Personally I don't think it was a mistake or bad idea to unify various ethnic groups into a country called Nigeria. I think the problem has been that there were no measures taken to handle such unification. For this sort of union to work I think we should never have terms like IGBO LAND, YORUBA LAND AND HAUSA LAND. The idea behind setting up NYSC to disperse and mix up tribes in all corners of Nigeria was a good one, but the problem is that its not sufficient enough. I think it should have been extended beyond NYSC to others areas like employment, schooling and business.

Let me say for instance that the system is transformed such that each tribe would only find favorable employment, education and business opportunities only outside his ethnic region. The result of this after some years will be that in every region of Nigeria we would have an even distribution and presence of all ethic groups in Nigeria. Using only the 3 major ethnic groups just for an example, in Igbo land we would 40% Igbos, 30% Yorubas and 30% Hausas, in Yoruba land we would also have 40% Yorubas, 30% Igbos and 30% Hausa's and same pattern across every area in Nigeria. Each ethnic group will get used to the other and after all the intertribal marriages and mixing up I bet every issue rooted in tribalism in Nigeria would be never spring up.

Having said all that above, if we have done this since the 70's when NYSC was set up do you think an impact would have made or not?

terminology have never been the problem as you think.
Nigerians had thought they were one while fighting their common enemy the British. The Yoruba even voted for an Igbo Premier in the west!
Until one opposition politician called Obafemi Awolowo devised a new way to win elections by waking up the tribal instinct of his people in 1957. He did succeed, but he had inadvertently introduced a cancer which spread like wild fire. The Igbos caught the disease as well as the Hausa. The rest is history.

Blackteeth: Personally I don't think it was a mistake or bad idea to unify various ethnic groups into a country called Nigeria. I think the problem has been that there were no measures taken to handle such unification. For this sort of union to work I think we should never have terms like IGBO LAND, YORUBA LAND AND HAUSA LAND. The idea behind setting up NYSC to disperse and mix up tribes in all corners of Nigeria was a good one, but the problem is that its not sufficient enough. I think it should have been extended beyond NYSC to others areas like employment, schooling and business.

Let me say for instance that the system is transformed such that each tribe would only find favorable employment, education and business opportunities only outside his ethnic region. The result of this after some years will be that in every region of Nigeria we would have an even distribution and presence of all ethic groups in Nigeria. Using only the 3 major ethnic groups just for an example, in Igbo land we would 40% Igbos, 30% Yorubas and 30% Hausas, in Yoruba land we would also have 40% Yorubas, 30% Igbos and 30% Hausa's and same pattern across every area in Nigeria. Each ethnic group will get used to the other and after all the intertribal marriages and mixing up I bet every issue rooted in tribalism in Nigeria would be never spring up.

Having said all that above, if we have done this since the 70's when NYSC was set up do you think an impact would have made or not?

It was not only a blunder but equally a bad colonial idea to unify ethnic nationalists form Nigeria. I guess you would have pray the Europeans had wiped out the indigenous people such as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ibibio, Efik, Edo, Fulani, Tiv, Nupe, Ogoni, Tiv, Birom etc so that your skewed idealism would have been achieved.

It would have been an act of idiocy and lack of humanistic decorum for anybody to force certain group of people out of their ancestral land in order to achieve idealism that runs contrary to the wish of the Almighty Creator.

The British imperialist accomplished in Nigeria what was considered the construct based on the economic interest of Great Britain. It is not surprised that all the evidences have shown Nigeria was not planed and erected for Nigerians or their interest and shall never be.

Ore_MI_22: terminology have never been the problem as you think.
Nigerians had thought they were one while fighting their common enemy the British. The Yoruba even voted for an Igbo Premier in the west!
Until one opposition politician called Obafemi Awolowo devised a new way to win elections by waking up the tribal instinct of his people in 1957. He did succeed, but he had inadvertently introduced a cancer which spread like wild fire. The Igbos caught the disease as well as the Hausa. The rest is history.

You could not be more correct.

Ore_MI_22: terminology have never been the problem as you think.
Nigerians had thought they were one while fighting their common enemy the British. The Yoruba even voted for an Igbo Premier in the west!
Until one opposition politician called Obafemi Awolowo devised a new way to win elections by waking up the tribal instinct of his people in 1957. He did succeed, but he had inadvertently introduced a cancer which spread like wild fire. The Igbos caught the disease as well as the Hausa. The rest is history.

