The making of an ethnic militia: the Oodua People’s Congress in Nigeria

This paper explores the evolution of a Nigerian Yoruba ethnic militia, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) and provides an analysis of the rebellion-making decisions in which the state plays an active role.

The study finds that the history and evolution of the OPC display many features not found in the typical economic presentation of the rebellion-making process:

• despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, greed for lootable natural resources in no way contributed to the formation of the militia. The OPC emerged largely as a response to the fiercest military dictatorship of Nigeria’s post-colonial history
• collective action problems are solved via the everyday benefits the organisation grants to militia members in the course of their activities
• the OPC is successful because it accommodates many sections of Yoruba society, including high-profile political figures
• the OPC has gained its success largely by functionally replacing the state in domains where the latter has failed, such as security and the judiciary

The paper shows how active the state has been in the emergence of the militia, directly through repression, and indirectly- through its failure to deliver basic public goods. It also shows that the cohesiveness of the group is not secured through the distribution of rents.