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Hey everybody, this is Justin Uriah and you're listening to Economic Epiphanies. So I know that we're a lot of things, we're both Hamilton students, we're both big fans of the NBA, stuff like that, but most importantly today, we're aspiring economists. On today's episode, Uriah and I will be sitting down to talk about what's going on, yeah. I know we're a lot of things, Hamilton students, NBA fans, stuff like that, but most importantly, we're aspiring economists. So on today's episode, Uriah and I will be sitting down to talk about what's going on in Nigeria. So Uriah, what's going on over there? Is there discrimination happening? So what's going on over there, Uriah, is there discrimination going on? So what's going on over there, Uriah, is there discrimination going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Nigeria, unlike the US, the country that is not particularly racially diverse, also due to other factors like the differences in population and economic development, there's a different type of discrimination occurring in the country. The most common forms of discrimination are tribal, gender, and religious discrimination. Tribal and religious discrimination is less common in the United States. Tribal and religious discrimination is less common in the United States, but it's very common in my home country, Nigeria. So throughout this podcast, using information from the US Department of State's 2022 country reports on human rights practices for Nigeria, and three other community papers that will be named as we proceed, we'll be discussing the effects of these forms of discrimination on an economic and social level. Yeah, that's pretty dope. So there's obviously discrimination in the US, and there is some overlap, in my opinion. You mentioned gender, and obviously that's a pretty big issue, this gender discrimination happening in the US. But there's also a bunch of discrimination that we don't commonly see over here in the US that you mentioned. So based off this unfamiliarity, I have my guesses on the economic impacts of tribal discrimination, but I'm not sure. So do you mind if we talk about that real quick? Oh yes, of course. Great. For this discussion of tribal discrimination, I'll be working closely with a paper called Consequences of Heightened Tribalism in Nigeria, a Breach of Fundamental Human Rights by Amorachi Kolechi Ndife. To give context, Nigeria is a very ethnically diverse nation with like 250 ethnic groups and over 500 languages, and these tribes are divided into majority and minority groups based on their population. So in the country, there are three majority groups, and they comprise about 70% of the entire population. Therefore, most of the terms such as minority and majority exist, but are just in the ground for discrimination and bias. Like Amorachi Kolechi, the author of one of the papers I'm using, said, tribalism in which entails loyalty to a particular ethnic group endangers actions and attitudes that entails the discrimination of certain ethnic groups, especially the minority ethnic groups. All right, cool. So how is tribalism exhibited then, and what aspects does it affect? Oh, tribalism, like most other discrimination, affects every aspect of the human life in the country, starting from the fundamental human rights. For instance, basic rights to education and food might be denied to a particular tribal group because their tribe is not properly represented in the federal government. It moves further into job application process, contract proposals, endowments, the election process, loan grants, government support, and things like that. This form of discrimination is so common in Nigeria that many people consider it normal and plan to do it whenever they can, or whenever they have the opportunity to. I believe that there are rules that should be enforced against this in many developed countries. I believe that there should be enforced laws against this, like in many other developed countries, for example, the United States and many European countries. Yeah, that makes sense. I also thought that maybe the laws should be more enforced and even stricter. So now that we've established that tribal discrimination can be described as ingrained into society, what are the effects that you've noticed economically and socially? Ethnic conflict is perceived as one of the major obstructions to development in Nigeria. For example, by depriving people of education and food, we're not only reducing the potential of the workforce, but also turning people against each other, leading to ethnic conflicts. This lack of cooperation and these disputes among ethnic groups combine with the idea of people looking out for themselves and not for their tribes. This lack of cooperation and ethnic disputes combine with the idea of people looking out for themselves and not for their own tribes, and not the country, definitely slows the economic development of a country. Also, discrimination in the labor market when it comes to employment and contract approvals can be detrimental to society. By selecting an unqualified candidate because they belong to the same tribe as the owner or because they belong to the same tribe as the majority in the location, lowers the overall quality of the workforce and could stem economic development. So would you say that tribal discrimination is really common in Nigeria? Oh yes, yes, I would say that it's very common, and I think it might be the most common tribal discrimination in Nigeria. Wow, okay, I didn't know that. Pretty interesting, interesting stuff. Also, a note for our listeners out there, in countries like the U.S., we obviously have laws prohibiting discrimination in employment. From what we were able to find, Nigeria only prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity, not anything else. Yeah, and the laws are not as enforced as they make them sound, and there are laws that show that this is prohibited, but it's still asked on the questions, and nobody actually goes to court to fight for their rights, not be discriminated against based on their ethnic group. Yeah, well, because there are no laws particularly against ethnicity, discrimination against, sorry, yeah, because there are no laws prohibiting discrimination by gender or by other factors, we can say that discrimination is not just legal, but also pretty common in Nigeria. Yeah, sure. You know, that reminds me of something. You know, in the U.S. Department of State's 2022 country reports on Nigeria, that said that women mostly face discrimination in fields like construction, energy, and agriculture, stuff like that. But, you know, this doesn't really just extend to hiring. There's other issues that happen after hiring. So, you know, for example, Nigerian law doesn't require equal pay for work of equal value. So, that, you know, obviously would be responsible for a pretty apparent wage gap. Yeah, the gender equality is pretty bad. But do you think you can paint a picture for the users on how bad it is? So, in this one article, gender discrimination... Do you think you can paint a picture for our listeners on how bad it is? Yeah, for sure. So, in this article called Gender Discrimination in Nigeria, that says that Nigeria is actually in the top 10% of countries worldwide that exhibit the highest levels of gender discrimination, according to this one index called OECD. And on top of that, the ratio of female to male labor force participation has been consistently lower in Nigeria compared to other sub-Saharan Afri... On top of that, the