Nigeria’s Unity, Development and Civil Society: The Imperative of Good Governance

Before the arrival of the British imperialist, there was no united entity called Nigeria. There was also nothing like political infrastructure known as “regions”. Nigeria comprises of about 250 ethnic groups who were doing things as entity of their own before the British colonizers integrated Nigeria to be one. The merger could be described as “forced union”. The introduction of indirect rule by the British imperial master orchestrated divide and rule in Nigeria, it also gave rise to ethnic consciousness. It is on this backdrop that this study evaluated the role of governance in Nigeria’s unity with a view to identifying the areas of problems. Survey research method was adopted. Data collected through questionnaire were analyzed using Z-test. Myriads of factors were identified as responsible for disunity and separatist agitation in Nigeria. The factors were critically discussed and suggestions proffered. Essentially it is the position of the paper that there should be reduction of scarcity and inequality through revolutionary development. Development which should be predicated on equity and fairness. The rotation of power to ensure that all ethnic groups are given opportunity is also recommended. Also the paper recommended that the emphasis on ethnicity/tribe or place of origin in official forms should be abolished.


Introduction
The trouble with Neo-colonial Nigeria is simple and squarely a failure of leadership (Achebe, 1983).
There is nothing wrong with our land, climate, bureaucracy, political ideology and public policy or anything else. The problems are multifarious ranging from "Nigerian factor", ethnicity, corruption, poor policy implementation, politics of balanced federalism, unwillingness or inability of the leaders to rise to the responsibility of their calling, lopsidedness in the sharing of democracy dividend and self-serving leadership. To say the least, Nigeria is at a critical stage of what I am wont to describe as fledgling democracy. Those in power tend to serve only the people in their ethnic bloc. Same goes with distribution of political appointment (Igwe, 2017;Chijioke, 2014). The problems are too numerous to mention. However the crucial ones are discussed in turn in this treatise.

Statement of Problem
Basically, governance refers to the use of political authority and exercise of political control to manage state resources for social and economic development (Tony, 2010). It is also described as the process by which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development. In this case and as Potter (2000) notes, governance entails development management, equity and fair play. However, when the word good is prefixed to it entails efficient and effective management of the resources of the state, and ensuring that same is equitably distributed. Good governance again and according to UNESCAP (2010) is closely linked to the extent to which government is committed to improving public welfare and responsive to the needs of its citizens, competent to ensure rule of law and order and deliver public services, create an enabling policy environment for productive activities and equitable and democratic in its conducts Nigeria as multi ethnic State has a catalogue of leaders but each applied lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities which in multitude of cases result in conflict among the federating units. Distribution of political and public service appointments are based on ethnic cleavages and party loyalists. The political and administrative inertia have resulted in mediocrity in the public service and has also impaired uneven development. These abnormities have heightened separatist agitation and self-determination.
To say the least, Nigeria federalism is beset with structural imbalance. But true federalism implies that the constituent or federating units should pursue their own developmental programmes at their own pace, utilizing resources within their territory and under their control. But Nigeria's federating units continue to be on the increase resulting in greater pressure being put on available resources. Such pressure makes it impossible for any unit to get fully satisfied with regard to its shares.

Objectives of the Study
The broad objective of this study is to critically evaluate the working of Nigeria unity and good governance The specific objectives therefore are : (a) To examine the effect of lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities on separation agitation.
(b) To examine the extent lopsidedness in distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to Nigeria's unity.

Hypotheses
(a) There is a relationship between lopsidedness in distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in Nigeria.
(b) Bias in the distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to Nigeria's unity.

Conceptual Framework
Good Governance: Basically, governance refers to the use of political authority and exercise of political control to manage state resources for social and economic development (Tony, 2010). It is also described as the process by which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development. In this case and as Potter (2000) notes, governance entails development management. However, when the word good is prefixed to it entails efficient and effective management of the resources of the state, (Tony, 2010). Good governance again and according to UNESCAP (2010) is closely linked to the extent to which government is committed to improving public welfare and responsive to the needs of its citizens, competent to ensure rule of law and order and deliver public services, create an enabling policy environment for productive activities and equitable and democratic in its conducts (UNESCAP, 2010). Inferring from the above definitions, we can take, as our working definition here, that good governance is the management of the affairs of the state in positive and progressive manners such that it is beneficial to the greater majority of the citizens and enhances national development.

