abuses was immediately addressed with the release of all political detainees and prisoners. Abubakar also announced and implemented a political transition program that ushered in a new civilian government in
May 1999. Thus, in less than one year, the Abubakar administration was able to restore democracy to Nigeria. Nigeria, also gradually regained her voice in the community of nations in that period.
The administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was inaugurated on May 29th, 1999.
He was re-elected to a second term in 2003. On May 29th, 2007, he was replaced by Umaru
Yar’Adua, who died on May 5th, 2010. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as Yar'Adua's
replacement on May 6th, 2010, becoming Nigeria's 14th Head of State. Goodluck Jonathan
served as an unelected president until April 16th, 2011, when a new presidential election was
conducted, which he won. On March 28th, 2015, the re-election of General Mohammed Buhari
who was the head of state who preceded Babangida.
In the pre-colonial era, religion was integral to the state; it was part of identity construction, a means for power legitimation, and a determiner of economic might (Falola 1998, 1-2). With this in mind, it can hardly be the emergence of religious groups’ influence in the political discourses of the Nigerian state, which singly explains the eruption of the various religious crises since the 1970s. Rather, in light of the political instability of Nigeria, the radical politicization of certain religious groups has contributed to the likelihood of violent clashes erupting, together with a perception that their convictions are of salience within a moral state of exception.
With the emergency of the Maitatsine violence, Falola argues that, it “can be explained as a consequence of Islamic fundamentalism on the one hand, and of the political decadence and economic troubles of the 1970s on the rioters were attempting to cleanse society” (Falola 1998, 138). This analysis is reflective of a common perception in Nigeria that society has
become corrupted (Smith 2008). A popular response by many has been to radicalize their forms of religious practices, which increasingly overlaps with the political process. An example of this can be seen by the demands made by the Muslim Student Society for Islamic law, a rejection of the Nigerian constitution and full membership into the Organization of the Islamic Conference (Kenny 1996). Such politicization of religious organizations, of even informal ones like a student society, led to violent rioting in Kano in 1982, and the burning of eight churches (Kenny 1996, 358).
While authors like Ikenga-Metuh do not see the extreme violence in the North of Nigeria throughout the 1980s as inherently religious, but as a political problem (Ikenga-Metuh 1992, 17), the significance of religious discourse cannot be removed from such events. The political and the religious in Nigeria cannot be separated. Two controversies that have contributed to the severity of the violence seen in many of the Northern 15 States are the introduction of Shari’a and membership into the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Neither can be labeled only political or religious, although the State’s actions have far from alleviated the situation (Kenny 1996, 342). Indeed, the State cannot be said to have remained impartial, when considering scholars like Kukah who wrote: “the ascendancy of Hausa-Fulani hegemony has coincided with the alienation and marginalization of the non-Muslims” (Kukah 1993, x). Religious conflict, it seems, is not only linked to the political, but also to the myriad cultures living within Nigerian boundaries. This is in no small part due to the actions of politicians, who use both religious and cultural ties to form a constituent basis to attain and retain power (Usman 1986, 148).
Religious conflict can be seen to overlap with ethnic disputes, a salient case being the various outbreaks of violence in the town of Jos. Groups indigenous to the Jos Plateau, namely
Berom, Anaguta and Afisare (mostly Christian), competed with Hausa-Fulani (Muslim) settler groups over who has ownership of the town (Danfulani 2002, 245-6). Additionally, Southern Christian-educated groups, Yoruba, and Ibo and Tiv amongst others, migrated to the town to fill in civil service jobs and further contributed to the heterogeneity of this multicultural town (Danfulani 2002, 246-7).
