Overcoming Primordialism and Fundamentalism in Nigeria With a ‘Grand’ Narrative

By Ibrahim Lawal Ahmed

Every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, betray it or fulfil it – Frantz Fanon

What is the Nigeria we want? How do we achieve it? Answering these questions will lead to other questions such as what is the kind of leadership we want? How can we get the individuals having the qualities of leadership we want into the realm of authority? How can we identify such individuals?

These are age long questions that have resurfaced in the socio-political space of Nigeria largely due to two factors. First, Covid-19 which has forced the state to adopt lockdown measures that have had an adverse effect on the economy especially the informal sector that provides jobs to millions of Nigerians. Second, the #ENDSARS protest which even though, triggered by Police brutality, provided a space for Nigerians to voice out their frustrations with government policies.  The protest was led by depressed youths who are desperate for jobs and improvement in the standard of living. To some of these youths, life has lost meaning. Day-by-day, they are losing hope and faith in the nation. The future appears blink. They blamed the current national woes on the older generation whose age grade are the national leaders. This informed the narration that as long as Nigeria is ruled by old persons it will remain an underdeveloped State.

Peter Ekeh, the late theorist,

60years after independence, regime after regime, Nigerians are still living with hope and dreaming of Eldorado, but grappling with the same problems. 60years after independence, we can hardly call Nigeria a nation. This calls for introspection into the trajectory of Nigeria. The fundamental problem of national introspection is that issues are always given subjective interpretations along the line of ethnicity, region and religion. The question is why is it that in addressing national issues such bifurcating sentiments play a determining role? Why is it that government policies and programmes are given ethnic and religious analysis instead of developmental? A cursory look into the history of Nigeria may shade light to this mystery.

In his analysis of Nigeria in the 1970s, Peter Ekeh, argued that colonialism, through its exploitative administrative institutions and education, has created two publics: the civic and primordial space. The civic space, referring to government institutions, is where the national cake is baked. However, the primordial space provides access to the cake. This results in reliance on indigeneity as qualification to having a share of state’s resources particularly at local level, and ethnicity, which takes a territorial (regional) affiliation, as political identity. The implication, as Prof. Taiwo sums it up, is that “there is citizens of Nigeria but there is no citizen in Nigeria.” Individual relationship with civic space is that of rights while to primordial space is that of obligation. In fact, emphasis tend to be on the State obligation as against individual duties to the state. As a result, hardly anyone who complains of paying tithe in the church or to his cultural association.

The view is that by virtue of getting governmental appointment or civil service job, one’s ethnic group, religious affiliation, region, state and locality stand to benefit from his/her earnings. Primitive accumulation, such as embezzlement of public fund, therefore, becomes a defining feature of public administration, which, even though it is legally sanctioned, seems to be natively approved. Power, as Alubo observed, is sought for the material advantages such as location of major government projects that come with it.

Hence, the aforementioned view informing the one-sided and conflicting narrations of history and analysis of events in Nigeria. Most of these narrations are not essentially geared toward creating Nigeria as a nation but as a multiplicity of ethnic, religious and regional identities. For example, ‘One North, One Destiny;’ Biafra and agitation for the creation of Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers, among others. Even events such as June 12, that could have been a unifier, easily fell into the myopic analyses. It is pertinent to mention that there was nothing like Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba before the advent of colonialism. The emergence of these ethnic divides is a product of colonial political structures which divided the country into provinces and districts, and incorporated pre-colonial elites (traditional rulers/elders) in the colonial administration called native authority. The result was not a cohesive divide but there emerged micro-subnational group with their peculiar narrations. For instance, the clamour for MiddleBelt due to ‘Hausa hegemony.’ By and large, these narrations led to states creation.  History of Nigeria can thus be inferred to be driven by narratives based on narrow analysis of issues.

In recent time, the continuous implementation of neoliberal policies that results in privatization of public good and commercialization of public welfare has changed the dialectics between civic and primordial space. The effect of neoliberal policies is two-fold. From the elites’ dimension, contrary to Ekeh’s analysis, the altruistic thread in the 1970s has weakened and there is increasing individualistic mindset. While the elites still wear native shells, their remittances into the primordial coffers has contracted. And from the common man dimension, the admixture of residence of public welfare, general erosion in the standard of living and increasing cost of living have turned him to be primarily ethnic and religiously oriented. Consequently, the sub-national narrations still prevail only this time, they are more tense and having a violent tendency because of their inclination toward extreme fundamental changes.

