It was, perhaps, no surprise that when President Bola Tinubu spoke to newsmen after the coronation of Pope Leo XIV in Rome on Sunday, the theme that he chose was the diversity of the Nigerian nation. The significance of the invitation and the symbolism of Tinubu’s presence at the Vatican were widely perceived against the background of the perennial question of diversity in this multi-religious and multi-ethnic country. Here was the President, a Muslim, leading the Nigerian delegation to the epochal Christian ceremony that attracted many leaders across the world. Tinubu said of his presence: “(It is) consistent in the true sense of unity in diversity… We must continue to work on it. It’s a work in progress…”

Now, identity politics is a global phenomenon. It is a challenge to nation-building in many countries. In the specific case of Nigeria, the manifestation of identity politics is more pronounced in the religious, ethnic and regional dimensions. In particular, the question of ethnic identity will be examined in this column. Virtually every issue in the polity and society is now ethnicised, thereby compounding the process of finding solutions.

To start with, a lot of conceptual problems becloud rational discussions. Terms are used without clarity about their meanings. So, during debates there is hardly any mutual understanding of the words being employed to advance arguments from opposite sides.

One of those often-misused words is “tribe.”

It is in this light of the foregoing that a revised copy of a piece entitled “So, where are the tribes?” published here on April 14, 2021, is being reproduced as follows:

Simply put, there is no tribe anywhere in Nigeria today. There are instead communities, ethnic groups and nationalities making up the country. These categories are different from tribe.

Despite this obvious sociological fact, in official documents and public discussions ethnic groups comprising tens of millions of people are incorrectly referred to as “tribes.” Hence, from the professor to the senator and from the pundit to the roadside mechanic, comes the conclusion that the problem of Nigeria is “tribalism.” 

When you make a statement at the police station, you have to indicate your “tribe” on the paper. A line in the Nigeria’s resurrected national anthem even says: “Though tribes and tongues may differ; In brotherhood we stand…”

It’s often considered supremely charitable when you say a political personality is “detribalised.” But, this is grossly erroneous.  To be “detribalised” is to be removed from a tribe. Here is the definition of “detribalise”, according to the Oxford Dictionary: “remove (someone) from a traditional tribal social structure.” The dictionary further gives the examples of usage of the word “detribalise” as follows: “these policies attempted to detribalise native people by extricating them from their land base; (detribalised as adjective):  the 250,000 include many detribalised urban people. “

It is, therefore, a monumental insult to say, for instance, that an Igbo man belonging to an ethnic group of over 40 million people is “detribalised” when what you simply mean to say is that he is no ethnic chauvinist. When you describe a man as “detribalised” what you are saying unwittingly is that the gentleman has just been taken out of a primitive enclave and relocated, perhaps, in an urban civilised setting. And it doesn’t strike some pundits as strange that while the British discuss the issue of “Scottish nationalism” Nigerians talk of “Yoruba tribalism” even though the Yoruba population in Nigeria is larger than that of the Scottish in United Kingdom. You will never read in British newspapers stories about Welsh or English tribalism. No, they don’t discuss “tribalism” because they know the implication of inferiority in the meaning. Rather, they talk of “nationalism” Britain.   

It should obviously sound offensive that over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria are derogatorily referred to as tribes. Some persons talk of their “tribe” when the appropriate word should be nation, nationality or ethnic group.

It is amazing that some pundits seem not to be rankled by these conceptual contradictions.

Imprecision is a social and intellectual malaise in Nigeria. This is because the scientific approach is hardly adopted in solving everyday problems. Scientific method is not yet entrenched in the national culture. It takes discipline to do so. The imprecise use of terms is part of the deficit in the current debate of the Nigerian condition. Hardly is there any agreement on the meanings of many of the buzzwords used in discussing the nation’s problems. For instance, despite the legitimate impatience of some well-informed advocates of “restructuring” with those still ask for the meaning of the term, a lot of clarification is still necessary in some quarters. This may sound indulgent or pedantic; but it is important.

In the specific case of the inappropriate use of the   category “tribe,” the concern here transcends academic anthropology. The error is in a sense a measure of Nigeria’s social and political development. Historically, the colonialists in their perverted sociology used the word “tribe” to describe a people they regarded as primitive. It was part of the ideological hegemony of the racists to portray the colonised people as inferior with no social or political history. It didn’t matter that kingdoms and empires existed for centuries in places the colonialists later described as tribal enclaves. Imagine still describing Edo as a tribe centuries after the Benin Kingdom established relations with Portugal.  Today, the Portuguese will not refer to any part of their country as a tribe. Talking about sociological evolution, it was a racist insult to describe as tribesmen the producers of the masterpieces of art stolen by the white man during the colonial conquests.  

