Historical origins of persistent inequality in Nigeria

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'The politics of group-based inequalities-measurement, implications, and possibilities for change', which is part of a larger research project on 'Disadvantaged groups and social mobility'. Terms of use: Documents in Copyright © UNU-WIDER 2016Information and requests: publications@wider.unu.edu ISSN 1798-7237 ISBN 978-92-9256-205-2 Typescript prepared by Sophie Richmond.The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research provides economic analysis and policy advice with the aim of promoting sustainable and equitable development. The Institute began operations in 1985 in Helsinki, Finland, as the first research and training centre of the United Nations University. Today it is a unique blend of think tank, research institute, and UN agency-providing a range of services from policy advice to governments as well as freely available original research.The Institute is funded through income from an endowment fund with additional contributions to its work programme from Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Katajanokanlaituri 6 B, 00160 Helsinki, FinlandThe views expressed in this paper are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or the United Nations University, nor the programme/project donors. Abstract:Horizontal inequality by ethnic group has remained remarkably persistent for wealth, education, and access to certain services in Nigeria. While significant gains in the reduction of inequality and improvement in access have been made for more locally administered services, outcomes are stickier and largely divergent for wealth, education, and historically federally administered services like grid-based power access. Notable is the increasing or stagnant inequality of access to these measures in the northwest and northeast ethnic/geopolitical zones and a remarkable divergence for wealth outcomes for these two zones versus the rest of the country over the 1990-2013. This paper explores different explanations for the patterns observed and puts forth the thesis that persistent inequality in access to education and federally administered services is in large part driven by historical heterogeneous federal government policy towards different groups in Nigeria.

Historical Legacies and African Development

“…See also Robinson (2001) and Chua (2003) for narratives on the negative impact of ethnic inequality on political development in Africa and across the developing world, respectively. Archibong (2018) and Bolt and Hillbom (2016) discuss the colonial origins of the persistent regional and ethnic inequality in Nigeria and Botswana, respectively. Alesina, Hohmann, Michalopoulos, andPapaioannou (2017, 2018) show that sizable differences in intergenertaional mobility in education post-independence are related to colonial investments.…”

Colonial origin, ethnicity, and intergeneration mobility in Africa

“…Furthermore, the country is dominated by four main ethnic groups (75 per cent of the population) and hence various online resources were used to identify the main ethnic groups by state 11 and conduct the analysis. 12 This is similar to the approach adopted by Archibong (2018) in determining ethnic group distributions for the regions in Nigeria.…”

Horizontal inequality as an outcome

“…Selected studies in this collection further explore additional measures. Archibong (2018), for instance, adapts McKenzie's (2005) inequality coefficient. 10…”

“…In so doing, this article serves also to introduce and frame this special section. The other four studies in this collection each speak to horizontal inequality in a particular country -Brazil (Leivas & Dos Santos, 2018), India (Chadha & Nandwani, 2018), Nigeria (Archibong, 2018), and Guatemala (Canelas & Gisselquist, 2018a)providing focused analyses of sub-national patterns, trends, influences, and consequences. While each article advances a distinct argument, each also draws on the common 'toolkit' of concepts and measures that are introduced here.…”