SECURITY CRISIS IN A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY LIKE NIGERIA: A PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

A multicultural society is a society characterized by different ethnic, religious and social cultural groups that intermingle freely within the framework of one society. Nigeria is a good example of a multicultural society. In recent time Nigeria is faced with a lot of security crisis, which is largely blamed on her multicultural nature. We therefore question: what is the correlation between multicultural society and insecurity? Does it imply that multiculturalism breeds insecurity and that there must be security crisis in every multicultural society? Observable facts have shown that not all multicultural societies are faced with security crisis. Why it is that security crises in Nigeria are interpreted along ethnoreligio-cultural lines? Why is Nigerian multiculturalism seen as the springboard of her insecurity? What role does ethno-religious consciousness play in stimulating or reducing security crisis? In this paper we contend that ethno-religious leaning in security discourse denies such discourse all forms of objectivity, and instead of addressing the challenge it escalates it. We adopted socio-psychological approach to ascertain the bases of security crisis in Nigeria. We finally conclude that there is no relationship between multiculturalism and security crisis, rather poverty, illiteracy, and corruption are the major causes of security crisis in Nigeria. We finally propose that addressing the problems of poverty, illiteracy and corruption will significantly eliminate security crisis in Nigeria.