CONVOCATION LECTURE
Christopher University
Combined Convocation Ceremony, held at Christopher University, Mowe, Ogun State, on Friday, March 24, 2023
CONVOCATION LECTURE
SOCIAL RE-ENGINEERING, JUSTICE, AND ETHICAL REORIENTATION AS PANACEA FOR NIGERIA’S QUEST FOR NATIONAL INTEGRATION
By
Anthony I. Idigbe SAN Ph.D. (Osgoode)
Senior Partner
Punuka Attorneys and Solicitors
Social Re-Engineering, Justice, and Ethical Reorientation as Panacea for Nigeria’s Quest for National Integration+
Introduction
I am indeed grateful to the Chancellor, the Founder, the Board of Trustees, the Vice-Chancellor, and the entire University Community, for inviting me as the Guest Speaker to deliver the First Convocation Lecture of Christopher University. The vision of the University is to be a national powerhouse in management education, preparing managers, scholars, and entrepreneurs to confront the challenge of managing men and material resources.[1] Its mission is to create a specialized institution committed to pursuing academic innovation, skill-based training, and a tradition of excellence in teaching and research with private-sector participation [emphasis supplied][2]. Christopher University continues to make great strides towards becoming the premier business school, national management powerhouse, and centre of excellence in the West Africa region. I commend and salute the Proprietor and Founder of the University, Chief Christopher Ezeh, for bringing his vision to reality. As a foundation student and Faculty member at ESUT Business School, Lagos, I recall the challenges thrust upon the Founder in delivering a new institution in a town and gown partnership. So, it is not surprising that through the tenacity of Chief Ezeh, Christopher University has a proud history of benefiting from its Founder’s experience with ESUT Business School, Lagos.
To be a student of this great institution is a huge achievement and should be deeply cherished. So, to the different sets of graduands, let me congratulate you for your disciplined strength as you emerge as leaders with the knowledge to transform the world by making an impact. I rejoice with you today, and I am sure you will keep making us proud.
I was requested to speak on Social Re-Engineering, Justice, and Ethical Reorientation as Panacea for Nigeria’s Quest for National Integration. First, I will share my thoughts about the topic by discussing my experience as a lawyer in the context of practising in Nigeria and internationally. Then, I will discuss how we can achieve the goal of national integration using a few hypotheses relating to Nigeria’s clamour for national integration. Finally, I will begin the lecture by defining the concepts of social re-engineering, justice, and ethical reorientation.
Social Re-Engineering, Justice, and Ethical Reorientation
Rotini, Borgianni, and Cascini define re-engineering as redesigning and rethinking to improve a system’s internal operation by optimizing the available resources.[3] Re-engineering takes advantage of innovation and aims to improve and introduce new ideas where the old system has been deficient.[4] Demil and Lococq used the sociomaterial view of organizational change based on the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to argue that the emergence of a new business model requires cognitive operations and concrete modifications to the realities of a company’s operations and structure.[5] Rogers argues that for any change to amount to innovation, it must add value either by incremental improvement or new and unprecedented product or service.[6]
Social re-engineering, on the other hand, refers to intentionally altering or tweaking societal structures and norms to achieve a desired outcome or change. A norm is a rule of conduct forming the basis for societal interactions and “a standard of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity.”[7] However, norms are not enough to build the base for societal interactions. Institutions are essential. Institutions are a “relatively stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behaviour for specific groups of actors in specific situations.”[8]
Norms and institutions are different, but an aggregation of norms builds an institution.[9] Norms demand compliance based on the belief and approval of a reference social group.[10] For believers to comply willingly, they must identify with the reference social group.[11] While norms attract voluntary compliance, laws, on the other hand, are enforceable, so there is an obligation to comply. Nevertheless, the law cannot stand alone. It must have a minimum substratum based on a shared understanding of the values the law seeks to protect. Laws are derived from the norms of society.