Promoting Good Governance: The Place of the Civil Society
The place of the civil society in promoting good governance in any polity cannot be overemphasized.
As Ayo (2013) argues, without civil society, government may just feel inclined to do always what it wants and with impunity. Indeed, as Kukah (1999) notes, good governance can be sustained not just by the good will of the ruling class but more by a concerted effort of organs and institutions of the civil society. In reality, it is essentially through the activities of the civil society that arbitrary use of state powers could be curtailed and good governance significantly institutionalized. Specifically, the civil society through its various activities serves as a catalyst for regime change, acts as a check on the state power and its excesses, promotes proper democratic practice and strengthens good governance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm mechanism generally. For the purpose of a better appreciation of the roles of the civil society in promoting good governance, they are further discussed in detail under the following sub-leadings:

The Role of the Civil Society in Promoting Democratic Practice
The role of the civil society in promoting democratic practice is very critical particularly in the developing nations where democratic culture is low and severance institutions are weak (FOCAL, 2006). Low democratic culture is usually manifested in one party dominance, unrepresentative legislature, rigged elections, lack of separation of powers, absence of rule of law etc (Ugwuanyi, 2013).
In such societies, as noted by Liebenberg (2000), civil society becomes the building block of democracy as it helps in various ways to strengthen and sustain proper democratic practice. The roles and contributions of the civil society in promoting democratic practice specifically centers around the following: 1) Promoting credible elections: The process of electing freely and fairly representatives of the people into political offices is one that has become all the more challenging in many states of the world especially in the developing nations. For instance, election in Nigeria has, over the years, been characterized by rigging, violence and other forms of electoral fraud and misconducts (Ugwuanyi, 2011;Nwaorgu, 2012). The end results of all these had usually included the coming into power of people not preferred by the electorates, electoral litigations and nullifications. It is in such circumstance that the role of the civil society in promoting democratic practice through educating the voters is necessary and prominent. The civil society, for instance, assists in ensuring free and fair election by educating the voters on the dangers of participating in or supporting electoral violence. Again, civil society educates the citizens on the importance of participating in the electoral process and the need to vote for the best candidates. In Nigeria, for instance, high level of political apathy arising from poor political representation, illiteracy, bad governance and violence during elections have largely affected the zeal and willingness of the people to come out to vote in elections (Ugwuanyi, 2011;Ukegbu, 2013). As such, the citizens need to be extensively educated to understand the importance and power of their  elections. Doing this effectively, however, requires a broad coalition of civil society organizations unconnected to political parties or candidates that can deploy neutral monitors at the different polling stations to ensure that voting and vote counting is free, fair, peaceful and transparent. Ogu (2011) argued that it may, indeed, be difficult to have credible and fair elections particularly in new and developing democracies unless the civil society plays this role.
3) Engaging in the political education of the citizens: The civil society educates the citizens on their fundamental and political rights and obligations in democratic dispensation and state governance generally. The civil society helps to encourage and develop, through political education, the citizens skills to work with one another to solve common problems and to debate public issues and express their views and other values of democratic life like compromise and respect for opposing views (Emine, 2000). They civil society can do this by organizing political programs, town hall meetings, opinion pools and political debates (Ukaegbu et al., 2013).

