Nationalist Imagination and Political Community in Nigeria

The chapter examines the form of political community envisioned by Nigerian nationalists. It explores conceptions of the foundational units of the Nigerian state, whether as tribes, ethnic groups, linguistic units, or nationalities. Of interest is how their conceptions of the units pooled together to found Nigeria informed the nationalist project of Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Nnamdi Azikiwe. Focused on exploring the ideas that informed their political project, the paper contends that a feature of the nationalist project in Nigeria was that it sought to nestle between received Western constitutional forms on one hand and pre-colonial sources of inspiration. Drawing as they did from ideas of descent to Oduduwa (Awolowo), a Caliphate imagination traced to the nineteenth century (Bello), and a notion of conciliar or indigenous democracy (Azikiwe), they sought to legitimize their projects. It is noted that while Awolowo’s and Bello’s projects may be understood as variations on a theme, given the ways descent ideas and religious imagination informed segregationist practices, Azikiwe and comrades such as Professor Ita were interested in downplaying ethnicity in their blueprint for political community in Nigeria. While the preference of the latter for residency was instructive, the question of autochthony cannot simply be wished away.