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Nigeria CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
Nigerian history has provided an extraordinary set of
pressures and events as a context for modern nation
building.
Under such circumstances--the imposition of colonial rule,
independence, interethnic and interregional competition or
even
violence, military coups, a civil war, an oil boom that
had
government and individuals spending recklessly and often
with
corrupt intentions, droughts, and a debt crisis that led
to a
drastic recession and lowered standards of living--people
tended
to cleave to what they knew. That is to say, they adhered
to
regional loyalties, ethnicity, kin, and to patron-client
relations that protected them in an unstable and insecure
environment. Meanwhile, other factors and processes
stimulated by
education, jobs, politics, and urban and industrial
development
created crosscutting ties that linked people in new, more
broadly
national ways.
By 1990 both sets of distinctions operated at once and
gave
no sign of weakening. For example, from time to time labor
unions
were able to call widespread, even general, strikes. At
other
times, unorganized workers or farmers rioted over
long-held or
sudden grievances. Nevertheless, attempts to create
national
movements or political parties out of such momentary
flare-ups
failed. Instead, once the outburst was over, older
linkages
reasserted themselves. In effect, the structure of society
in
1990 was the result of these two processes--historical,
locational, and ethnic on the one hand and socioeconomic
on the
other. In Nigeria the latter contact referred primarily to
occupation, rural-urban residence, and formal education.
Together
these factors accounted for similarities and differences
that
were common across ethnic and regional groupings.
Data as of June 1991
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