The Role of the Civil Society in Limiting and Controlling the Powers of the State
This is another vital area in which the civil society plays very important role. This role is very necessary in the developing states particularly those ones emerging from decades of dictatorship (FOCAL, 2006). Indeed, in such states, there is the need for the civil society organizations to check, monitor and restrain the powers of political leaders and state officials. Ukaegbu (2013, p 34) affirms this need in his comment thus When a country is emerging from decades of dictatorship as it is the case in most African countries, it becomes imperative to checkmate, monitor and restrain the powers of political leaders and state officials.
The civil society perform this function by watching how state officials use their powers, the kind of policies or programmes that government formulates and implements and ultimately raising of concern or alarm about abuse of state powers and the implications of obnoxious policies and programmes. Another instance is the respective agitations by the civil society against fuel price hikes in 1989,1990,1993,1998,2000,2003,2005   Obasanjo. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was on the verge of introducing some political and constitutional reforms that were intended to enable him contest and continue, for the third time, as the president of Nigeria. All these, the civil society were able to do by mobilizing the support and solidarity of the masses or the citizens to agitate against those anti-people policies and programs.
Beyond the use of mass agitation or demonstration to influence and control state powers, the civil society equally influences the way government or state powers is used through peaceful means (Ukaegbu et al., 2013). This could be by presenting their views in national, state or local government parliament, contacting individual members of the parliament and testifying before parliamentary committees. The civil society can also attempt to influence the content of policies and programs by establishing dialogue with the relevant government ministries and agencies and bobbing for policies to be formulated and implemented in a particular way. Indeed, the civil society need not just be in antagonism with the state. The fact that the civil society is independent of the state does not mean that it must always criticize and oppose the state. In some circumstances, the civil society may have to work towards strengthening the citizens support and respect for the state and promoting their patriotic values and positive engagement with it. With such respect and support to the state, the civil society can create positive relationship with the former and which can even result to more peaceful and positive monitoring and controlling of the state by the civil society.

Development: A Theoretical Perspective
In an attempt to define national development, it becomes imperative for us to examine first and foremost, the concept of development. Development refers to man's progressive qualitative and continued improvement of human labour (Ugwu, 2014). It is first and foremost a phenomenon associated with changes in man's creative energies. Development does not lie on products of the efforts of people to apply their creative energy to the transformation of local physical, biological and social cultural developments. The issue of development or under development in Nigeria argues Eze (2015) has been explained by three basic schools of thought: the modernization theory, dependency and Marxian model.

Modernization Theory
The theory is championed by liberal scholars. They argue that underdevelopment is a natural stage (Udeze, 2010). They attribute underdevelopment especially in Nigeria to lack of skilled manpower, high incidence of corruption, politicization of ethnicity, absence of adequate institutional structures, non-availability of modern technology, inability of the third world countries to explore its national resources, absence of effective leadership Jenkins (2000).
In the opinion of the school, the only way to overcome this is for third world countries to adopt open door policy, which will enable western technology and values to be transferred to Nigeria. In the final analysis, development will come through diffusion of capitalism and value. The mode of thinking has influenced Nigeria development strategies since independence.This theory has been widely criticized by scholars like (Johnpaul, 2010;, Udo, 1999. The argument is that after several years of pursuing an open door policy, the Nigeria society for instance is yet to attain a meaningful development. Therefore the school failed to provide answer to Nigeria economic predicament and under development.

Dependency School
This school is led by dependency scholars like Asogwa (2009), Thompson (1985) and Odibo (1988) which is a critic of liberal theory. The theory argues that Nigeria underdevelopment can only be attributed to her continuous interaction with international capitalism. The interaction, which is, based on unequal relationship has distorted Nigeria development and at the same time stagnated the development of its productive force. This relationship only helps the center to develop and the periphery to under develop.
It is the view of this school that even after independence, this relationship has continued to exist. This is exploitative because the periphery constitutes into the production of the raw materials and consumes manufactured products. This type of relationship has been maintained and encouraged by the ruling class who are the agents of international capital. The school therefore recommends that for Nigeria to develop, it should delink from the world capitalist system, since her interaction with international capitalism is causing her underdevelopment.
This theory has been criticized because (i) it lays much emphasis on external forces and ignores internal problems; (ii) It ignores class formation and class struggle, which is very vital in understanding underdevelopment; (iii) It ignores relations of production (who owns the means of production); (iv) The policy recommendations is vague-after delink, what next?
However, despite the above defense, the theory helps us to identify the particular pattern of development experienced by Nigeria, which has continued to reproduce underdevelopment today.

Marxian Theory
The school agrees specifically with dependency theory by saying that Nigeria's underdevelopment is as a result of her incorporation into the world capitalist system. It argues that although external factors are important, other factors such as relations of production and class formation help in understanding Nigeria underdevelopment. It recommends that for Nigeria to develop, there must be a fundamental structural transformation of the society. Nigeria should not delink, but transform that relation of production. Therefore Nigeria can only develop by adopting socialist party as a mode of production.

