Cultural hegemony and ethnic minority struggles in Nigeria

Abstract

This study explores the plight of ethnic minorities and marginals and their increasing quest to obliterate their subordinate status and attempts by the dominant groups to maintain the status quo in Nigeria. Such interactions have induced resistance and increasingly stimulated questions of insecurity. Extant explanations of ethnic hegemony have mainly focused on describing and analysing the phenomenon with the attendant socio-political, economic, and environmental issues. This approach has neglected the interaction between hegemony and resistance in majority/minority relations. This brings to the fore the need to interrogate this missing link. Drawing from interviews, institutional reports, and other secondary sources and relying on the cultural hegemony thesis, we argue that questions of cultural hegemony and instances of resistance, counter-resistance, and reverse influences have had significant consequences for contemporary Nigeria’s politics. This trend stimulated bitterness, suspicion, and violence in the socio-political life of the country and manifested in voting patterns and political violence.