How long will it take ordinary Nigerian to fully come to term with this façade? It is high time for the sake of nation-building to deconstruct indigeneity and construct citizenship. Therefore, there is need for grand narrative. In a post-modern world, the idea of grand narrative may sound absurd because post-modernism is an era of high sense of individuation which is facilitated by information technology where “opinion” takes precedence over “truth”. Lyotard, who is credited with making the term famous, defines post modernism as incredulity towards meta-narrative. By meta-narrative, Lyotard is referring to the tradition of totalizing conception of society. Therefore, to make a little modification to Lyotard definition, post modernism can be seen as incredulity towards consensus. This is why we see the state, as political entity, struggling for control and supremacy.

The complicated turf of citizenship in the postmodern era

For the sake of sovereign existence of Nigeria, there is need to transcend silo perspectives which do not augur well for the country. Already, with the creation of states and local governments, the cry for domination has given way for marginalisation as it is obvious that each group aims at getting the national cake to the detriment of the other. The idea of a binding narrative is to create enlightened citizens with a sense of the nation and consciousness of not only their rights toward the state but also their obligations to the state, with the willingness to discharge it. A binding narrative would draw from the sub-national narratives to retell our stories, to re-interpret past events, to change the present and shape the future. We can call it a grand narrative for the purpose of this piece, meaning we do not intend a grand narrative of same interpretation of events and phenomenon by every Nigerian but different views not conflicting in a way that may cause division along primordial and religious lines. The question is how do we evolve sub-national narratives to make a ‘grand’ narrative?

Jean-Jacques Rosseau argues that “if, when the people, being furnished with adequate information, held its deliberations, the citizens had communication one with another, the grand total of the small differences would always give the general will, and the decision would always be good.” Three factors can be deduced from the above quotation. First, the citizens have to be furnished with adequate information. Second, there is need for deliberation on the way forward. And third, the decision coming from the deliberation is informed by differences. Therefore, while each preserving his peculiar identity, all submit to the general will.

The first step to creation of a ‘grand’ narrative is changing the main stream narration in the media and the society as a whole. For example, instead of #ENDSARS and #SECURENORTH, why not #ENDKIDNAPPINGS and #SECURENIGERIA. Moreover, headlines by virtual and print media such as Fulani Herdsmen killed…. that are sensational should be avoided. Even though it is hard for media to avoid sensational headlines, sensation should, at least, be shaped in such a way that it does not portray a group as bad. And there is need for enlightenment of Nigerians using all media platforms on the benefits of unity, individual and community responsibilities as well as politics and politicking. Campaigns have to be based on ideas without manipulation of identity. History should not only be re-introduced but also decolonized so as to depict Nigerians not as mutually exclusive, conflicting groups.

Enlightenment of the citizenry has to be accompanied by eradicating poverty and reducing inequality through provision of socio-economic opportunities. Government policies should encourage Inter-regional/State commerce and inter-ethnic marriage. The most vital step in the creation of ‘grand’ narrative is dampening the primordial influence in the civic space. That is, access to state resources and privileges should not be based on some native/religious qualification. Rather, emphasis should be on merits. What ‘grand’ narrative seeks to achieve is an egalitarian society where a Nigerian is qualified first as citizens before anything else. Citizenship has to be defined based on individual residence rather than origin.

Finally, an elite consensus is needed. Like the past national conferences, resolutions from similar deliberation centred on the citizenship and development will be a driving force to a ‘grand’ narrative. Such conferences have to be replicated at all levels including town hall meetings. This way, a common ground could be found which connect values across dividing lines and broad engagement which encompasses the youths and person with special need thereby strengthening democratization process and the spirit of federalism, and by that token building a nation.

In the final analysis, Prof. Olukoshi rightly observed that it is in the nature of man to construct differences and it is the responsibilities of leadership to create convergence. In this regard, the role of leadership is to influence process for conscious development and management of structures for the evolution of narratives to the advancement of Nigeria.

Ahmed wrote from Abuja and is reachable on ibrahim.lawal26@gmail.com