We learn many lessons in social re-engineering from management concepts of re-engineering, such as using innovative and new ideas to improve where the current system is deficient or new business models for cognitive operations and substantial modifications to the realities of a company’s processes and structures. In the same way, we need to build new norms for social interaction and rebuild our social and political institutions if we want to improve or replace our current social context, which is deficient.
Identifying social deficiencies at different levels and sectors in our society is easy. For example, General Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria, noted in his statement released on January 1, 2023, that Nigeria has no business with insecurity, poverty, insurgency, banditry, unemployment, hunger, debt, division, and disunity.[12] However, sadly this has yet to be the case. It is proffering solutions to those deficiencies that are difficult. It requires innovating, rethinking and redesigning the internal operation of our polity and economy with new ideas and norms, which optimizes our human and natural resources. Social re-engineering in this must target changing the social norms, policies, dynamics, narratives and institutions to correct the identified societal abnormalities and deficiencies that are now prevalent. The question is, who and how will such re-engineering occur? Before proffering any answer, examining the concept of justice as a pillar for national integration is necessary.
Justice refers to fairness and impartiality in distributing rights, opportunities, and privileges. Social injustice occurs when inequality rises in any state. Deranty argues that social justice concerns the fairness of the distribution of goods and the burdens arising from collective life amongst members of society.[13] The main questions raised by the social justice problem relate to the different types and dimensions involved in distributing social goods. Social justice is the fairness achievable when social arrangements allow everyone to receive their due.[14] According to the United Nations (UN), social justice is based on values of fairness, equality, respect for diversity, access to social protection, and the application of human rights in all spheres of life, including in the workplace.[15] Furthermore, the UN noted that social justice is only possible with strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies.[16]
Justice means different things depending on the nation, economy, and policy framework guiding it. For some, it protects their fundamental human rights, while justice is equality in distributing social resources to others. Whatever it means, it is essential to note that failing to actively push for and pursue justice is not without consequences. People’s commitment to any system depends on their perception that they will receive their due from the system. We would now discuss the third pillar for national integration, ethical reorientation.
Ethical reorientation refers to changing an individual’s values, beliefs, and behaviours to align with set ethical standards or principles. Ethics introduces a moral concept. Reorientation implies teaching an idea or value again. In a speech at the inauguration of Maitama Sule’s leadership lecture series, Riyauddeen Zubairu describes ethical reorientation as an effort made by all societal actors to redirect, reshape or change a thinking process of a group of people to see the need to cultivate ethical values.[17] This definition’s basis stems from the high corruption and distrust that characterizes Nigeria. From Hornby’s definition of reorientation, which is changing the direction or focus of something, ethical reorientation means reinstating new or previous moral values lost among the country’s citizens.[18]
A common thread running through the conceptions of social re-engineering, justice and ethical reorientation is that they are values based on abstract ideas on social, economic and political interaction among members of a reference social group. Since the concepts are related, they are powerful tools for achieving a stable and prosperous society. It is inconceivable that any country that applies these concepts to its policies will not flourish. However, the ideas assume certain minimal fundamental conditions for success, such as a social group with which its members identify, a belief in the system and a perception that the members will get their due from the system. In this context, the history and challenges of national integration are relevant to understanding the relationship between the three concepts and national integration.
What is national integration?
The history of Nigeria is partly the amalgamation of two colonial protectorates into a state. Still, it is more than amalgamation, as the effect of the prior slave trade and colonization assists in understanding Nigeria’s national integration challenges. According to Walter Rodney, the European and later American imperialist system was responsible for African economic retardation by draining African wealth, making it impossible to develop the continent rapidly.[19] Also, he observed that African accomplices were inside the imperialist system, arguing that Africans must ultimately bear responsibility for their development.[20] Some consequences of imperialist intervention in Africa included enhanced intertribal slavery wars, imposition of artificial boundaries based on the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885, imposition of foreign official languages, and others that formed the bedrock of divisions among groups.[21]
As a result of the history of slavery, imperialism and colonization, issues of national values, identity, security and unity consistently plague Nigeria. Other significant contributors to a lack of national integration include her cultural diversity, geo-political zones, multi-religion, multi-languages, and multiple ethnic groups. During colonization, the value system and norms perceived the government as foreign and imperialist. The independence struggle was for emancipation. The carryover norm was that the government, like other social groups, remained foreign within the newly independent Nigeria. Consequently, actions against the government are not necessarily perceived as acts against the commonwealth of the people.
