Historically, the current Nigeria used to have a number of kingdoms, empires, caliphates and chiefdoms, local land lord, among others before the arrival of European colonialism in western Africa. Those kingdoms and empires had traded with outside the world independently particularly with Europe. This extreme diversity in terms of culture, tradition, norm and religion resulted to have a complex system of governance (Musa and Hassan, 2014). The Kanem-Borno Empire (with known history of more than a thousand years), the City-States of Niger-Delta and the Igbo of South-East, the kingdoms of Ife and Benin, the Oyo Empire, were among others. Moreover, the Sokoto Caliphate, which existed for nearly a century before it was conquered by Britain, had
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Similarly, the inter-group relation was replaced by enmity, divisions and hatred with a sense of sectionalism, ethno-tribal chauvinism and geographical polarizations. The British colonial administration encouraged communal sentiments among Nigerians. It seized every available opportunity to spread the myth and propaganda that they were separated from one another by great distance, by differences of history and traditions, and by ethnological, racial, tribal, political, social, and religious barriers (Ibid).
Moreover, Musa and Hassan (2014) argue that all the processes of amalgamation by the British colonial rulers were not ‘to serve the people of Nigeria and bring or build a sense of unity between the territories’. “So also, it was not meant for the territories to live as common people with one destiny under a centralized or federal system.” According to Hembe (2005) cited in Musa and Hassan (2014) “In their attempt to justify colonial administration the British helped to articulate the so-called “ideology of tribalism” which placed undue emphasis on the things that divided rather than those that were common to the people they had brought
Similarly, the inter-group relation was replaced by enmity, divisions and hatred with a sense of sectionalism, ethno-tribal chauvinism and geographical polarizations. The British colonial administration encouraged communal sentiments among Nigerians. It seized every available opportunity to spread the myth and propaganda that they were separated from one another by great distance, by differences of history and traditions, and by ethnological, racial, tribal, political, social, and religious barriers (Ibid).
Moreover, Musa and Hassan (2014) argue that all the processes of amalgamation by the British colonial rulers were not ‘to serve the people of Nigeria and bring or build a sense of unity between the territories’. “So also, it was not meant for the territories to live as common people with one destiny under a centralized or federal system.” According to Hembe (2005) cited in Musa and Hassan (2014) “In their attempt to justify colonial administration the British helped to articulate the so-called “ideology of tribalism” which placed undue emphasis on the things that divided rather than those that were common to the people they had brought