ratio of female to male labor force participation has been consistently lower in Nigeria compared to other sub-Saharan African countries by at least roughly 10%, which is pretty wild if you think about it, you know. Also, on top of that, there's a pretty consistent roughly 4% difference in unemployment between men and women in Nigeria, which is, you know, that's not small. Yeah, yeah, I see you. I understand that as well, and it's something the government should be working towards. You know, you can also see differences amongst people of different religions in the country. I have a lot to discuss about this topic. I'm using the academic paper by George C. Agawa, titled, Religious Conflicts in Nigeria Impact on National Building. I'll be discussing ethnic... I'll be discussing religious discrimination in Nigeria. At the very start of nationhood, Nigeria, like many other African countries, faced religious divisions. Nigeria has religious polarity, and it has only two main religions, which are Christianity and Islam, which basically make up 99% of the population. People that belong to either side of these religions are also regionally divided, as the northern side of Nigeria is considered to be Islamic, while the southern side Christian. There are 10 laws, at least, that are enforced that prevent any of these two religions and regions from discriminating. There are 10 laws, at least, that are enforced that prevent any of these two religions and regions from discriminating against and for each other. If so, we would have seen at least more cases of discrimination lost in the country. Similar to, you know, tribal discrimination, is there a lot of religious discrimination going on in Nigeria? Yes, there is a lot of... Wait, wait, wait, I can't find it. Yeah, tribal discrimination is also... Oh, I'm sorry, over here. Yes, religious discrimination is very common in Nigeria as well. It is very similar to tribalism. It is practiced at almost every aspect of daily life, like jobs, cultural proposals, local and federal elections, education, and the like. Would you say it has pretty similar effects to the community like tribalism does? Yeah, yes, it's pretty much the same. The reduced quality of work force, the reduced potential of citizens, the lack of cooperation, the violence that comes from the fighting and the conflict. But I would say religious discrimination is, however, historically much more violent than tribalism because it has led to a lot of casualties. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, that's, you know, really cool stuff. You know, we've talked so much about discrimination in Nigeria and there's obviously so many different types. As an econ major, I think personally that it's pretty interesting that the economic consequences of discrimination are all relatively the same no matter what type it is. Yeah, what do you mean by that? Well, no matter what type of discrimination is going on, whether it's gender, tribal, or religious, I feel like it's all the same in principle in terms of what's going on in terms of consequence. So, no matter what type of discrimination it is, the employer will discriminate against a group. Women, a certain tribe, whatever. And this leads to things like wage gaps, different ratios of employees among different groups, stuff like that. So, you know, firms aren't hiring people based off skill, so they're discriminating, obviously. There's not even laws enforcing to try to make this issue better. So they're just making the labor market that much more inefficient because, think about it, there's just a decrease in output. Yeah, that's true. And the fact that in Nigeria there are almost no laws controlling for discrimination makes the issue even worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's pretty much nothing stopping firms from discriminating. There's literally zero consequence, which, again, it just leads to a lot of economic inefficiency. Yeah, like I said earlier, too, these types of discrimination are super, super common in Nigeria. They exist outside of the hiring process, of course. They exist among making friends in the military. They exist in everything. So I would imagine that the customers would discriminate as well. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. That's a really good point. So, you know, we learned in class, because they're discriminating, they pay above that equilibrium price literally just to avoid buying from a certain group of people, which is nuts, in my opinion. So, again, firms would have even less reason to hire the wrong, quote-unquote, tribe, for instance. Yeah, so this, of course, causes discrimination to always exist in labor markets. Yeah, yeah. Also, you know how, as long as there are firms that don't discriminate, the wage gap will shorten? Yeah, of course. Yeah, so I'm actually wondering how difficult would it be for a Nigerian labor force... Yeah, so I'm actually wondering how difficult is it for the Nigerian labor market to close these wage gaps? Because I feel like most firms are either... Because I feel like as... Because I feel as though most firms are either discriminatory or they're basically being bullied into it by... I feel as though most firms are either discriminatory or they're being basically bullied into it by customers. And I especially think that's because, again, it's perfectly legal and common for this discrimination. There's nothing stopping it from happening. Well, to be fair, a lot of our firms in places like the US are more developed countries in quotes. We see these rules placed in place, these laws against discrimination put in place. But still, we see a very big wage gap in the... Sorry. We see these rules being put in place and these anti-discrimination laws, but there's still a very big difference, a very significant... There's still a very significant difference in the hiring process, the hiring wage, the difference in the wage between the CEO and the workers. So even with the laws of a developed country, there's still discrimination going on in the market. Yeah, that's definitely true. But I still feel that the fact that there are laws in place make it that much more difficult. You know, there are still firms that will abide by these laws. You know, no one liked the lawsuit, but also there are increasing efforts to give minorities opportunities, you know, that can help them attain the same education levels as other racial groups, which, again, that's, in my opinion, is one of the most important things that we can do, you know, because a lot of the difference in hiring comes from an unconscious statistical bias. I think that the main difference is that firms in the U.S. have differences in hiring because of a bias that, again, there have been efforts to fix that bias. And I think that the main difference is that firms in the U.S. have differences in hiring because of a bias that, again, there have been a lot of efforts to fix. While firms in Nigeria have differences in hiring because of a bias that, again, there have been a lot of efforts to fix. While firms in Nigeria can discriminate again and again and they have been making little to no effort to fix these issues. Yeah, this is super cool stuff. Unfortunately, the Nigerian government and people are still trying to convince the government to change the laws and to enforce the laws. But unfortunately, we are running out of time for today's episode. So today, we'll talk about discrimination in Nigeria, the economic and social impacts, and thank you so much for listening to Economic Epiphany. Stay wondering, people. Peace out.