Group Identity and Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria

The Isoko Sub-Nationalism

Bibliographic Data

ID21701576
AuthorsUwomano Benjamin Okpevra (0000-0002-4963-5600, Ph.D, https://dx.doi.org/362440Department of History and International Studies, Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume31
Issue4
Pages737-763
Publication date2024-02-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal on Minority and Group Rights (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1385-4879 • E-ISSN: 1571-8115
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15718115-bja10144
OpenAlexW4391569301
LanguageEN
References cited11

In this paper, the author paints the socio-political canvass that coloured the motif of colonial and post-colonial political arrangement that characterised the western Niger Delta of Nigeria. This paper underscores the Isoko minority group’s struggle for identity as a distinct ethnic group from their Urhobo neighbour in post-colonial times. It is the aim of this work to try to bring light on the history of minority group’s struggle for establishing their own identity and political domain within the framework of sub-nationalism in the Nigerian state using the appropriate theoretical frameworks. The study deployed the historical and analytical methods, with primary and secondary sources to achieve its aim. The paper shows that the identity of the Isoko Nationalism was not clearly established, until after 1963 and even as late as the period of the Nigerian Civil War, the separate identity of the Isoko ethnic group was not clearly established in some circles, until crude oil economy brought them to the limelight after the end of the Nigerian civil war. The author deposes that to appreciate ethnic relations across time and space in relation to contemporary political circumstances, from the perspective of both majority and minority status and in relation to different ethnic out-groups. Finally, the paper shows that understanding the patterns of intergroup relations as exemplified by the Isoko and their neighbours in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is a necessary prelude to the appreciation of the phenomena in the trajectory of developments that had serious implications on the evolution and trend of the Isoko as an identifiable distinct ethnic group

Art · Delta · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Geography · Niger delta · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Engineering · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Socioeconomic Development in MENA

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