Abstract
The concept of citizenship lies at the heart of many problems in contemporary Africa. The dichotomy between indigenes and settlers, the focus of this chapter, is one such difficulty. It has provoked some of the most violent conflicts in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and very recently, Cote d’Ivoire. The chapter demonstrates how African jurisprudence – particularly with its emphasis on human ontology – can contribute to a concept of citizenship capable of responding to this and other problems. The chapter uses the indigene and settler dichotomy as a methodological device to question what citizenship means today, and also, whether it yields to a proper understanding of the kind of moral values fundamental to societal co-existence. Going much further than this, the chapter argues that situating citizenship in an African jurisprudential context can encourage the most fundamental moral values central to what it means to live an ethical life as a citizen. The implication is that, when African jurisprudence is applied to citizenship, it does not place citizens at a threshold above aliens, foreigner’s, legal or illegal immigrants. African jurisprudence specifically shows that our moral obligations to each other precede, as the title of the chapter suggests, citizenship rights and responsibilities.
In memory of Ogaba O. A. Onazi, Adadu I. Onazi, William Walbe, Cecilia Elayo, Yahaya Kanam, Ahmadu Sheidu, Ogaba Onazi, Anthony Pwol and Andrew Ikomi, who all, at one time or the other, touched my life in very special ways. I wish to thank Maksymilian Del Mar, Luke Devlin, and my father, Ochapa C. Onazi, for helpful comments to an earlier version of this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Jos is the capital of Plateau State-Nigeria. It developed as a city of migrants under British colonial rule; it comprised then, as it does now, of indigenous ethno-religious groups, as well as groups from other parts of the country and parts of the world, particularly the Hausa ethnic group – the group at the centre of these problems. The conflicts are between indigenous (Afizere, Anaguta and Berom) groups on the one hand, and the Hausa ethnic group, a numerically superior group in the wider Nigerian context, but inferior in Jos and neighbouring towns and villages, on the other hand. There are religious dividing lines among these groups. The indigenous groups are predominantly Christian, while the Hausa are predominantly Muslim. This is perhaps an additional reason why the grievances have taken such an extreme dimension. In Jos, as in other parts of Nigeria, there is often a blurry distinction between religious and ethnic identity.
- 2.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, s 223(2)(b) and 318(1).
- 3.
Mamood Mamdani (1996, 2001) has famously described the indigene and settler dichotomy as one of the continuing colonial legacies in Africa. For him, the indigene and settler dichotomy cannot sufficiently be grasped and resolved without historicising it. The binary distinction between citizens – the indigene and settler – is no more than a reproduction, in a slightly different form, of an earlier distinction between native and non-native or that of race and ethnicity under colonial law. Natives had ethnicity whilst non-natives did not. It created a racial hierarchy often comprising of whites, coloureds, Asians, Arabs and Hamites (Tutsi), with the ultimate intent on civilising the natives. Colonial law was the instrument through which such hierarchies and divisions were enforced. Civil law applied only to races (non-natives), whilst customary law applied only the ethnicities (natives). Civil law was the realm of rights, something which was alien to customary law.
- 4.
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Onazi, O. (2014). Before Rights and Responsibilities: An African Ethos of Citizenship. In: Onazi, O. (eds) African Legal Theory and Contemporary Problems. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7537-4_8
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