Affirmative action in Nigeria: a case study on non-racial (or “micro-racial”) AA

I'm on a project with a Nigerian co-worker, and we've had some good conversations.  For someone from the U.S. I actually know a good bit about Nigerian politics, but after exhausting that I asked him for more, and I learned about Nigeria's own version of affirmative action (AA).

The south is generally better educated than the north.  (To repeat what I posted earlier, one person told me that it is a reflection of education in madrasas in the north vs. regular schools in the south.)  The nation does a careful balancing act because of tribal and religious tension.  Because of this, important places like universities, government departments, and national companies have quotas for people from different states.  These quotas are generally in proportion to a state's population.  (However, no one trusts the population/census figures.)

 

The "Ritz Hotel" in Benin City. There is also a "Ritz Carleton" hotel.

The way they enforce this is just like the way SA admits people to universities: for example, if you are from a northern state, you might need an 80 on a university entrance exam to go to a prestigious school; if you are from the south you might need a 92.  These cutoffs are set based on how low they need to go to get the requisite number of people from each pool.

I asked this guy his opinion on AA and was surprised by his vehement diatribe against it – in all forms, both in SA and in Nigeria.

Why?  Some of his points were familiar (you are promoting incompetent people, etc.).  One key one: AA is actually hurting the country by pushing good people out of the country.  If you look ahead and realize that you will have to wait and watch less qualified people get promoted before you, you are much more likely to leave the country so you can compete on your own merits.

I find Nigerian AA fascinating because it is AA that isn't race-based in the traditional sense (black/white/etc.) and is instead based on where you were born.  It could in some ways be considered "micro-racial" in that where you are born has a strong correlation with your tribe.

I questioned whether the Nigerian AA was really a religious AA disguised as geographic (i.e. the north is Muslim, south is Christian, and therefore by helping people from the north through AA it could be that you are pushing a religion and disguising it as geographic).  He emphasized that seeing everything in religious terms here is not accurate; tribal ties are stronger than religious ones.