It may be argued that, due to the political-historical migratory processes in this area, many citizens in northern towns like Jos choose to emphasize religious affiliations rather than cultural genealogy. The Christian Association of Nigeria in 1990 organized mass protests against political marginalization of Christians in Northern towns including Jos, whilst Muslim groups in towns like Kano increasingly demanded adherence to shari’a (Last 2008, 48-9). This context of religious affiliation taking precedence has only increased since the representation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States of America has been that of the ‘secular’ West under attack by “radical Islamic extremism.” The policies of exclusion and discrimination by the state government, combined with restive and politically assertive Muslim groups, are what have generated violence in Jos. The violent riots during September 7-12, 2001 claimed over 3000 lives. Explaining the crisis, Adam Higazi writes:
The opening up of politics under civilian rule has been accompanied by intense ethnic competition, at all levels, state, local government, and ward and Plateau elites have consolidated their power and control of the state, excluding other groups on the basis of religion and ethnicity. Politics under post 1998 civilian administrations have provided opportunities for indigenous elites in Plateau to gain power, but not for settlers (Higazi 2011, 16).
The events in the U.S.A. were seen by some as “the triumph of Islam over the West, for them synonymous with Christianity. Those celebrating went berserk, rampaging and
looting businesses, shops and stores belonging to Ibo Christian traders” (Danfulani 2002, 251). The discourse of religious dichotomy is powerful, as it creates a feared religious ‘Other’, and, particularly in Northern Nigeria, where Muslims and Christians are most equal in number, can be conducive to violence. Identity with a religious appearance can, therefore, be equal as hazardous as ethnic and national identity.
Violent conflict in Nigeria along religious lines, it can be argued, has been created and sustained as a consequence of the political manipulation of religion. Usman asserts the manipulation of religion by the ruling religious and political classes enables them to persist in their domination, as the division caused by their actions splits the underclass of Nigerian workers and peasants (Usman 1987, 23). The formation of an identity along the monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam may foster a climate of antagonism and violence, it can be argued, as each position may perceive state actions as favoring the other (Jega 2000, 36). From this perspective, politicians use this division to obtain and remain in office based on their religious or ethnic constituency. Although Usman accounts for the antagonistic behavior of religious and political elites, he does little to account for the reasons that people allow themselves to be manipulated (Ibrahim 1991, 127-8). Rather than solely being caused by class antagonisms, on-going religious conflict in Nigeria can be explained by a populist ‘religious revival’ both of Christianity and Islam, their intra-religious fractional rivalries, and of the belief that Nigeria is a moral state of exception.
Outbreaks of violence in Northern Nigeria may also be linked to poor socio-economic conditions since the 1970s, and increasingly so in recent years. However, while high unemployment and severe economic crisis may indeed lead to violence, this discounts the fact that people from all social groups in Nigeria have turned to the monotheist religions to justify
violence. Furthermore, a socio-economic explanation of violent religious rioting alone cannot explain the religious fervor with which people have burned churches and mosques, looted shops, and killed many thousands of Christians and Muslims. It is more fitting to elaborate an explanation around the political persuasion of many in Nigeria that both modern state and society has fallen into a moral state of suspension, to which violent behavior can be justified in the name of religion (Haar 2005, 303).
Since the re-emergence of democracy in May 1999, not less than one hundred politically, ethnically and religiously motivated conflicts have occurred in Nigeria. The democratic opening presented by Nigeria's successful transition to civil rule in May 1999 unleashed a host of hitherto repressed or dormant political forces. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between genuine demands by these forces on the state and outright criminality and mayhem. Nigeria is experiencing the rise of conflicts borne out of various agitations by a plethora of movements purportedly representing, and seeking to protect, their ethnic, political or religious interests in a country which appears incapable of providing for the basic welfare needs of its citizens. Different reasons and circumstances lead to these conflicts and violence in Nigeria. Some of the reasons are the weak character of the Nigerian State and the inability of its equally weak institutions to engender order and security (Ayodele 2004); poverty, military intervention in politics, citizen’ apathy to the State, elitist greed and manipulation (Olu-Adeyemi 2008) and land, space and resource availability, jurisdictional disputes between Monarchs, disregard for cultural symbols and pollution of cultural practice (Adeniji 2003).