Features of Development
(i) Self-reliance, i.e., self-generating growth a linkage between agriculture and industry must exist.
(ii) Independent control of the economy to include nationalization of finance houses and monitoring the movement of money.
(iii) Equalization of economic opportunities i.e. the re-organisation of production relation in agriculture and industries and socialization of the means of production, which runs counter to privatization.
(iv) A developed country must have ability to solve internal problems.
(v) A developed country must be able to supply the basic necessities of life to its citizens, i.e., food, clothes, shelter and health care services. So in discussing development, we don't use the indices of Gross National Production (GNP), per capita income because this explains only the growth rate (Chukwuemeka, 2008).

Underdevelopment
By underdevelopment, we mean a situation in which the institution of a country in the periphery of international capital maintains a dependent relationship with one or several countries at the centre of international economy. Underdevelopment does not mean absence of growth, but it is characterized by unequal distributions, slow growth, and the sub-ordination of internal economics and political institutions to the influence from the center. It therefore means the loss of real economy. It is characterized by a high incidence of poverty and a distorted economy. We argue that a state can either be developed or underdeveloped. The word "developing" is deceptive.

Causes of Disunity in Nigeria
A wide range of factors are responsible for disunity in Nigeria which has raised the question whether we are still one Nigeria or not. This has also resulted to the fervent call for restructuring of the federation and agitations from different ethnic cleavages. Critical among others are:

The Politics of Revenue Allocation and Resource Control
Revenue allocation has been a problematic issue right from the colonial period .
This is predicated on the various committees or commissions that have worked on this subject.
Revenue allocation, resource control, and the politics of true federalism have caused a lot of problems in Nigeria. The revenue allocation more often than not is suspected to favor some parts of the Country at the expense of the others. This has impaired even development and have created tension and instability in the system.

Ethnic Consciousness and Ethnic Militia
Ethnicity is the soldiering slogan or concept employed by the elites to mobilize and unify a category of people who may have a common culture, myth of common origin and inhabit a particular territory and who speak the same language. The objective indicator of oneness especially the myth of common origin and common language were manipulated by the elites particularly the petit-bourgeoisie to ensure a monolithic support in politics. Many theoretical efforts have been made to explain ethnicity in Nigeria. Prominent among them are the following three schools:

Modernization Model
The modernization scholars argue that ethnicity is an indicative of underdevelopment which will wither away as a non-modern or traditional society becomes modernized. For this school, to be modern is to acquire characteristics of western society by having more urban centres. A higher rate of literacy, fly over etc.

Detribalization or Super-Tribalization School
The school contends that the emergence persistence and silence of ethnicity are facilitated and exacerbated by the very process of modernization. Modernization encourages laissez faire competition.
(True market economy) as resources and benefits are scarce, ethnicity thrives as a medium of competition. Because the state of modernization is never even, given the national endowment of various groups in terms of resources and their varied exposure to modernization, competition is heightened between ethnic groups.

Capture Theory
The proponents of this school argue that competition between ethnic groups in a heterogeneous politics should be seen in terms of the attempts by their political parties to capture power. The petit bourgeoisie who mobilize and manipulate the ethnic populace for support are the real propagators of ethnicity.
Consequently, ethnicity is a mask for class privileged because ethnic movement may be created and instigated to action by the petit bourgeoisie in furtherance of their own special interest.
Having captured power, the members of the party try to perpetuate their domination by placing the members of the ethnic group which the party represents in government positions and to ensure a concentration of government activities and amenities in its home based.

