This book is more than just a study of ethnic politics in Kenya and Nigeria. The two countries are a microcosm of the entire continent: the problems it faces, its successes and failures, and the hope and despair of hundreds of millions of its people whose aspirations have been frustrated by decades of corrupt leadership that has skilfully exploited one of Africa's biggest weaknesses -- tribalism. But the people themselves are also responsible for that. They have allowed tribalism to flourish and destroy the countries. And they have allowed unscrupulous politicians to use and abuse them -- without storming the Bastille. What they are not responsible for is dictatorship African leaders instituted to perpetuate themselves in office by exploiting tribalism. These despots have been so good at it, and have done it for so long since independence, that many African countries are now on the brink of collapse, with the people at war against themselves.

This work is a comparative study of ethnic politics in Kenya in Nigeria, two countries on the African continent where ethnicity has played a major role in determining their destiny as much it has elsewhere only in varying degrees. This is similar to the author's other works on Rwanda and Burundi – including “Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study” – where the same phenomenon has had tragic consequences for decades; both works appropriate in their own contexts yet of continental relevance. The work is also an examination of the Nigerian civil war whose tragic consequences included the secession of the Eastern Region which declared independence as the Republic of Biafra after tens of thousands of Easterners were massacred in Northern Nigeria in 1966.

This title was first published in 2001. The central characteristics of political ethnicity and its dysfunctional attributes in African politics is vexing to Africa's policy makers. Moreover, as a conflictive ideology in national and international politics, many political actors would rather avoid it. In the past, nationalists have blamed ethnic chauvinists for fanning the embers of ethnicity, but today they realize they may have underestimated its prominence in African politics.

The politics of identity and ethnicity will remain a fundamental characteristic of African modernity. For this reason, historians and anthropologists have joined political scientists in a discussion about the ways in which democracy can develop in multicultural societies. In Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, the contributors address why ethnicity represents a political problem, how the problem manifests itself, and which institutional models offer ways of ameliorating the challenges that ethnicity poses to democratic nation-building.

As an ethnic minority the Nubians of Kenya are struggling for equal citizenship by asserting themselves as indigenous and autochthonous to Kibera, one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums. Having settled there after being brought by the British colonial authorities from Sudan as soldiers, this appears a peculiar claim to make. It is a claim that illuminates the hierarchical nature of Kenya’s ethnicised citizenship regime and the multi-faceted nature of citizenship itself. This book explores two kinds of citizenship deficits; those experienced by the Nubians in Kenya and, more centrally, those which represent the limits of citizenship theories. The author argues for an understanding of citizenship as made up of multiple component parts: status, rights and membership, which are often disaggregated through time, across geographic spaces and amongst different people. This departure from a unitary language of citizenship allows a novel analysis of the central role of ethnicity in the recognition of political membership and distribution of political goods in Kenya. Such an analysis generates important insights into the risks and possibilities of a relationship between ethnicity and democracy that is of broad, global relevance.

"This is a Ph.D. thesis. Most instances of politicized ethnicity are non-violent rather than violent. Yet, scholarly attention has primarily been directed at explaining violent ethnic conflict. This study is an attempt to remedy this theoretical void. It seeks to answer the question what non-violent ethnic politics actually represents. The first part of the book is a pursuit of tools that make possible better description of non-violent ethnic politics. The combination of several manifestations of ethnic politics, relating both to the participatory and policy dimensions of politics, is essential for such an endeavor. The subsequent empirical study is devoted to describing and comparing the Kenyan and Zambian polities during the 1990s. Politics in Kenya was highly influenced by ethnic concerns. Voters, parties and policies could all be distinctly placed along an ethnic cleavage. The image of Zambian politics is more ambiguous. Voting did, to a limited extent, seem to reflect an ethnic conflict line. Somewhat surprisingly, parties were on the other hand not structured by ethnicity. Government policies showed few objective signs of any ethnic inclination, but were despite this empirical study increasingly perceived in terms of ethnic bias by Zambian observers. The empirical study clearly confirms the need to not focus on merely one but several aspects of politics to assess accurately the extent of ethnic politics in any given society."

In 2007 a disputed election in Kenya erupted into a two-month political crisis that led to the deaths of more than a thousand people and the displacement of almost seven hundred thousand. Much of the violence fell along ethnic lines, the principal perpetrators of which were the Kalenjin, who lashed out at other communities in the Rift Valley. What makes this episode remarkable compared to many other instances of ethnic violence is that the Kalenjin community is a recent construct: the group has only existed since the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on rich archival research and vivid oral testimony, I Say to You is a timely analysis of the creation, development, political relevance, and popular appeal of the Kalenjin identity as well as its violent potential. Uncovering the Kalenjin’s roots, Gabrielle Lynch examines the ways in which ethnic groups are socially constructed and renegotiated over time. She demonstrates how historical narratives of collective achievement, migration, injustice, and persecution constantly evolve. As a consequence, ethnic identities help politicians mobilize support and help ordinary people lay claim to space, power, and wealth. This kind of ethnic politics, Lynch reveals, encourages a sense of ethnic difference and competition, which can spiral into violent confrontation and retribution.