Ethnic identity as a social cleavage in Nigeria

Abstract

Adopting Lipset and Rokkan’s submissions which suggest, social cleavages as resulting from conflict groups based on perceptions of association in opposition to other such groupings among large segments of a population, the study argued that ethnicity is the single most important embodiment of social cleavages in Nigeria. The study relies on secondary methods of data collection; further stressed that in the absence of formidable class structures, ethnicity plays a crucial role in defining individual identity in relation to groups, derivative of norms, and intermediaries between the society and the state. Building on the pedestals of the ethnic competition model, we further argued that central to the mobilization of ethnicity is the presence of opposing groups and ethnic elites. Beyond the potency for conflictual group relations, the ethnic competition model was adopted to account for the widespread predisposition to compete along ethnic lines in socially diverse societies like Nigeria. The study concludes by stating the very significance of ethnicity as a social capital in Nigeria, derives from its social acceptance and mobilizing properties.