TUJAMSS Volume 8 Number 1 2023

SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN NIGERIA

Ikeanyi Joseph Chike Anthony Ngonadi Ph.D Odum Innocent Chike
Abstract

The issue of unresolved national question has often been reverberating in the Nigerian Political arena and brought about people calling for national conference to discuss the way forward. Since 1946, the Nigerian state has been struggling to design a fiscal federal structure acceptable to its people but has succeeded in creating dissatisfaction and apathy. The paper examines the call for sovereign national conference and how far it will go in solving the problem that has bedeviled the country. It was argues that suspicion, lack of trust, ethnic inclination, regional attachment, lack of political will accounts for the challenges facing the national conference. The paper made use of observational technique and qualitative descriptive analysis and relying on secondary sources, relevant data were generated. The paper relied on Frustration/Aggression theory propounded by John Dollard as a theoretical framework. This feeling of frustration and aggression is accountable for the call of national conference in Nigeria. The paper concluded that Nigeria being a federal state with linguistic, cultural, and religious diversities is a confluence of strange bed fellows that must learn how to live together. The paper recommended that the discussions and debates must be guided by the spirit of national oneness and indivisibility of the country as enshrined in the constitution, issues that are capable of overheating the polity should be eschewed in all its ramifications.

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