TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Approval Page ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgments iv
List of Tables v
Table of Contents vi
Abstract viii
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1
- The Background to the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 5
1.3 Objectives of the Study 8
1.4 The Significance of the Study 8
1.5 The
Historical Background of Ethnicity in Nigeria
and Ghana 9
CHAPTER TWO: Literature Review 31
2.1 Literature Review 31
CHAPTER THREE: Methodology 53
3.1 Theoretical Framework 53
3.2 Research
Design 56
3.3 Hypotheses 57
3.4 Method Data Collection 58
3.5 Method of
Data Analysis 58
3.6 The Logical
framework 59
CHAPTER FOUR: Ethnicity and Voting Behaviour in Ghana and Nigeria 60
The 2007-2011 Nigerian Election Results 60
4.1 2007 Nigerian Presidential Elections 60
4.2 2011 Nigerian Presidential Elections (final) 64
Ghana 2008-2012 General Election Results 69
4.3 Ghana 2008 General Election Results 69
4.4 Ghana Presidential Elections 2012 Results 71
CHAPTER FIVE: Ethnic Distribution of Government
Appointments and
Voting Behaviour In Nigeria And Ghana 75
5.1 Ethnicity Representation in Key Offices in Ghana and Nigeria 75
5.2
Geo-political Representation of Federal Bureaucracies in Nigeria, 1996-2005 in % 79
CHAPTER SIX: Summary Conclusion and Recommendations 81
6.1 Summary 81
6.2 Conclusion 85
6.3 Recommendations 90
REFERENCES 93
ABSTRACT
This study
examines a paramount factor in the politics of Nigeria
and Ghana,
that is, the politicization of ethnicity and voting behaviour form 2007-2012 in
both countries presidential elections. It traced the incidence to the
pre-independence era in both countries and explains its place in the formation
of political parties and electoral processes. This study draws attention to how
competition for national resources among the various ethnic groups and regions
has led to power struggle. Although previous scholars have made immense and
insightful contribution on the subject matter, none of these scholars did a
comparative study on the politicization of ethnicity and voting behaviour of Ghana and Nigeria within the period
specified. A gap was located in the literature which necessitated this research
questions: Did ethnic factor affect the voting behaviour of Ghanaian and
Nigerian from 2007-2012 presidential elections? Moreover, we anchored our study
on the system theory as our theoretical framework of analysis. We adopted the qualitative
method as our, method of data collection, while descriptive analysis was also
adopted.
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction
- Background to the Study
Ethnicity
appears to have permeated every spheres of the socio-economic and political
activities of Ghana and Nigeria.
it seems to dominate and transcend every other social-force one can utilize to
attain his goals in a body-politic, which means that ethnicity has appeared to
have played and is still playing manifest and latent roles in determining who
manned and who will man key positions in the body-politic of Ghana and Nigeria.
With respect to this, it seems that ethnicity has been politicized and has
become the only hitch-free accessible tool which the elite in the Ghanaian and
Nigerian societies could employ to influence the voting behaviors of the
electorate, to be successful in the various elections and get hold of state
power.
However,
it is due to the immense effects of ethnicity on the voting behaviour of the
electorate in Africa over and against the
manifestoes of political parties that prompted some scholar like Nnoli (1989)
to see ethnicity as a social phenomenon associated with interactions among
members of different ethnic groups. In the same vain Osaghae (1995) underscored
the effect of ethnicity in the politics of Africa by conceptualizing ethnicity
as the employment and mobilization of ethnic identity and differences to gain
advantage in situation of competition, conflict or cooperation.
Briefly
speaking, ethnicity was politicized in Ghana
politics from the time of Dr. Kmame Nkrumah who turned the country politics
into the affairs of the Akan ethnic group of Ashanti region. He ruled the
country with one political party the CPP from 1964-1966 when he was overthrown
by Kofi Busiar. In the same vain in Nigeria first Republic, ethnicity was
instrumental to the death of the first republic and the killing of most
Northern politicians, because the voting in the federal election of 1965 was smeared
with ethnic violence by the ethnic party gladiators who wanted their regional
political parties like NCNC, AG. NPC to control the seats both in the regional
and federal legislatures, the coup of 1966 in Nigeria
was seen as the southern coup against the Northern politicians; this sowed the
seed of ethnic politics in the military, Dudley
(1973).
