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The politics of exclusion and inclusion in Africa
Nigeria is the most linguistically diverse country in Africa, with more than 500 ethno-linguistic groups (Lewis et al. 2013; Blench 2007) and a population that is about half Christian and half Muslim. The management of this great diversity has been a constant theme in Nigerian society and politics, from the colonial period to the present. In recent times, identity-based conflicts have become commonplace, many of them escalating into large-scale collective violence. These inter-group conflicts, when they occur, take different forms, but the mobilization of collective identities based around ethnicity, place of origin or religion is a regular feature. The surge of localized communal conflicts across Nigeria is in large part a result of high levels of deprivation amongst the general population on the one hand, and a deeply corrupt, kleptocratic political elite on the other that is focused on power - not for a wider public good, but for the diversion of state resources for itself.1The Nigerian political class is catastrophically failing to govern the country efficiently or justly, lacking even 'enlightened self-interest' (Ibrahim 2014). Ethnic and religious disputes are therefore rarely mediated or settled by the government - except sometimes by traditional rulers (Blench et al. 2006) - and they are at the same time reflective of communal struggles for access to the state and its resources (Ekeh 1975; Nnoli 1978; Sha 2005). Such competition often escalates into violence, and at times politicians are themselves rumoured to be involved in sponsoring such violence. The present level of violence and general insecurity across northern Nigeria has become particularly acute, and in places is being accompanied by a recasting of local political authority. Nonetheless, patterns of armed conflict and the forms of insecurity experienced in central and northern Nigeria are by no means uniform. Local political arrangements also vary, particularly in the handling of ethnic and religious diversity and competing social interests. In this paper, we seek to explore the variations in the local politics of inclusion and exclusion.
Many inter-group conflicts in Nigeria are fought on the premise of indigeneity, a concept that is defined on an ethnic basis, with groups categorized variously as 'indigenes' or 'settlers',...