FROM DETRIBALISATION TO RETRIBALISATION

Matthew Hassan Kukah raises many questions in the search for a detribalised nation

On February 24 this year, I delivered the Convocation lecture for the University of Abuja, titled, Though Tribe and Tongue May Differ: Managing Diversity in Nigeria. Drawing from Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, I came to the very sad conclusion that coming to the critical point where two roads diverged, our leaders have always avoided the road less travelled. The result is that rather than make a difference, many of the leaders have continued to make the same mistakes.

The cumulative effect litters the landscape and goes by different names: corruption, underdevelopment, stagnation, decay, etc. In the lecture, I argued that: We have lacked the courage to take some of the tough decisions that would have changed our country today. We found the discipline and demands of equality enshrined in our democracy difficult to uphold and therefore we opted to cohabit with feudalism. The result is that we have constructed a rickety double decker identity vehicle whereby we inhabit one section as citizens and another as subjects. Government has been unable to secure the loyalty of its citizens who prefer to preserve their reverence and loyalties to their local communities. The consequences of our lack of clear choices now stare us in the face. We are unable to submit to a single loyalty code. The elites steal from government and return home to feather the local nest presided over by the local hegemon before whom they prostrate as favourite sons and daughters adorned with feathers of recognition and appreciation.

No Nigerian leader has found the way to deal constructively with both feudalism and religion and break from these strangulating hegemons which have delayed our national integration. Both these hegemons of feudalism and religion have become totems which people claim to identify with when it is convenient for them to do so. Unless and until a Nigerian leader confronts these twin institutions and defines and clarifies their roles in society, common citizenship in Nigeria will remain an illusion. This is a summary of the dilemma that we are in.

My intention in this presentation is to continue the exploration of themes that have been at the centre of my research and reflections for the last 30 or more years as a public intellectual. The questions are varied and complex, they are vertical, horizontal, intersecting and counter penetrating. They seem interconnected, yet dispersed, they both attract and repel. Look at a few of them: Are we a country, a nation or a people and what is the significance of and the difference between each of these nouns? Is national cohesion an illusion? How do we fix Nigeria? How can this country work for us? Why do we love to hate our country with equal passion? What needs to be done and who needs to do what? What and where are the tools? Who will design or manufacture them? How do we end inequalities? How do we find a balance between religion and politics? Can both ever serve the common good? Can they do so together? The questions are legion.

The theme for the conference according to the convener, Professor Epiphany Azinge, is, Nigeria: In Search of a Detribalised Race. It seems that Professor Azinge seeks to address some of the issues that are also captured in the questions I have posed above. However, I imagine he thinks that if we could produce a detribalised race, then we would have found answers to all our complex problems and would safely be on our way to El Dorado where we would all live happily ever after! I am not here to dispute this assumption, but to add my voice and to raise some even more serious questions.

Those who have read my articles or have heard me speak will be familiar with the fact that I prefer to ask more questions than provide answers. I believe that a chance to address an audience at any time is a rare privilege and no one should take it lightly. It would be dangerous to assume that one is on the podium because he or she is the most informed about the issues. So, I see these events as opportunities to further our collective search for meaning.

So, going forward, my questions are: What does a detribalised race look like? What are the causes of detribalisation and how do people get detribalised? What are the ingredients of detribalisation? In fact, can there be such a thing as a totally ‘detribalised’ race or person? Who writes the prescription and who administers the dosage? What are the obstacles to detribalisation? Again the questions are many and finding answers to them will now occupy our attention.

Detribalisation and Retribalisation: Causes and Consequences: I am neither an Anthropologist nor a Sociologist and might not have the precise definition of the concept of tribe. However, as a social category, I see tribe as a unit of organisation that holds together a community that shares a sense of common ancestry, history, mythology, language and culture. These go on to produce feelings and bonds of affinity. Tribalism on the other hand, is the operational instrumentalisation, and unfortunately even manipulation, of that identity as a platform for organisation and negotiation, or the application of that identity to secure advantage for the group. Tribalism appropriates that identity, draws boundaries and excludes other members from the privileges. When employed, it can become the rallying cry, an ideology for war for the protection of the tribe or the appropriation of resources to maintain the supremacy of the group.

Detribalisation, therefore, does not mean the negation of tribal identity per se, but it means the negation of tribalism, the abandonment of tribal loyalties and their substitution with what may be perceived as higher goals of modernity. This last note stems from the premise that tribalism is often associated with traditionalism which is often perceived to be something static, established and unchangeable, and therefore in conflict with modernity. The discussion on the relationship, oft times seen to be conflictual, of African traditional cultures and modernity is one I will not go into here but it is one on which there is a lot of research already done and on which much more is needed.

However, for the purpose of this conversation and our understanding of ‘detribalisation’ as the negation of tribalism, the question is, what are the aggregate units of bad things that would need to be abandoned for an aggregate of good things that can enable a people to embrace the alternative as an appealing concept? We cannot answer the question in isolation because the title of my paper suggests a second leg, namely, what I refer to as retribalisation which in effect would be the alternative offered as the identity factor of the people (tribe).

I have introduced the notion of retribalization so as to create a balance in the concepts. By my lose definition, it is an abandonment of the tent of detribalisation and a return to a new tribalisation. What it means therefore is the feeling that the promises that were offered to make us abandon tribalism have not paid off and now the individuals or groups realise that they were sold a counterfeit; thus we see the quest for a return to the womb of tribalism. The interplay of these forces is what we are confronted with today. I am not in a position to provide answers, but my concern is to offer a few items on the menu and hope that all of us can begin a process of debating these challenges, looking at the merit or demerits of each of the issues.

The first question to ask is, what are the factors that would lead to detribalisation? What are the incentives? In other words, why would people trade one identity for the other? To attempt to answer these questions, we need to look elsewhere, and here, game theories can help illustrate what we mean.

Excerpts from a lecture delivered by Bishop Kuka hat a conference organised by the Professor Epiphany Az in ge Foundation, Abuja