LAGOS 2015: Section 318 (1) of the 2011 Nigeria Constitution (As Amended) promotes the special interests of those ‘born of the soil’. This specific promotion of nativist rights started with the 1979 Constitution. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. Over time, millions of Nigerians have migrated to other parts of the country for work, education or other reasons. As a result, many Nigerian communities and cities have diverse populations. Often these are divided into the ‘sons-of- the-soil’, or ‘indigenes’ of such communities, and residents originating from other parts of the country who are considered as ‘settlers,’ even after continuous residence for over two generations or even more. Despite the length of residency in an area, being an ‘indigene’ or a ‘settler’ often has implications for ones access to land, chieftaincy offices, jobs, scholarships, and political office. These political and economic resources are often considered to be the rightful preserve of the ‘indigenes’. ‘Settler’ access to these resources can frequently be challenged or out-rightly denied. The division between ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’ therefore poses difficult challenges for a common Nigerian citizenship. In some cases, the ‘settler’ population might even feel that its religious and cultural rights are under threat. The way the Nigerian state has handled the interaction between ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’ is part of the problem. Section 25(1) of the Constitution promises a single Nigerian citizenship, while Section 42 expressly forbids discrimination against other Nigerians based on the circumstances of their birth. However, when it comes to defining membership of one of Nigeria’s 36 states, Section 318 (1) of the 2011 Constitution (As Amended) promotes the special interests of those ‘born of the soil’. This specific promotion of nativist rights started with the 1979 Constitution. The principle of indigeneship is about ‘ownership’ of the community, local government or state. But this ownership is not in the narrow juridical sense of owning a piece of private property, but refers instead to the right to recognition as the pre-eminent ethnic group within the unit. I t is about the right to determine the rules of engagement in inter-ethnic relations within the unit in question, and the right to dictate the pecking order for enjoying political and economic resources associated with the Nigerian state. Indigeneship therefore effectively introduces a two-tier citizenship in Nigerian’s 36 states and 774 Local Government Areas. Some can lay claim to ancestral connections to the soil and consequently enjoy ‘indigeneship’ rights, while others have no such ancestral claims, and must therefore suffer different degrees of political and social exclusion. Many are thereby denied access to both material resources and symbolic recognition in the communities where they may have lived for generations and to which they pay their taxes. Some state governments have gone as far as purging their civil services of non-indigenes, even when such people come from the same ethnic group, but not from the state. For instance, on October 1st 2011, the Abia State government dismissed 80 women from neighbouring Ebonyi State on the grounds of their non-indigenous status. Many of these women are not only Igbos, but the majority of them are married to men from Abia State. They fell victim to the indigeneity rules because administrative regulations by the Federal Character Commission regard women as belonging to their natal Local Government, and not that of their husbands. There is therefore a gender dimension to the impact of the indigeneity principle since it disadvantages millions of women who marry outside their original home areas; they are officially regarded as members of communities they no longer live in. Indigeneity is very potent at the State and Federal levels, where jobs and political offices are most fiercely contested. Yet, these two upper levels of government have insufficient local knowledge to be able to determine who is indigenous to where.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 11:57:52 +0000
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