Ethnic Federalism and Political Accommodation in Nigeria: A Professional Evaluation

This study provides a professional evaluation of Nigeria's practice of ethnic federalism as a mechanism for political accommodation, assessing whether the federal system as currently configured effectively manages the country's deep ethnic and regional diversities or amplifies competitive ethnic mobilisation. Nigeria's federal structure was explicitly designed to manage ethnic and regional diversity through territorial segmentation and representation guarantees, yet ethnic conflict and regional grievances have persisted as central features of Nigerian political life since independence. Using a comparative policy analysis design, the study draws on constitutional documents, political party platforms, state government policies, and expert assessments from political scientists, governance consultants, and constitutional lawyers engaged with the national constitutional debate. The ethnic federalism theory and the consociational democracy framework are applied to evaluate the performance of Nigeria's diversity management arrangements. Findings reveal that while federalism has provided a framework for managing some dimensions of ethnic diversity by ensuring regional representation at the federal level, it has simultaneously incentivised ethnic and regional political mobilisation by making ethnic group size and organisational cohesion decisive factors in access to federal resources. The federal character principle and the geopolitical zone arrangements have ossified ethnic and regional identities rather than fostering civic national identity. Recommendations include revisiting constituency delineation to reduce the incentive for ethnic mobilisation, strengthening civic education that promotes shared Nigerian identity, and reforming the federal character implementation guidelines. Keywords: ethnic federalism, political accommodation, diversity management, consociationalism, Nigeria