Nigeria Federation: Myth or Reality

Abstract

Discussions of this nature tend to be very slippery as even the effort to maintain empirical objectivity
can easily raise the dust partisan politics. In other words, in the heated political atmosphere of Nigeria’s 2019 general elections, what one says or does not even say, can be misconstrued as a campaign for one political party or another. Nevertheless, we shall attempt to provide the empirically objective information and let the question of whether Nigeria’s federation is a myth or a reality, answer itself. We shall adopt a historical approach in order to reveal the dialectical interconnections between the series of events that have shaped Nigeria’s federation. Let us however note that a federal system is usually meant to achieve and enhance national integration, i.e. that state of cohesiveness where a national identity overshadows ethnic, sub-ethnic and religious
consciousness.