Building a cohesive state
The much focus given to transforming Nigeria from being a developing nation in the third world to a reckon-with nation seem rather unproductive as most of her social institutions concentrate on differing targets. Though each institution set brilliant goals, the inability to harness common effort towards a common target per time has made the Nigerian state appear as a failed state. The nation’s economic challenges, insecurity issues, terrorism, infrastructural inadequacies, corruption and attempts at regional cessation, among many others, are all pointers of fifty-eight years of co-habitation without cohesion. This paper is set to bring to fore the missing links of interdependency, shared loyalties and solidarity among Nigeria social institutions. This study approaches from a qualitative and exploratory perspective with view to delineate the extent of social cohesion, building on a system of social indicators and identifying the dimensions of cohesiveness that should receive prompt attention in the Nigerian state; analysis of a projected cohesive state was done from self-categorization theoretical perspective. The paper suggested that the focus at national development should prioritize a mutually-exclusive effort by social groups, especially through collaboration, encouraging tolerance and setting of super-ordinate goals; a path through which the beauty of Nigerian diversity could rather be harnessed.