Okwudiba Nnoli

Okwudiba Nnoli was a Nigerian political scientist, scholar of African politics and political activist whose work focused particularly on ethnicity, class, colonialism, nationalism, democracy and political conflict in Nigeria and Africa Quotes Ethnicity is a social phenomenon associated with contact among ethnic groups that exist within the same political system. Nnoli was defining ethnicity as a phenomenon that arises through interaction between different ethnic groups within a political society, rather than treating ethnicity as an inherent or biological characteristic. Ethnic groups are social formations distinguished by the communal character of their boundaries. Nnoli was explaining what constitutes an ethnic group. He identified language and culture as important factors distinguishing the boundaries of such social formations. The relevant communal factor may be language, culture or both. Nnoli was elaborating on the characteristics that can distinguish ethnic groups. He emphasised that ethnic boundaries can be based on linguistic, cultural or combined linguistic and cultural characteristics. Ethnicity exists only within a political society consisting of diverse ethnic groups. Nnoli's argument was that ethnicity requires interaction between distinct groups. In a society without such intergroup relations, ethnicity in the political sense he was analysing would not arise. Ethnicity involves a common consciousness of being one in relation to the other interacting ethnic groups. He distinguished the existence of cultural or linguistic similarities from the development of a shared consciousness in relation to other groups. It is a social and not a biological phenomenon. Nnoli was distinguishing ethnicity from biological explanations of human difference. The colonial urban setting in Nigeria constituted the cradle of contemporary ethnicity. Nnoli located the emergence of modern Nigerian ethnic consciousness in colonial urban centres, where people from different precolonial communities came into sustained contact and developed new forms of collective identity. The exploited Africans soon experienced the colonizers’ racial prejudice and discrimination. Nnoli was describing the experience of Africans in colonial urban environments. He connected racial discrimination and competition over employment, housing and other resources with the development of new forms of collective consciousness. Category: Political scientists from Nigeria