Okonkwo noted that extreme regionalism characterized the First Republic and led to the 1967-1970 civil war.[22] Post-civil war Nigeria was an experiment in national integration through various policies such as General Yakubu Gowon’s no victor, no vanquished policy, states creation, National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme, and others. The oil boom of the early 1970s became a curse for Nigeria, leading to rural-urban migration and the abandonment of agriculture as the economy’s foundation. The failure of the import substitution strategy as the path to rapid industrialization and the quest for quick wealth melted the social fabric. The value systems collapsed because they were not rooted in any solid national identity that would inspire voluntary compliance.
National integration, therefore, involves the unification of different groups into a whole. Terwase opines that integrated nations are highly characterized by cooperation among members, groups, and sub-groups and become indivisible.[23] He further stated that it reflects how national values and national symbols are shared and span across all measures and agreements aimed at achieving unity among different units of individuals. The discourse on national integration is not new in the 21st century. It is traceable to the 18th and 19th centuries, according to O’Connell, Beckett, and Tahir, who held similar views asserting that national integration does not bear any meaning if there is no mutual interest to be protected by the different groups.[24]
National integration is crucial for the stability and prosperity of any country. It requires the coming together of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional groups to promote unity and cohesiveness. Birch posits that a significant component of national integration consists of government policies designed to change citizens’ attitudes and loyalties toward a common national goal.[25] In other words, national integration involves nation-building. It follows that since politicians and leaders design government policies, the quality of leadership is inversely related to the ability of government policies to encourage and achieve national integration. Unfortunately, a lack of visionary leaders in critical spheres of life has increased corruption and bribery. Also, multiculturalism, ethnicity and religion have led to disunity among our leadership. There is no core Nigerian culture that cuts across the various groupings. Instead, some groups seem bent on imposing their culture, religion and identity on others and vice versa. The result has been impunity in violating the rule of law, escalating divisiveness and insecurity.
Finnemore and Sikkink argue that new norms do not enter a normative vacuum.[26] Instead, they must contend with existing norms and emerge through that norm contestation process.[27] However, we require norm entrepreneurs to generate new models and socialize norm leaders and followers for a new standard to cascade and be internalized. Part of the problem with Nigeria is the absence of a critical mass of norm entrepreneurs who can change the narrative and develop new ideas, norms and values that would drive our social interaction among the different groups in the country. We have left it to politicians to determine our norms and generate new models. They have failed us, and we have been unable to perform our citizens’ roles. We can learn from private sector re-engineering methods. Businesses relied on research and development divisions to generate new ideas. Some set up design groups where protocols are developed and tested before release to the market. Those models of generating new ideas for managing deficient processes and products require the company to carry the investment in research exclusively. It also limits the concepts to those of its existing retained talent pool. However, with digital transformation and the introduction of the platform business model, the business can share the cost of research for new ideas with its community of users and customers through engagement and collaboration with them.[28] By so doing, the digitally-minded company receives many more models from a more comprehensive community than staff. Today, research and experimentation are iterative, real-time online processes.[29]
I will now answer the question posed at the beginning of this lecture regarding who and how the re-engineering of social norms, justice and ethical reorientation will occur. The person to make this happen is the norm entrepreneur. By generating new norms and socializing, a critical mass of norm leaders would adopt the norm, and the rest of the society would follow. However, before I indicate who this norm entrepreneur is, I would briefly discuss the structure for national integration we have adopted and interrogate its effectiveness in nation-building.
