Culture: The Socio-Political Base of Ethnic Consciousness and Conflicts in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria suffers conflicts whose causes are pinned on ethnic consciousness and factors other than culture. As such, culture is considered as an epiphenomenon. But at the base of Nigerian conflicts is culture which shapes and stirs ethnic consciousness, and remains a divisive factor in human societies. Thus, Nigeria is socio-politically polarized along cultural lines and conflicting cultural contents despite the present world of traversing cultural boundaries. This paper analytically exposes culture as the socio-political base of ethnic consciousness and conflicts in Nigeria, and reveals the philosophical foundation of cultural character as well as axiological panacea to conflicts in Nigeria. The paper finds that in every socio-political setting, ethnic consciousness does not happen in a vacuum, and nobody speaks and acts from nowhere but from a cultural orientation; for culture is the matrix of human existence and nothing happens outside it. As such, ethnic consciousness and human socio-political exercises; behaviours, dispositions and actions are shaped, posited, viewed and interpreted from cultural spaces. But to bridle the negative impact of culture and enhance national unity, consciousness and patriotism of the citizenry, the study concludes that there is need for a national culture that is replete with indigenous values and overlapping similarities to form the content of curriculum in Nigerian education system.