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Nigeria ETHNICITY
Ethnicity is one of the keys to understanding Nigeria's
pluralistic society. It distinguishes groupings of peoples
who
for historical reasons have come to be seen as
distinctive--by
themselves and others--on the basis of locational origins
and a
series of other cultural markers. Experience in the
postindependence period fostered a widespread belief that
modern
ethnicity affects members' life chances. In Nigerian
colloquial
usage, these collectivities were commonly called "tribes."
In the
emergent Nigerian national culture, this topic was
discussed
widely as "tribalism," a morally reprehensible term whose
connotations were similar to American terms, such as
"discrimination," "racism," or "prejudice." Nigerian
national
policies have usually fostered tolerance and appreciation
for
cultural differences, while trying at the same time to
suppress
unfair treatment based on ethnic prejudice. This long-term
campaign involved widespread support in educated circles
to
replace the term "tribe" or "tribal" with the more
universally
applicable concept of ethnicity. Nevertheless, older
beliefs died
slowly, and ethnic identities were still a vital part of
national
life in 1990.
The ethnic variety was dazzling and confusing.
Estimates of
the number of distinct ethnic groupings varied from 250 to
as
many as 400. The most widely used marker was that of
language. In
most cases, people who spoke a distinct language having a
separate term for the language and/or its speakers saw
themselves, or were viewed by others, as ethnically
different.
Language groupings were numbered in the 1970s at nearly
400,
depending upon disagreements over whether or not closely
related
languages were mutually intelligible. Language groupings
sometimes shifted their distinctiveness rather than
displaying
clear boundaries. Manga and Kanuri speakers in
northeastern
Nigeria spoke easily to one another. But in the major
Kanuri city
of Maiduguri, 160 kilometers south of Manga-speaking
areas, Manga
was considered a separate language. Kanuri and Manga who
lived
near each other saw themselves as members of the same
ethnic
group; others farther away did not.
Markers other than language were also used to define
ethnicity. Speakers of Bura (a Chadic language closely
related to
Marghi) saw themselves traditionally as two ethnic groups,
Bura
and Pabir, a view not necessarily shared by others. Bura
mostly
adhered to Christianity or to a local indigenous religion,
and a
few were Muslims. They lived originally in small,
autonomous
villages of 100 to 500 persons that and expanded split as
the
population grew. The Pabir had the same local economy as
the
Bura, but they were Muslim, they lived in larger
(originally
walled) villages of 400 to 3,000 with more northerly
architectural styles, they resisted splitting up into
subgroups,
and they recognized a central ruler (emir) in a capital
town
(Biu). There was a strong movement in the 1980s among many
Bura
speakers to unite the two groups based on their common
language,
location, and interests in the wider society. Given
long-standing
conflicts that separated them as late as 1990, however,
their
common ethnicity was open to question.
The official language of the country is English, which
is
taught in primary schools and used for instruction in
secondary
schools and universities. All officials with education to
secondary school level or beyond spoke English and used it
across
language barriers formed by Nigeria's ethnic diversity.
Many in
the university-trained elite used English as one of the
languages
in their homes and/or sent their children to preschools
that
provided a head start in English-language instruction. In
addition to English, pidgin has been used as a lingua
franca in
the south (and in adjoining Cameroon) for more than a
century
among the nonschool population. In 1990 it was used in
popular
songs, radio and television dramas, novels, and even
newspaper
cartoons. In the north, southerners spoke pidgin to one
another,
but Hausa was the lingua franca of the region and was
spreading
rapidly as communications and travel provided a need for
increased intelligibility. Counting English, the use of
which was
expanding as rapidly as Hausa, many Nigerians were at
least
trilingual. This language facility usually included a
local
vernacular, a wider African lingua franca, and English.
Given the
long history of trade and markets that stimulated contacts
across
local ethnic units, multilingualism was a very old and
established adaptation. Such multilingualism enabled
communication among different ethnic groups in the
century.
Data as of June 1991
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