Yoruba politics 1999-2003

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of ethnic mobilization. It uses as a case study, the political mobilization
activities of one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Yoruba of the Southwest, to chart the sequence of
relations between the ethnic group and the Nigerian State between 1999 - 2003. The paper argues that ethnic
mobilization is not an anomic response to the disequilibria generated by modernization and definitely not an
expression of deep-rooted animosities or difference but a quest for group security and development within a
chaotic and often inegalitarian state structure. The weakness of civil society structures and absence of viable
democratic structures for societal “voice” has encouraged the rise of ethnic politics, an amalgam of traditional
and modernist principles, values and structures, as a means for articulating the demands of society and taking
the lead in actualizing such in the face of an unresponsive state.