Another ignorant and stupid statement by a clueless one .
Leaders do not just rise in the SW.
TRUE LEADERS ARE CHOSEN BASEF ON THE AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE.
In hindsight,Thank God ,azikwe was kicked out of the SW.
He was handed a liberal and nationalist party based on the core values of the kingdoms of the Yorubas .
Within months ,he had turned it into a ethnic supremacist party.
BASICALLY ,A FORIEGNER WITH A FORIEGN IDEOLOGY AND VALUES.
Someone who saw nothing wrong in employing 100 out of 101 of his less qualified clansmen into available jobs in the SW.
IN YORUBA VALUES SYSTEM,
We call such a person
ALAJE IBOKO.
Someone who would rather eats all the available food ,stick the rest in his nose without bothering to share.
This was later confirmed when he vacuumed up the south's 10 ministerial slots out of 11 in the balewa government ,used up all the allocated educational scholarship voted for the south,promote only civil servants of eastern origin etc
Awo was called upon by the elders to salvage the situation .
Using all the constitutional powers of the parliamentary system of government ,he was able to get a majority in the parliament .
AND WE THANK GOD HE DID.

^^^

Sign of a tribalist, an intellectual discussion and you want to degrade it into the usual childish skirmish, What the OP says is quite thought provoking and tend to see reason with the next poster's idea about intermingling from an early age through education.

NYSC is a great program and we need more like it. Government can also give incentives for inter-tribal marriages such as house building grants, or free land.

We should look at the things all of our cultures do in common and proliferate them.


We all have some sort of chieftain title
We all have some sort of non western attire (rare in africa believe it or not)
We're all black
We're all religious


ideas. National Chieftan titles.
To accompany regional titles, there should be a national title system. Those with a national title should get to wear a set traditional attire that's pan ethnic. The title should be awarded by a national assembly committee and in Abuja only. Title holders should have right of arbitration. the right to have their judgement of communal and civil cases legally recognized with those involved having the option to appeal in court. This is clear the clutter in our judicial system while giving us a united system of operating unique to nigeria and highly efficient. There should be guidelines and principles that are simple but consistent that they follow and are taught upon acquiring the title. This National Traditional title should also be bestowed on public office holders and the national assembly who will, while working have to wear the national traditional attire.

After some time by edict of bourgeois influence more people will opt to wear this attire because societies aspire to dress like it's upper class and this is a proven principle in sociology.

@poster
Good try, but the first person to come up with this idea was slaughtered by Hausa/Fulani junior army officers on various excuses. One they said he abolished the Hausa as the official language of the northern civil service, because "he planned to filled all those positions with Igbos from the south". Did anybody ask the TIVs, Idoma, and Nupes whether they enjoyed suppressing their own languages for Hausa? Ironically, it was officers from these tribes that spearheaded the cold-blooded murder of Ironsi.
Nigeria continues to reward evil instead of good. No wonder we're still trying to light up a 50w bulb while similarly situated nations like India is going to Mars.

Very bold

Before making decisions you have to firstly look for those with similar experience. Nigeria was never built for Nigerians,it was built to serve British interest.check out most developed and stable economies,they have similarity in either culture and religion. That is why there are European countries that are smaller than Nigeria. Africa as a whole has to be educated to the importance of reorganizing the continent so that those who choose to be together would form countries where there would be a high level of patriotism. Nigeria is a scam. And like all lies would be destroyed when true nationalities become one. Look at Nigeria,there is a subtle attempt by the Muslim north headed by the fulanis to dominate the whole country through force . We can never be one. Just postponing the eventual division with massive blood shed. A word is enough for the wise.

OreMI22:
terminology have never been the problem as you think.
Nigerians had thought they were one while fighting their common enemy the British. The Yoruba even voted for an Igbo Premier in the west!
Until one opposition politician called Obafemi Awolowo devised a new way to win elections by waking up the tribal instinct of his people in 1957. He did succeed, but he had inadvertently introduced a cancer which spread like wild fire. The Igbos caught the disease as well as the Hausa. The rest is history.

tribalism started as a result of igbos greed, in case u don't know let me remind u. back then we only have 3 regions n that the eastern, western n Northern region with a premier for each tribe. an igbo man is already made a premier in d Eastern region n another igbo man wants to b a premier in d western region too. is that not greed, u want to have two when someone doesn't have any. so it's normal to introduce tribal politics to put your greedy asses in your place n since the hausas too have understood your greed that's y we keep u far away from power n u will never get it in Nigeria