KANT'S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE: A PANACEA FOR POLITICS OF ETHNICITY IN NIGERIA

Résumé

Ethnicity is the root of all evil or problems that bedevil the Nigerian political system. Since independence, tribal loyalty has always replaced or overridden national interests. Nigerians think of their tribes first before the nation. Hence, Nigerian political leaders pursue ethnic goals and interests more than national goals and interests. Consequently, political parties were formed along ethnic lines and tribal considerations since pre-independent Nigeria to date. This has adversely affected the Nigerian political system so much that presently, Nigeria's democracy is dangerously threatened. This paper looks at the problems of ethnicity or tribalism in Nigeria political system with a view to finding the right and moral practical way to solve or allay the problems created by ethnicity in the Nigerian polity. The main objective of this paper is to show that the application of Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, to the myriads of problems occasioned by ethnicism in the Nigerian political system, can bring about the much-desired peace, unity, national loyalty or patriotism, as well as detribalize the entire nation for a better and more progressive nation. This paper therefore, employs Kant's moral principle, the categorical imperative, both as explicatory and prescriptive tool to solving ethnic problems inherent in the Nigeria's political system.