Root Causes of Ethnicity in Nigeria
Scores of factors could be adduced to have caused and heightened ethnicity in Nigeria argues Nnoli (1988). They are: 1) The colonizers domination of social economic and political activities caused alienation among Nigerians. Because the Hausa people allowed the British imperialist to settle in their place first, they love them and made them see people from Ibo and Yoruba as different people.
2) There was location of industries in areas of gainful exploitation without considering the need for inter sectional and inter regional balance in socio-economic achievements for this reasons, certain linguistic and communal home lands became better "developed" socio-economically than others. This imbalance deepens anti party between ethnic groups.
3) The introduction of official forms and documents by the colonial bureaucrats containing information about the origins of the local people reinforcing ethno-centric sentiments of ethnicity and parochial loyalty of the colonized.
4) The colonial policies kept the Nigerian tribes divided rather than wield them together. This they achieved through political policies like indirect rule, which was more or less divide and rule. The British oppressors made each tribal group to understand that they were important to themselves. 5) Scarcity of jobs in the colonial civil service led to competition for employment among Nigerians.
Those in authority in the bureaucracy tend to secure more jobs for their tribal groups. This heightened ethnicity.
6) It should be understood that ethnicity served the colonialist as mechanism to divide the colonized and therefore maintain domination over them. The petit-bourgeosie who took over from the British oppressors continued to employ the same strategy.

Rise of Ethnic Militia and Ethnic Agitation
The The imbalance in the distribution of social amenities, employment, and distribution of appointments have heightened ethnic crises in Nigeria to say the least. The hegemonistic and chauvinistic tendencies in Nigeria democracy is pushing separatist agitators to call for secession. This poses a serious threat to Nigeria unity.

Changing Morals of Politicians and Governing Elites
The cherished tradition of elected representative serving the people and dying for the people is no longer tenable. The people are now dying for their elected representatives in multitude of cases. Most of our politicians preferred setting the whole house on fire provided the rat is caught. The reminiscences of Herbert Macualay, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Belewa are now fairy tales.
Today most politicians sought for state power and political space to serve people from their ethnic and tribal group on the expense of the vast masses of people in other regions in Nigeria.

Bribery and Corruption
Corruption has been defined by Nye (1958) as behavior, which deviates from formal duties of a public role because of (private clique) regarding pecuniary. This includes such behavior as bribery (use of reward) to pervade the judgment of a person in position of trust, nepotism (bestowal of patronage by reason of astrictive relationship rather than merit), extortion and misappropriation of public resources for private regarding uses. Today in Nigeria corruption has employers and employees.

Nature and Ramification of Corruption
Nature-The nature of corruption is primarily determined by socio-economic formation of the society.
In a socialist society like Cuba, Soviet Union to mention a few, there is an outright limitation on the extent the individual could legally accumulate private property. The socialist prohibits private accumulation of property in a way that is detrimental to the interest of the vast majority of the people.
In post-colonial and neo-colonial states like Nigeria, the prevalent mode of production is such that the capture of state power is simply the capture of authority to accumulate wealth by the ruling elites and their allies, at the expense of the vast majority of down trodden masses.

Ramification
This may take three forms: -manipulation of government machineries -embezzlement acquisition of property and -skewed patronage, coercive intimidation.

Causes of Corruption
Corruption has been explained by two schools of thought:

Modernization Model
The school argues that corruption occurs as a result of the unresolved contradiction between the values of the traditional and modern societies. In other words, much of what is considered as corruption is in fact a continuation of traditional gift giving practices, which recently has been re-christened "PR" (public relations). Only the imposition of western form had transformed traditional gift exchange into corruption. It is further argued that corruption is more prominent in less developed countries because of great inequality in distribution of wealth, weakness of social and governmental enforcement mechanism and conflict between changing moral goals.

Capture Model
The school explains corruption in Nigerian from the point of view of the nature of the neo-colonial state. It argues that the use of state power for property accumulation tends to be logically linked with the weak economic base of the ruling class and their ambition to create a powerful economic base for themselves, their siblings and clients. Politics in Nigeria is generally conceived as a commercial venture. The concern of the politicians appear to be the capture of state power with which they could accumulate wealth for themselves and quickly too. It will appear that the endemic political corruption in Nigeria is caused by the social economic formation of the state. The phenomenon will be sustained and exacerbated by the nature of the ruling class and the role of state power as instrument of property accumulation.

Research Design
The survey was used to gather data on the basis of its usability with large samples as was the case with the present study where N=100. The study is largely interpretive because it focuses on qualitative and quantitative data.

Sample
Fifty seven respondents formed the sample for the study. The sample had diversity in terms of age, sex, social economic status, and experience among other variables.