Structures for National Integration in Nigeria
We have briefly traced history from the colonial era till the present. However, as Walter Rodney pointed out, we are ultimately responsible for our development. So, even though our imperial and colonial legacies, designed to exploit the country effectively, contributed to the challenges plaguing us today, we have had over 60 years of purportedly controlling our destiny. With apologies to the Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) movement, it is now unfair to continue to blame the imperialists for our current situation.[30] Other countries, large and small, like India and Singapore, have overcome that challenge. How did our leaders seek to overcome the problem of national integration? Our leaders presumed that national integration would achieve nation-building solely through legislation, making Nigerians one people. In a 2018 paper delivered at the Centre for Virtue in Leadership (CVL) lecture in honour of Chief Mrs. Folake Solanke SAN, I traced the effort of the Nigerian state to use values underlying the Constitution and constitutional provisions to foster nation-building. After extensive discussion on legal formalism, the rule of law, nation-building and the welfare state, I arrived at the following conclusion:
The welfare state has come to stay. The match towards nation-building requires institutions that can act quickly in delivering services for the welfare of the people. Such super regulators potentially can trample on the rights, privileges and interests of individuals in their decision making process. The role of the court is to oversee compliance with the Constitution by such institutions particularly in terms of procedural fairness and natural justice. Increasingly the courts are giving deference to these institutions as they have improved their competence and expertise over the years through recruitment as well as processes, procedures, regulations, guidelines, policies, etc.
In conclusion, there is an apparent tension between rule of law and nation-building. Rule of law is required for there to be nation-building but nation-building has the potential of chipping away at the rights, privileges, and interests of individuals in the efforts of the administrative state to provide for the welfare of the citizens and residents.[31]
Despite constitutional provisions, Agwu summarizes Sir Bello’s quotes and concludes that most Nigerians are deceiving themselves into thinking they are one.[32] There is an assumption that equal treatment for everyone achieves national integration. For instance, equality inspired the federal character requirement and the creation of the Federal Character Commission with the responsibility to promote, monitor and enforce compliance with the principles of the proportional sharing of all bureaucratic, economic, media and political posts at all levels of government.[33] However, Nigeria frequently sacrifices competence for equality, creating challenges for the system. The failure of regionalism in the first republic brewed unitary federalism. But do we need to be one people instead of different people with a shared value system? What does it mean? Are they one in Singapore? The answer is no, they are not one people in Singapore. However, their system sufficiently socializes a portion of each Singaporean to enable the nation to blossom.
We must not force national integration on people. Ronen agrees that there should be a willingness by the people involved to stay under one nation if they are held together by a common interest or agreement of some sort.[34] However, an environment that fosters national integration can be created and sustained by a critical mass of people with a firm ideology who dominate the political landscape. But the critical mass and their ideology must not be from one portion of the society.
A significant question today is: should we keep blaming the colonial era, or do we look internally to find solutions to our problems? While it is easy to blame the colonial government, recent histories, including the 2023 national elections, have revealed that Nigerian political elites and leaders have exploited ethnicity for personal gains and competed for power without a base value. As a result, there has been some brazen abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, sectionalism, and cries of domination by a particular political elite with religious and sectional connotations. For instance, Igboin argues that the most important cause of religious conflict in Nigeria is the unsatisfied wants of the instigators who use the army of socioeconomically deprived perpetrators to deploy violence.[35]
These are significant threats to the integration of Nigeria and suggest favouritism of one group over another. Regarding our Constitution’s unwritten values and principles concerning building a national identity, the Constitution recognized that specific values underpin nation-building. Accordingly, the preamble of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, states that its purpose is to promote “the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people.”[36] From our Constitution, the purpose of government is good government and the welfare of all persons in our country. The government, therefore, must, as a duty, provide good government. The welfare envisaged is for everyone, not a section or group of Nigerians. Further, all government actions must be on the principles of freedom, equality and justice with the intention of unity.
