Joseph Ezekiel Obuje PhD
Department of History and International Studies,
Federal University of Lafia
Email: ezekielobuje@gmail.com
& Charles Useer
Department of History and International Studies, Federal University of Lafia
Email: Charles useer8@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper interrogates identity politics and insecurity in North-central Nigeria with a specific focus on the Southern Senatorial district of Nasarawa State. Nasarawa state has witnessed a rise in ethnic consciousness resulting in several political turmoil which found expression in the 2013 conflicts in the southern senatorial district of the state, a situation which snowballed into insecurity which now manifests in other forms like armed robbery, farmers/herders clashes, banditry and above all kidnapping. In other to find direction, this study was guided by questions such as: What is the origin of identity politics in Nasarawa state? To what extent is present insecurity in the state rooted in identity politics and what are the dynamics of insecurity in Nasarawa state? The study notes that ethnic minorities were threatened by ethno-religious and political domination, a phenomenon which has since become a recurrent decimal in the geopolitics of the area. This critical phenomenon has come to define both insecurity and identity in the politics of Nasarawa State through religion and ethnicity. This study, thus adopts a qualitative approach to the historical reconstruction of identity politics and insecurity in the north-central senatorial district of Nasarawa State. The findings of this paper revealed that identity politics in north central and particularly Nasarawa state was birthed from the British administration of the area through the Emirate system, this was followed by the iron fist hegemonic control of the ruling Hausa Fulani oligarchy and lastly but more importantly the primitive accumulation character of the political elites that control the state power and the quest to use such power for material accumulation.
Keywords: Identity, Politics and Insecurity
Introduction
There has been growing global sensitivity and concern regarding the resurgence of identity politics, especially the negative forms in which this identity politics manifests in many countries in the contemporary international system.