MIGRATED SOCIAL STRUCTURES, PREBENDALISM AND INSTABILITY IN PLURAL SOCIETIES: EXPERIENCES IN NIGERIA

Every society desires peace, cohesion, order, fairness, and stability. Without these, there would be no meaningful progress, and development. The quest for social order, in plural societies, therefore depends on the level of stability. Post-colonial African societies today are experiencing varying levels of instabilities which has hindered peace, and security. This paper therefore sought to examine the role of migrated social structures on the prevalence of prebendalism and instability in a plural society. Attempts have been made
to understand the causes of these instabilities. Instabilities in post-colonial Africa resulted from cultural contact with Europeans. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of migrated social structures on the prebendal behaviour and instabilities in plural societies like Nigeria. The prebendalist theory by Richard (1986) was used to anchor the arguments of this paper. This paper argues that as a way of stemming the growing prebendalism and instability in Nigeria, serious efforts should be made to encourage meritocracy and inclusiveness which would help reduce the incidences of instability occasioned by exclusionism and prebendalism which has led to ethnicity as different nationalities engage in unhealthy competition, rivalry, and lack of trust.