State formation is a process. Every state in the world is somewhere along the continuum working its way forward or backward. This is where I think Nigeria is on the continuum. What do you think? 
People take Stage 1 for granted because geographic homogeneity is a common assumption. But drawing boundaries can be a violent process. Who are you including that wants out? How do you deal with pockets of opposition that threaten the contiguousness of the map? Crush or resettle?
Stage 1 is usually driven by people with some sort of power. For instance, ISWAP has penetrated some territories in the Northeast. These territories were not ceded voluntarily by the previous occupiers. This is only the first step of state formation.
The territories can be re-penetrated by Nigeria or they can continue on the state formation continuum with ISWAP. But for any state existing in those territories to be stable, it has to transition to and succeed in nation-building
Stage 2 is tricky. Because, now for the elite who have seized control of the territory to sleep at night, they have to create a national identity and they have to apply some technologies to foster solidarity to the political system they operate.
There are many nation-building technologies. These include civic education, integration infrastructure, violence, and transfers from the center.
Whereas Nigeria's political elite had incentive to invest in regional nation-building prior to independence (reason for the different stages of relative homogeneity apparent in the three pre-independence regions), there was no political incentive to invest in a national identity
The incentive was far more in favour of leveraging the investments in regional identities to capture power at the center. This approach to nation-building blew up in everyone's faces in 1966. Coup. Decree 34 (forcing political allegiance to the center), pogroms etc
The war set Nigeria back to stage one. This was an example of odious penetration - where, unlike the referendum that British Cameroons were afforded in 1961, the citizens in Biafra/Eastern Region experienced forceful penetration of the Nigerian state.
Post-war and with the unification of the Nigerian territory, creating a Nigerian identity that embraced all residents in the territory (including those who had been forcefully returned) was a challenge. The ambitious 3Rs programme petered out without significant impact.
Nigeria discovered oil. And with oil money came the opportunity for another nation-building technology: Transfers from the center.
Regular (Monthly) transfers from the center coupled with nod and wink corruption was sufficient to keep elite/strongmen in various pockets in the country loyal to the Pseudo-Federation that was created post-war.
But without investments in other homogenization infrastructure like basic education (including civics), integration infrastructure, transfer of power from the center, nation-building investments has not carried much of the non-elite population along.
So, from time to time, pockets of fragility emerge and potential strong men seize the opportunity.
I welcome debate around this model of nation building. Where do you think we are and why do you think so?
Here's a link to the slide. You can edit to indicate where you believe Nigeria is and then export as jpeg to include in your tweet. cc: @Chxta dropbox.com/s/udp0swur3n1b…
The entire slide deck from my Nation-Building lecture at #EFA2019 dropbox.com/s/joxo32s4oh9c…
*post independence
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