I argue that if no common values hold disparate nations and peoples together, there will be no structure to hang the national identity, which is the objective or purpose of nation-building. The concern is whether Nigeria is experiencing a form of internal colonization of one or some groups over others despite the elaborate constitutional provisions aimed at fostering nation-building through equity, justice and fair play. Despite the constitutional provisions, there is a lack of agreement on the shared values that hold us together as Nigerians.
The Need for National Integration and the way forward
As we have observed, Nigeria is a multicultural state, a conglomerate of different peoples and cultures, which could be an attractive characteristic when utilized effectively. National integration fosters and enhances any state. Our current configuration requires that we develop toward nationhood from statehood by cultivating a consciousness of love and trust. It should not only be when we are playing international soccer that we should feel a sense of nationhood.
There is a need for new models of norms, values, structures and institutions to ease the challenges faced by Nigeria in nation-building. The ideas should encompass political, economic and social justice in society. There must be an enthronement of the rule of law and a constitutional arrangement that does not perpetuate inequalities and injustice. These are sinequanons for national integration. However, to ensure the condition for national disintegration does not occur, every societal actor must aim at nation-building. National integration is first about solving critical societal problems affecting national development.
Social re-engineering requires policies and programs to promote greater unity and cohesiveness among different ethnic, religious, and regional groups within the country. Social re-engineering addresses structural barriers that prevent other groups in Nigeria from interacting and integrating. The government must adopt policies and programs promoting education, employment, and economic development in underrepresented or marginalized communities. An agenda for massive intervention in infrastructure and human development projects has the fallout of narrowing the physical distance between the various parts of Nigeria and including more areas and people in the economic activities in the country. Such welfare investment would reduce social and economic inequalities and foster greater unity and cohesiveness among the different groups.
Achieving social justice is essential for national integration, as it ensures that all members of the society feel they are being treated fairly and with respect. In addition, a justice reform agenda could assist with eliminating impunity and strengthening the rule of law. In many ways, social justice requires individual action wherever we find ourselves. For example, I had the privilege of handling the case of Ukeje v Ukeje from the Lagos High Court to the Supreme Court of Nigeria for 34 years.[37] It was a case where a female child was excluded from inheriting from her father’s estate because she was female despite the constitutional provision that no person should suffer any disadvantage due to the circumstances of their birth. We won at the Supreme Court. However, getting her fair share of the estate has been challenging even after the Supreme Court verdict. I am, however, grateful for the tenacity of the Lagos State Public Administrators office, Lagos High Court judges, registrars and sheriffs in upholding the rule of law in the case. Their work confirms that we are the salt of the earth. Like salt, we preserve the rule of law and encourage national integration and nation-building through our work.
In the context of national integration, ethical reorientation could promote tolerance, respect, and cooperation among different groups within the country. It could also involve education, public awareness campaigns, and promoting role models who embody these values and behaviours. The best national development strategies must include diverse ethnic groups with no one left out. We must learn from history to avoid future mistakes relating to national integration.
I now answer the question of who is the norm entrepreneur that would change the narrative in Nigeria. The simple answer is that it is you. You and me! In this journey, everyone sitting in this hall today has a role in upholding national integration. It comes with willingness and a sense of belonging. The point to emphasize here is that decisive actions start with you as you enter society, promoting a well-cultivated legacy of unity and oneness through your activities. Now that you have received the necessary education and knowledge, how do you intend to influence and change the world and Nigeria? We are ultimately responsible for developing our country, Nigeria. As with the digital transformation of businesses, innovation in social re-engineering, justice, and ethical reorientation towards national integration need not come from politicians and government. It can come from the people as norm entrepreneurs working individually and collaboratively to generate, cascade by the socialization of a critical mass of norm leaders who will then socialize the rest of the population into adopting and internalizing these norms. There is a glimmer of hope even from our recent experiences. Any observer would have noticed that a phenomenon with no structure transformed into some system, and a political tsunami swept many places. The young norm entrepreneurs made their voices heard. They confirmed that everyone matters and that you do not need structure to make an impact. The democratization of the media enables norm entrepreneurs to circumvent structures.