Instrumentation
Questionnaire items were used to source data from the respondents. The items sought to which the respondents understood the problem of governance in Nigeria as they were conceptualized in the literature review. The questionnaire was pilot tested and rated highly by raters with extensive experience in the use of the instrument for research purposes. The ease of access to the respondents by the researcher, allowed for a personal administration of the instrument which ensured hundred percent return rates thereby eliminating non-return bias. In depth interviews were conducted with the 57 respondents as a follow-up to the questionnaire in order to glean the subtle aspects that questionnaire items could not adequately elicit. Interviews focused mainly on the respondents' justifications for particular response options to questionnaire items.

Data presentation and Analysis
Responses that were relevant to the objectives and hypotheses formulated were used. The method applied in the analysis was difference in proportion, and, in testing the hypotheses formulated, Z-test was used.

Presentation and Analysis of Data
The aim of the analysis is to test for significant difference between the proportions of responses P 1 and P 2. Because the sample size was large and the parameter, assumed to be normally distributed, the test concerning that parameter is carried out using the Z-test. It is used in testing the hypotheses Ho: P 1 = P 2 (i.e. P=0.5) as H1: P1 >0.5). This is obviously a one-tailed test. Z = /P 1 -P 2 / Pq n Where P 1 =the proportion of the population that say "yes" P 2 =the proportions of the population that say "No" q=1-P P=0.5 n=sample size

Test of Hypotheses
Ho: There is no relationship between lopsidedness in the distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in Nigeria.

H1:
There is relationship between lopsidedness in the distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in Nigeria.  Decision-Since the value of Z-calculated is greater than the value of Z-tabulated, the Ho is rejected.
Conclusion: P 1 is significantly greater than P 2 which means that there is no relationship between distribution of social amenities and separatist agitation in Nigeria.

Hypothesis 2
Ho: Bias in distribution of political and public service appointments do not pose threat to Nigeria's unity.

H1
: Bias in distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to Nigeria's unity. Decision: Since the calculated Z (4.32) is greater than the tabulated Z (1.96), Ho is rejected.
Conclusion therefore is P 1 ≠ P hence, sufficient evidence abound that the proportion of respondents who strongly agree is significantly greater than 0.25.
There is also need to test "Agree" responses for significant difference from P 1 =0.05.
The procedure is to carry on as before. For α=0.05, the tabulated Z=value is 1.96.Since Z=calculated is 1.38 which is less than 1.96m Ho is accepted. Conclusion is that the proportion who agree to the opinion is not significantly higher than 0.25.
For "disagrees" an "not sure" pinions, it can be seen that the figures are very small. Considering the result from 0.33 figures an inference can be made that the outcome of the "disagree" and "not sure" opinions will not be significantly higher than 0.25. And this will amount to testing the obvious.
Conclusion: Bias in the distribution of political and public service appointments pose threat to Nigeria's unity.

Recommended Solutions to Foster Nigeria Unity
1) Nigeria should be restructured-We need a mutually agreed arrangement that allows every component to take charge of the security of lives and properties of citizens through decentralized policing, while the Federal Government takes care of defending our territorial integrity. We need a federal arrangement where the best excel and does not have to be sacrificed in the name of federal character. We need a structured federation where every Nigerian can live and ply his or her business without any form of discrimination, molestation and destruction of his or her life and property on the flimsiest excuses. 2) Reduction of scarcity and inequality through revolutionary development programme which should be predicated on equity.
3) There should be uniform formulation and application of rules, norms and regulations throughout the country.
4) Power should rotate between the East, South, West and North. There should be no slogan like "born to rule" or "born to serve".
5) The emphasis on ethnicity/tribe or place of origin in official forms should be abolished.
6) Emphasis should be shifted from the sharing of national cake to creative production of the cake 7) Wealth should be de-emphasized as basis for social status and replaced by the level of creative production of goods, services and ideas.
8) It is also recommended that the funds meant for the creation and consideration of states and local governments should be diverted to create employment for teaming youths and also the formation of viable associations for poor peasants, workers, petty traders, artisans and the underemployed and unemployed.
9) Consultation, dialogue, friendly and informative public relations will go a long way in reducing high tide of hostility, mistrust and suspicion among the major stakeholders in Nigerian wealth sources.