The incessant ethnic conflict in Nigeria, the author contends, is a byproduct of the federal structure of the Nigerian government, and the way Nigerian leaders ruled the country since the amalgamation of the different ethnic nationalities into two regions – the northern protectorate and the southern protectorate – as well as the amalgamation of the north and south into one nation-state called Nigeria in 1914. Against the will of the Nigerian ethnic nationalities, the British forcefully united different indigenous peoples and nationalities who had no prior formal relationships. Their boundaries were modified; they were combined into one modern state by the British colonial administrators; and the name, Nigeria – a name derived from a 19^th century British owned company, the Royal Niger Company – was imposed on them.

Prior to the independence of Nigeria in 1960, the British colonial administrators ruled Nigeria through a system of governance known as indirect rule. Indirect rule by its nature legalizes discrimination and favoritism. The British governed through their loyal traditional kings, and introduced skewed ethnic employment policies whereby the northerners were recruited for the military and the southerners for the civil service or public administration.

The skewed nature of governance and economic opportunities that the British introduced metamorphosed into interethnic animosities, comparison, suspicion, intense competition and discrimination during the pre-independence era (1914-1959), and these culminated in interethnic violence and war six years after the 1960 declaration of independence.

Before the amalgamation of 1914, the various ethnic nationalities were autonomous entities and governed their people through their indigenous systems of governance. Because of the autonomy and self-determination of these ethnic nationalities, there were minimal or no inter-ethnic conflict. However, with the advent of the amalgamation of 1914 and the adoption of the parliamentary system of government in 1960, previously isolated and autonomous ethnic nationalities – for example, the Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, etc. – began to ferociously compete for power at the center. The so-called Igbo-led coup d’état of January 1966 that resulted in the death of prominent government and military leaders mainly from the northern region (the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group) and the counter coup of July 1966, as well as the massacre of the Igbos in the northern Nigeria by the northerners which was viewed by the public as a revenge by the northern Hausa-Fulanis against the Igbos of the southeast, are all consequences of inter-ethnic struggle for power control at the center. Even when federalism – the presidential system of government – was adopted during the second Republic in 1979, interethnic struggle and violent competition for power and resource control at the center did not stop; rather, it intensified.

The numerous interethnic conflicts, violence and war that have plagued Nigeria over the years are therefore caused by the fight over which ethnic group will be at the helm of affairs, consolidate power at the center, and control the affairs of the federal government, including oil which is Nigeria’s primary source of revenue. Nwaubani’s analysis supports a theory that espouses a recurrent pattern of action and reaction in interethnic relations in Nigeria over competition for the center. When one ethnic group seizes power at the center (federal power), other ethnic groups that feel marginalized and excluded begin to agitate for inclusion. Agitations such as these often escalate to violence and war. The military coup of January 1966 that led to the emergence of an Igbo head of state and the counter coup of July 1966 that led to the demise of the Igbo leadership and ushered in the military dictatorship of the northerners, as well as the secession of the eastern region to form the aborted independent state of Biafra from the federal government of Nigeria which led to a three-year war (1967-1970) causing the death of more than three million people, most of whom were Biafrans, are all examples of the action-reaction pattern of interethnic relationship in Nigeria. Also, the rise of Boko Haram was seen as an attempt by the northerners to cause instability in the country and weaken the government administration of President Goodluck Jonathan who hails from the oil rich Niger Delta of southern Nigeria. Incidentally, Goodluck Jonathan lost the (re)election of 2015 to the current President Muhammadu Buhari who is of the northern Hausa-Fulani ethnic group.

Buhari’s ascension to the presidency is accompanied by two major social and militant movements from the south (specifically, southeast and south-south). The one is the revitalized agitation for the independence of Biafra led by the Indigenous People of Biafra. The other is the re-emergence of the environmentally based social movement in the oil rich Niger Delta led by the Niger Delta Avengers.