We should stop blaming others, whether imperialists, their local collaborators or our weak leaders. They naturally act in their self-interest. We must bear in mind our self-interest. What is our self-interest is a difficult question. For example, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is one of the most important institutions of our welfare state and is responsible for organizing elections for political offices. Another, more critical institution is the judiciary, which acts as a judge in disputes. Chile Eboe-Osuji, the former president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has urged “all those who did not win to accept the result and [to] channel the same pre-election energy into the post-election demands of nation-building that Nigeria needs to become the nation of our hopes of dreams.”[38] Is that the solution or the only option? What happens to values such as justice and fair play? What is the relevance of our dispute resolution system as a way to resolve election disputes? Should pending election petitions just be dropped, and the aggrieved bear their crosses without any therapeutic process provided by the system? Is the Nigeria situation where there is no post-election violence the same as the example given by Eboe-Osuji of other African leaders charged for crimes against humanity as a result of post-election violence the same?
At all levels, the Nigerians are the salt of the earth. They must preserve values that would prosper the entire state as a nation, not sectionally or individually. Nigerian must also use their positions and influence to get their government to allocate resources in their welfare state to address the needs of forgotten and marginalized portions of the society. Nigerians must focus on building common and shared grounds for national integration and development through social justice, reorientation and re-engineering. I have refrained from making suggestions as to the elements of the new norms and values that would help us achieve national integration because that is the job of the norm entrepreneurs. They could arise from the effort of the respected elite, opinion leaders and intellectuals or grow organically from the masses or society as they occasionally respond to issues. If our norm entrepreneurs succeed, we will solve the problems of ethnicity, nepotism, corruption, religious intolerance, insecurity, unemployment, rural-urban migration, poverty, crime and hunger.
Conclusion
Your Excellencies, the Proprietor, Chancellor, Pro-Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and distinguished ladies and gentlemen, please join me in admonishing our graduands. You are the next generation of leaders, the salt of Nigeria and the products of this great University, the first focused management university. As you leave this citadel into the world, you must deliberately pursue change wherever you find yourself using the skills, values and norms imbued here. You are to give taste to the nation. What flavour will you contribute, sweet or sour?
I thank you all for your attention, and God bless you all. God bless Nigeria!
Dr
Anthony I. Idigbe SAN
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+ I acknowledge the research assistance of Amanda Uba, Librarian and ICT executive at PUNUKA Attorneys & Solicitors
[1] https://christopheruniversity.edu.ng/aboutus?b=id
[2] https://christopheruniversity.edu.ng/
[3] Federico Rotini, Yuri Borgianni & Gaetano Cascini, Re-engineering of Products and Processes: How to Achieve Global Success in the Changing Marketplace (US: Springer Science & Business, 2012).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Benoit Demil & Xavier Lecocq, “Crafting an Innovative Business Model in an Established Company: The Role of Artifacts” (2015) 33 Researchgate, online: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284901455_Crafting_an_Innovative_Business_Model_in_an_Established_Company_The_Role_of_Artifacts>.
[6] David L Rogers, The Digital Transformation Playbook – Rethink you business for the digital age (New York Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2016) at 124.
[7] Martha Finnemore & Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” (1998) 52:4 Int Organ 887–917 at 891.
[8] James G March & Johan P Olsen, “The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders” (1998) 52:4 Int Organ 943–969.
[9] Finnemore & Sikkink, supra note 7 at 891.
[10] Gerry Mackie, “SOCIAL NORMS OF COORDINATION AND COOPERATION” (2018) 35:01 Soc Philos Policy 77–100.
[11] “What Is Identity (As We Now Use the Word)? Unpublished manuscript, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.” James D Fearon, University of Chicago, Chicagi Il (3 November 1999).
[12] “2023: Obasanjo publicly declares support for Obi”, online: <https://perma.cc/3E9S-K5HR>.
