Indigenes

Indigenes are people who can trace their roots back to the community who originally settled in a given location. Anyone who cannot do so is considered a non-indigene, a settler or an “allogene.” The concept took root in the 1979 Nigerian Constitution, and although not expressly supported in the 1999 constitution, it has continued to be a factor in state and national policy.

The principle behind the concept of “indigenity” was to guarantee ethnic parity in education and employment opportunities and to preserve traditional ways of life for Nigeria’s numerous minority groups. But given increasing levels of poverty and unemployment, it has turned into a powerful means of exclusion, denying non-indigenes access to already limited resources and opportunities, notably in terms of education, land ownership, participation in political affairs, and employment by the state. Taken as a whole, these discriminatory policies and practices effectively relegate many “settlers” to the status of second-class citizens, a disadvantage they can only escape by moving back to their region of origin. However, an increasing number of Nigerians have no real ties to the regions they are said to originate from, or their families may have occupied their land for a century or more and no longer know where their ancestors migrated from, and yet they face serious economic consequences because of their status.

Because there are increasingly scarce opportunities to secure government jobs, higher education and political patronage, and many Nigerians sense themselves locked in competition for a basic level of economic security, these policies have served to exacerbate intercommunal tensions. Many Nigerians believe that the rigidly-drawn indigene/settler distinction is fomenting violence between ethnic and religious groups, because it reinforces and is reinforced by other identity-based divides in Nigeria (around ethnicity, language, religion, and culture). Moreover, it erodes the meaning and importance of national citizenship, and prevents unification around other shared political and economic realities.

One prime example of this is the recurring eruptions of violence that have occurred in Jos and Plateau State. Though often presented as “Muslim-Christian” violence, in fact the conflict stems from competition for land between semi-nomadic, cattle herders (who happen to be mostly Muslim) and farmers (who happen to be mostly Christian). Though Jos was settled in 1915 during the colonial era, certain minorities have been granted the status of “true indigenes” (such as the Afizere, Anaguta, and Birom), while others have been labeled “settlers” (such as some Hausa and Jarawa communities), even though many of them have called this region home for over 150 years and cannot claim indigene status anywhere else in Nigeria. These “settlers” have resisted the label and the pervasive discrimination that comes with it.

Sources

Aaron Sayne, “Rethinking Nigeria’s Indigene-Settler Conflicts,” United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 311 (July 2012): 1-15.

“They Do Not Own This Place”: Government Discrimination Against “Non-Indigenes” in Nigeria, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 18, No. 3(A) (April 2006).

Peter Cunliffe-Jones, “Violence in Nigeria: Food not Faith,” The Guardian, 8 March 2010.