Statelessness and the Right to Citizenship in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria is a huge and highly diverse country. It comprises an agglomeration of hundreds of precolonial nations, called “tribes” by the British colonizers. Since its independence in 1960, Nigerian State has been struggling with the question of citizenship; who is a Nigerian or who can be a Nigerian. Over these years, it has preserved an exclusive notion of citizenship where right to citizenship is intimately tied to membership of an “indigenous” community recognized by the state. This has set up boundaries between groups regarded as ‘autochthones' and 'immigrants', ‘first-comer and late-comer’, 'natives' and 'strangers’, ‘indigene’ and ‘settler’. Lacking a robust legal scaffolding, Nigeria’s system of citizenship has evolved organically to depend on authentication by local government authorities rather than a federal agency. As such, the right to be Nigerian is epitomized by a certificate of indigeneity, a nebulous system manipulated by politicians, traditional rulers and state officials. Today, such a system of citizenship has condemned different groups to the pains and agony of de facto statelessness. These groups include but are not limited to minority ethnic groups, internal migrants, internally displaced persons and refugees. In the light of the above, this thesis offers sustained ethical analysis of the oppressive structures of statelessness in Nigeria using the hermeneutical lens of human rights. Its main argument is that the lack of recognition of the citizenship rights of certain individuals or groups in Nigeria because of their ethnicity, religion or migratory history renders them stateless, constituting a grave injustice that can only be remedied through an ethic of recognition. This ethic takes the form of a set of proposals for Churches in Nigeria and the government. firstly, it articulates vigilance, humility and solidarity as necessary virtues for Churches in Nigeria to develop in order to be more capacious in responding to the challenges of statelessness. Secondly, it proposes legal and institutional reforms that the government of Nigeria must urgently embark upon to address the phenomenon of statelessness. These reforms will ensure that the national identity card or residence certificate replaces the indigene certificate as the only proof of Nigerian citizenship.