The irony is that decades after independence well educated Nigerians continue to describe their ethnic groups and nationalities in the same pejorative term those sociologists in the service of colonialism describe black people in the 19th Century.

To be sure, members of a tribe belonged to one of the lowest rungs in the ladder of human civilisation; they were still at the pre-state stage in political evolution. The tribal space is the universe of some members of the tribe.   As a member of a tribe you might not even be aware of the existence other tribes in the same region. 

It is noteworthy that in the West, in contemporary discussions of inter-group relations the category “tribe’ is reserved only for those regarded as backward with all the socio-economic and political connotations. So the Aborigines in Australia are described as “tribal’” people. In the American context, ethnic and racial groups are not called tribes. The category of tribe applies only to some native Americans still consigned to the dungeon of underdevelopment by virtue of racist policies. Tribesmen as a group and as individuals are markedly separated from other people in terms of development and modernisation. The areas occupied by the extremely disadvantaged groups are still described as “tribal.” 

However, none of the Nigerian ethnic groups, nationalities and, some would even say, nations, could be described as caves of primitive tribesmen.  No part of Nigeria today could be said to be occupied by people completely detached from civilisation.

Regional disparities are, of course, undeniable.  No ethnic group is immune to the  socio-economic underdevelopment which defines the Nigerian society. Yet no group is excluded in the process  of elite formation regardless of the size.

It was quite instructive watching a retired service chief  on television the other day telling his remarkable life story which illustrates  the point at issue. He  belongs to “a minority group within  a minority area.” Yet he rose to be a defence chief some years ago. Similarly, a former senator told his own story. If you use language as the yardstick of ethnic classification, his mother tongue is spoken by only a few hundreds of people. The distinguished senator became a reputable principal  officer of the  senate. There are several examples of citizens belonging to small ethnic groups who have gained national prominence on their own  individual merit. Certainly, these ladies and gentlemen cannot be described as tribesmen and women. In contrast, it was great news in the United States early four years ago when a native American was appointed into a high political office. 

It is pertinent  to draw attention to the   error of calling ethnic groups tribes  because of its consequences for the current  identity politics. There is a way in which tribal identification tends to eclipse the factor of national integration in discussions.  The description of ethnic groups as tribes is, perhaps, an unconscious denial  of the currents of integration. Those who employ the category tribe in identifying themselves and others in puristic terms ignore these obvious currents.

For instance, the sensibilities of the products of inter-ethnic marriages are routinely ignored when some separatists beat the drums of war by peddling ethnic prejudice against members of other groups. The biological   products of  the  cosmopolitan  trends in the Nigerian society can definitely not be tribesmen by the very  definition of their birth. A person may decide to identify with the ethnic group of his mother or father; but that doesn’t make him a tribesman or woman.

The matter even becomes more absurd  when the dynamics of integration is considered.  Those who still talk of tribes and tribalism have static view of things. Take a sample. A citizen is born outside the homestead of his grandparents. He is of the third generation of his family members who have made the place outside their  place of origin  home. He has only visited the place of origin only on a few occasions. In every material sense the man is integrated into his place of abode where he works, pays his taxes and builds his family.  But in this upsurge of identity politics in the land, the man described above would likely be told by some ethnic champions  that  he doesn’t belong to the “tribe” that owns the place in which he lives. To talk of tribe in this context  is an insult to the man as well as those accusing him of being a stranger to the so-called tribe.

It is astonishing that this racist categorisation is embraced in everyday conversations by Nigerians themselves in the playing identity politics.

Doubtless, identity politics will be enriched by bringing conceptual clarity to the issues in dispute. A requirement for this is a good understanding of the meaning of words and phrases used in the debate because of their  implications.  Far from being pedantic on this topic, it is worth stressing that precision in terms of  the use of concepts is important for the urgent  task of diversity management. Those employing  categories to describe groups should be clear about what they mean precisely.

In sum, the Nigerian diversity is not defined by differences among tribesmen.

Among the diverse groups are ethnic groups and nationalities. Some even proclaim their own groups as nations. National integration is, therefore, not about forging an amalgam of tribes. Indeed, integration could be achieved with the instruments of well-articulated policies to promote equity in inter- ethnic and inter-regional relations and social justice for all citizens wherever they choose to reside in the country.

This should be an urgent task for all the tiers of government so that the promotion of national unity could be a legacy of this generation of leaders.