VIRTUE ETHICS AND THE REMAKING OF NIGERIAN NATION

Résumé

In Nigeria today, there existexclusionary cohesions that are in opposition to other social groups with different cultural or ethnic backgrounds. These function solely to reinforce oppressive power relationships, where participating communities are seen as unequals. This attitude has created ethnic chauvinism in Nigeria, where each rightly or wrongly claims one superiority or the other over all others: The Hausa/Fulani claim that political power belongs to them as the majority tribe born to rule. The Igbo ethnic group claims to be the most educated and intelligent. The Yoruba tribe claims that they are the economic (hub) power of the nation. The antagonism is also the case with multi-religious creeds in Nigeria. Each religion claims superiority over the other. This has always resulted in their vilifying one another to the point of causing blood violence in the country. Ordinarily, one would think that this diversity of gifts and claims in a country like Nigeria would have been harnessed for a better collaboration to achieve “Unity in Diversity”. This, however, has never been the case. Nigerians cannot really claim that they are one in a way that all the ethnic groups would be happy to confess and profess “Nigeria we hail thee, though tribes and tongues may differ, in brotherhood we stand”. This paper proposes the cultivation and practice of the virtues of tolerance and unity in diversity, so that the differences in caste, creed and ethnic groups cannot keep us apart; rather they are gifts in varieties to build a better Nigeria.