As
the second Republics in both countries were drawing closer; the issue of
ethnicity and its determinant factor in politics and political parties
formation in Nigeria and Ghana was reviewed by the members of the Constitution
Drafting Committee, and it came out in the Nigerian constitution of 1979,
section 202 prohibiliting the formation of political parties with ethic or
religious connotation, but in spite of that constitutional injunction against forming
political parties along ethnic lines the emergent political parties in Nigeria
in the second republic were formed along ethnic lines e,g are the National
party of Nigeria with the flag-bear, Alhaji Shehu Shagari from North, NPP-
Nigeria People’s Party with the flag-bear Dr. Azikiwe from South-East Nigeria,
and the third major political party, UPN-Unity Party of Nigeria was formed by
Western (Yoruba) veteran Politician, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The leaders of
those political parties in the second Republic appealed for votes along ethnic
lines where they came from and in the general election, they won their overwhelming
votes from their ethnic regions of origin. In the same way, Ghana in the third
republic of 1979, which the military government of the half-bred Ghanaian/Scotland
flight lieutenant Jerry Rawlings headed, who was an Ewe-speaking man from the
volta region came into politics with ethnic inclination against the Akan people
of the Ashante Kingdom where Nkrumah and
General Frederick Akuffo came from. He, Rawlings hated the domineering power of
the Akan-speaking people of the Ashante ethnic group in the South-Ghana, he executed
General Akuffo in 1978 and in September, 1979 handed over to the man from the
upper-west region, an affiliate of the Northern region. Rawlings Politicized ethnicity
in the present day Ghana between the south and north, believing that the
southern predominant ethnic group of Akan-speaking people in the Ashante region
where the first prime-minister Nkrumah and Akuffo came were marginalizing the
North (Tordoff, 1984).
On
the contrary, the so-called constitutional injunction in the 1979 constitution
in Nigeria could not stop the ethnic chanting in the minds of the voters who
could not stand the view of seeing another candidate from another political
party other than their own to head the country’s highest political position,
the presidency, resorted into violence in 1983 general election, which saw to
the ousting of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 31 December, 1983 by General Buhari from
North. In politics of Nigeria,
ethnicity determined who won the election in the presidency. The Nigerian
military has been politicized along ethnic lines since 1966 by the ‘January
majors’ who were predominantly Southerners. Politics becomes a war on ethnic lines
between the south and northern regions/states in Nigeria. Political appointments
were still made on ethnic lines instead of merits. The elite tried in 1979 and
invented the federal character principle for equal representation of all states
in the federal Bureaucracy, but the same elite still violet the principle by
putting their cronies, brothers, sisters and girl friends there, Ibanu (2012).
In
their third republic in Nigeria,
politics was equally played along ethnic lines between the North and the South.
The 1989 constitution repeated the same order instructing the emerging
political parties to bear National out-look, ensuring that its members
cut-across the entire states/ethnic groups of the Nation-Nigeria, but the
military government of General Babangida that teleguided the transition brought
out two political parties: The Social Democratic Party (SDP), and National
Republican Convention (NRC) of which the flag-bears were Chief Abiola and Tofa
respectively. The acclaimed winner of the election Chief Abiola of the SDP was
from Yoruba, part of the southern region while Tofa was from the North, the
military president so hesitant to hand
power to the South annulled the victory of chief M. K.O Abiola the winner of
June 12, 1993 presidential election in Nigeria.
In
the present fourth republic in both Ghana
and Nigeria,
constitutional measures have been adopted to end the call of ethnicity in
soliciting for voting by the political parties’ flag-bears, but the tune of
ethnicity on the voting behaviour is still high in determining electoral
victory by the political parties in the countries under study.
As
time progressed, ethnicity played down a little in the politics of 1999, which
was the beginning of fourth republic in Nigeria. The ruling people’s democracy
party which Chief Olusegun Obasanjo came out as the successful president-elect
appeared to have towed the National outlook as instructed by the section 221 of
the 1999 constitution. In the same vain,
in Ghana first Republic, the political parties law Act 574 (2000) also make
similar provisions, prohibiting religious
and ethnically based political parties in the country which could not go
along way in making the political leaders in Ghana think of one united Ghana first
(Useh, 2011).
Again,
in the both countries the issue of unequal representation by the different
ethnic groups in the federal bureaucracy has been playing both countries
politics and has been directing the voting behaviours of the citizenry towards
ethnically-based party candidates, instead of voting in lines with the
political parties programmes. In support of this claim, John Dramani Mahama
(2012) stated in build-up to December 2012 general election in Ghana that the Northerners should vote for him
because since 1979 a person from Northern Ghana had not ruled Ghana.
Nonetheless,
the above statement reflected the kind of political behaviour of the political
leaders in Ghana
and Nigerian which has been a serious bane on democratization process, for
their campaign strategies in wining elections only scale through in the polls
when coloured with ethnic sentiments. So, this necessitated this study which is
geared towards knowing the effects of ethnicity and voters’ behaviour: A
comparative study of Ghana
and Nigerian presidential elections from 2007-2012.
- Statement of the Problem
POLITICIZATION OF ETHNICITY AND VOTERS’ BEHAVIOUR: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GHANA AND NIGERIA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FROM 2007-2012
