Hence, the Warrant Chiefs appointed by the British and vested with arbitrary powers hitherto unknown in Igboland were thoroughly disliked by the people. It was not surprising that most of them became tyrants who abused their authority with impunity. The use of these unpopular chiefs for taxation led to the Aba women riots of 1929.

Sometime ago, the federal government announced that it would celebrate the centenary of Nigeria. When I read that in the newspapers, my mind went to work.

To repeat, many passages in the Holy Bible and Holy Koran prescribe intolerance against non-believers, although there are numerous texts in both scriptures that promote peace, love and solidarity as well. Therefore, it is incontrovertible that one cannot grasp fully the underlying causes of religious fanaticism in Nigeria without appreciating the role played by the “holy” scriptures in projecting the culture of religious exclusiveness.

Herd mentality is a necessary concomitant of primitivism. Evidence from psychology indicates that certain personality types are prone or easily susceptible to herd mentality and obsessive attachment to blood and ethnicity, irrespective of their educational and socio-economic background.

The ill-advised action of Lagos state government with respect to the deportation from the state of some destitute of Igbo extraction sometime ago has once again brought to the front seat of public consciousness one of the gaping fault lines in the geopolitical contraption called Nigeria – pernicious ethnicity.