Managing Diversity in Nigeria's Fourth Republic National Assembly: Integrated Parties versus Ethno-Regional Balancing.

This article examines the role of political parties and ethno-regional balancing in managing Nigeria's deep ethno-regional divisions within its federal parliament, the National Assembly (NASS). Despite Nigeria's use of broad-based, cross-ethnic parties such as the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives' Congress (APC), these integrated parties have limited influence on fostering intergroup cooperation or guiding policymaking. Instead, the study finds that ethno-regional balancing—allocating key parliamentary leadership and committee positions across Nigeria's diverse geopolitical zones in line with the constitutional principle of "federal character"—is a crucial mechanism that stabilizes parliamentary decision-making and encourages compromise. This system provides MPs from different regions access to resources and political power, thereby reducing incentives for ethnic bloc mobilization and enabling legislative unity despite persistent underlying tensions over resource allocation and federalism.