PREFACE

This book is designed to provide quality reading material for fresh students offering the University – wide course, the “Nigerian Peoples and Culture” The Chapters are well selected to reflect the peoples and cultures of Nigeria.

The book shows that Nigerian Peoples had arts and Cultures indigenous to them in the past, before the advent of external influences – Arabs' and European; and that these arts and cultures have undergone changes over time. These changes, it is noted, are aimed at perfecting and adapting them to contemporary needs of the peoples. This achievement erases the Eurocentric and Hamitic views that prior to their coming to Africa, Africans had lacked both arts and culture and that every civilizing influence in the continent came from outside.

The Nigerian case elucidated in this book serves to vindicate the African position. The Nigerian Peoples devised stone, bone, bronze and iron technologies, depicted in terracotta and figurines; domesticated plants and animals and evolved a medical culture which despite rampaging western medical civilization, has continued to portray its relevance. Similarly borrowed religion - Christianity and Islam have been adapted to the Nigerian forms to satisfy the aspirations of peoples in achieving some level of cosmological consciousness. The relevance of the Nigerian environment to the growth and development of the Nigerian child is discussed to prove that the African man is capable of achieving intellectual development within the milieu of his culture.

A discussion on evolution of Nigeria as a political entity; Socio-cultural and political implications of Nation – Building policies among the Nigerian peoples is aimed at highlighting areas of strength and weaknesses in the process of nation building.

The book will also expose the students to constitutional Developments, Rights, and citizenship in Nigeria. Finally, it discussed the Ethnic pluralism and identity politics in Nigerian contemporary society as well.

This book has been made possible by lecturers teaching the course Nigerian peoples and culture and the inspiring comments of colleagues in Akwa Ibom State University and other institutions. We hereby commend their efforts and acknowledge their positive contributions.

Kingdom S. Mboho, Ph.D
Acting Head
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Akwa Ibom State University