[13] Jean-Phillippe Deranty, “Social Justice” (2016) Int Encycl Polit Commun 1–6.
[14] Ibid.
[15] “Message on World Day of Social Justice | Department of Economic and Social Affairs”, online: <https://perma.cc/28FX-PED2>.
[16] United Nations, Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations (New York: United Nations, 2006).
[17] Riyauddeen Zubairu, “Ethical Reorientation for Positive Attitudinal Change: An Urgent National Imperative – THESHIELD”, (19 September 2021), online: <https://perma.cc/TBD4-B6HY>.
[18] J Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, 3rd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).
[19] Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 2nd ed (London New York: Verso, 2018) at 27–28.
[20] Ibid at 34.
[21] “Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 – Oxford Reference”, online: <http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195337709.001.0001/acref-9780195337709-e-0467>.
[22] Rina Okonkwo, “National Integration in Nigeria” in Obiora Anichebe, ed, Issues Niger Peoples Cult (Nsukka: Afro-Orbis Publication Limited, 2009) 31.
[23] Mile Terwase, “History and National Integration in Nigeria: An Empirical Overview” (2019) 3:3 Int J Res Innov Soc Sci 45–49.
[24] J O’Connell & P Beckett, Education and Power in Nigeria (London: Pall Mall Press, 1985); I Tahir, “Constitutional and Political Safeguards for the Enhancement of National Unity” in M Tukur, ed, Adm Polit Dev Prospects Niger (Zaria: Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, 1990).
[25] Anthony H Birch, Nationalism and National Integration (London: Academic Division, Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1989).
[26] Finnemore & Sikkink, supra note 7.
[27] Ibid.
[28] David L Rogers, The Network Is Your Customer – Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2010) at 176–217; Geoffrey G Parker, Marshall W Alstyne Van & Sangeet Paul Choudary, Platform Revolution – How networked markets are transforming the economy and how to make them work for you (New York London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016).
[29] Rogers, supra note 6 at 127.
[30] For overview of the TWAIL movement see Obiora Chinedu Okafor, “Critical Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): Theory, Methodology, or Both?” (2008) 10 Int Community Law Rev 371–378; Obiora Chinedu Okafor, “Newness, Imperialism, and International Legal Reform in Our Time: A TWAIL Perspective” (2005) 43 Osgoode Hall Law J 171; Antony Anghie, “University and the Concept of Governance in International Law” in Edward K Quashigah & Obiora Chinedu Okafor, eds, Legitimate Gov Afr Int Domest Perspect (1999); Obiora Chinedu Okafor, “The Third World, International Law, and the ‘Post-9/11 Era’: An Introduction” (2005) 43:1/2 Osgoode Hall Law J 1–5.
[31] Anthony I Idigbe, Rule of Law and Nation-Building (CVL Musa Yar Adua Crescent, Victoria Island Lagos, 2018).
[32] Anayochukwu Agwu, A Critical Approach to the Problem of Nigeria and the Struggle for Nation Building (Nsukka: University of Nigeria, 2020).
[33] “The comprehensive database of African case law and legislation | JUDY”, online: <https://perma.cc/6ZQQ-48FW>.
[34] Dov Ronen, “Alternative Patterns of Integration in African States” (1976) 14:4 J Mod Afr Stud 577–596.
[35] Benson O Igboin, “Religious conflict in Nigeria: towards a re-awakening of the prophetic voice”, (2012), online: <https://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/6619/Igboin.pdf;sequence=1>.
[36] 1999 Constitution as amended to 2011, see https://perma.cc/H9WC-L2UW
[37] “Mrs. Lois Chituru Ukeje and Enyinaya Lazarus Ukeje v. Mrs. Gladys Ada Ukeje, Supreme Court of Nigeria, SC. 224/2004 | ESCR-Net”, online: <https://perma.cc/TGV8-JBUE>.
[38] Chile Eboe-Osuji, “Containing the inevitable heartbreaks of democracy”, (4 March 2023), online: <https://perma.cc/Q4JG-SQ24>.
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