APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 26 26 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL The fear of domination is not unfounded; indeed, it appears to have become a common feature of African life. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, the relationship between the indigenous (autochtone) tribes in northern Kivu province, consisting of the Bafuleros, Banyakari, Bashis, and others, and settlers from Rwanda, the Banyamulenges, remains tension filled. Although Nnoli focused on ethnic groups’ attitudes towards the state vis-à-vis their contribution to national wealth, his observation remains relevant concerning the tension created within a system when one or more groups nurse fears of domination by another or are genuinely alienated by the state. This is irrespective of whether the wealth involved is pooled in a common storehouse. According to Nnoli, Ethnic group access to state power or lack of it is an important element in ethnic politics. If minority ethnic groups are denied commensurate access as dictated by the size of their population and their contribution to the national wealth, their dissatisfaction is likely to lead to increased ethnic tension. In Africa, this access to state power is important for the various ethnic groups because of the extensive intervention of the African state in many spheres of life of the Africa society.36 Chike Okolocha offers his perspective on the manipulation of ethnicity in the rivalry and competition among Nigeria’s ethnic groups. As he sees it, Ethnicity has manifested as a very potent cleavage agent in Nigeria. . . . Basically ethnicity in Nigeria rose from rivalry between the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo and the Yoruba ethnic groups following the amalgamation of the country in 1914 and the creation of regions in 1939. . . . [E]thnic consciousness can be traced back to the colonial epoch when the new political economy lumped the various people together in a forced new social intercourse. The newly foisted consciousness was readily exploited by the aforementioned groups to upstage each other in their political struggles. Others [the remaining ethnic groupings] have since taken cue and ethnic consciousness has in many instances translated into resentment and open hostility across the country. [E]thnic cleavages represent the competition for national resources.37 An insight provided by Bekky Ndirang, a Jos indigene, may be illustrative of this fear of denial of access, in particular within the context of the minority status of the indigene people ‘in the wider framework of the North’. Ndirang’s political perspective traces the fears of domination to the fact that states such as Kaduna, Nasarawa, and Bauchi ‘were settled “indigenously” by persons other than Hausa-Fulani, except the northern part of Kaduna, which is peopled by the Hausas [and are] now being governed by the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group’.38 This, she asserts, stemmed from the accommodative disposition of the indigenous population in those states that the Hausa-Fulanis exploited to take control of the political leadership. Ndirang echoes a 36. Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa: Intervening Variables, CASS Occasional Monograph, no. 4 (Lagos, Malthouse Press, 1994), 27. 37. Chike F. Okolocha, ‘Political cleavages and transition to democracy in Nigeria’ in B. Caron et al. (eds.), Democratic Transition in Africa (Ibadan, CREDU Documents in Social Sciences and Humanities, 1992), 237. 38. Interview, Bekky Ndirang, a Plateau state indigene of the Mangu ethnic group, Abuja, 16 March 2010.