THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL CULTURE ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

The paper explores the relationship between political culture and political participation in the context of reciprocal causal effect using Nigeria’s experience. It submitted that the two concepts are mutually inclusive as the level of people’s attitude to political activities is heavily determined by the belief they share in their society (political culture). It also argued that political culture is not static rather dynamic and changes in response to new ideas generated from both internal and external factors such as industrialization, influence of immigrants, war, revolutions amongst others. The paper espoused that there is no unified political culture in Nigeria as a result of the heterogeneous nature of the country coupled with the lack of unity and support for the existence of the country as a unified nation which consequently resulted in the emergence of religion and ethnicity as the central notions of Nigerian political culture. It blamed this disunity on the selfish and exploitative interest of the British colonial government who dragged the country into peril in the name of unification of the country through the 1914 amalgamation. In light of this, the paper analysed the political culture of Nigeria under two headings: ‘northern’ and ‘general’ political cultures and discovered that the former is heavily built on religious doctrine while the latter is built on ethnicity. This confirms the identification of religion and ethnicity as the central notions of Nigerian political culture. It argued that these two notions are responsible for the political instability in Nigeria and is causing more harm (disunity and political apathy) than good. The paper recommends that effort must be made to re-orientate the citizen on the need to eschew ethno-religious nationalism and promote core nationalism in order to foster unity and increase positive political participation