Department of Political Science

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    Discrimination and Social Identity: interrogating the impact of local lingua francas on inclusion politics in public institutions in Nigeria
    (Cambridge University Press, 2024-02) Alabi, Ayodeji Ladipo
    This study is concerned with addressing discrimination in public spaces and interrogates the extent to which the social identity function of a local lingua franca impacted inclusion politics in leadership selections for public institutions in Africa. Guided by social identity and ethnolinguistic identity theories, selecting Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria as a case study, and using the qualitative research technique, this study found a three-level ethno-religious discriminatory categorization – Core Northerners, Peripheral Northerners and Non-Northerners – accommodated within the institution’s power hierarchy. Fluency in Hausa, the local lingua franca in Northern Nigeria, was the common factor. Although the language was not a requirement for appointment, it turned out to be the marker of social identity that positively impacted inclusion politics. With extensive linguistic acculturation, African nation states are better off investing in the propagation of the local lingua franca to address negative discrimination in public spaces.
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    Identity Overlap and Context-dependent Instrumentation of Territorial Belonging: an interrogation of multiple levels of indigeneship mobilisation in Nigeria
    (Routledge, 2023-08-29) Alabi, Ayodeji Ladipo
    The subject of territorial belonging remains one of the regular flashpoints of conflicts in contemporary politics. With identity overlap and context-dependent instrumentation of belongingness, the question of how one identity classification attains preponderance over others in the overlap and the character of the associated conflicts compel studying every instance as a unique case. This paper interrogates the instrumentation of multiple levels of indigeneship mobilisation in inclusion politics in tertiary education institutions in Nigeria. Qualitatively drawing from vice-chancellor’s selection politics in University of Nigeria, this paper found that four incentives drove the preponderance of ethno-territorial indigeneship mobilisation over other levels of indigeneship mobilisation in the institution. First, politically, the collective interests of the dominant Igbo ethnic group were held paramount in the ethnic territory. Second, the rationales for the collective interest of the ethnic group were widely acknowledged by all communal settlements on the ethnic territory. Third, democratically, the phenomenon ensured the rule of the majority in vice-chancellors’ selection politics. Fourth, the merit prerogative of the academy, breached in interethnic struggle, remained sacrosanct in intra-ethnic competition for the choice position. These exemplify the situation of many federal tertiary education institutions in Nigeria and become their prominent trademarks.
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    Re-inventing the Equity Debate: Issues in Balancing Merit with Inclusion in Leadership Selection in Federal Universities in Nigeria
    (BRILL, 2022-07-22) Alabi, Ayodeji Ladipo
    In the conflicting pursuit of equity, the recession of non-indigenes in leadership positions in the nation’s federal universities is a major source of campus restiveness. This opinion article, derived from empirical research, therefore aims at bringing to the fore the substance and implications of the faulty inclusion politics and the politicised merit criteria deployed towards achieving equity in leadership selection in Nigeria’s federal universities. University of Ibadan and University of Jos were purposively selected for the study being the institutions with the most recent vice-chancellors' selection episodes riddled with identity-based conflicts in 2020/2021. In the two universities, key informant and in-depth interviews were conducted with prominent members of the respective institutions’ governing councils, staff unions, staff ethnic associations, and vice-chancellor candidates that were not appointed, all purposively selected being notable actors in the vice-chancellors’ appointments politics. With between 70% and 79% predominance of ethno-territorial indigenes in the institutions’ workforce, the original inclusion intent of Nigeria’s federal character principle was grossly handicapped in the leadership appointment politics. The merit assessment instruments deployed in vice-chancellors' selection processes had subjective items prone to biased scoring. These unfashionably culminated in the persistent return of indigene vice-chancellors in the two institutions for forty years.
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    Political Socialisation and Political Participation
    (Ibadan University Press Publishing House, 2019) Alabi, Ayodeji Ladipo
    Political socialisation is the deliberate inculcation of political information, values and practices by instructional agents which have been formally and informally saddled with that responsibility. Political participation describes the relationships between the state and society, and addresses such issues as how individuals and different groups organise to further their political interests, how citizens get involved in the political process and get represented in the political system, and how they influence policy-making in the state.
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    Current Discourse in Peace and Conflict Studies
    (Ibadan University Press Publishing House, 2019) Alabi, Ayodeji Ladipo
    Peace and conflict studies is essentially navigated through an interdisciplinary social science and humanistic approach which incorporates elements of sociology, political science, philosophy, history, psychology, social anthropology, geography, economics, and religious studies.