The citizens of Nigeria have already put in a lot of effort and personal sacrifice just to unite it politically. However, the true measure of a united nation cannot be said through its political system or military might. The issues which affect unity in Nigeria can be traced to a dominant social undertone. Social restructuring is an important move to ensure that a society can be created which will provide equal opportunities for all. This, in turn will contribute to a lasting national unity and stability. In order to achieve an egalitarian society, the problem of educational imbalance must be addressed in order to give equal employment opportunities for everyone. The most important factor that will promote equal opportunity employment is education, most especially higher education.
As it is, certain regions of Nigeria will be disturbed to know about their prospects to improve their status in life should Nigeria be united by studying the pattern that is shown by the educational imbalance in higher education opportunities. This is the kind of disturbance is the reason why people make actions and counteractions leading to mutual suspicion, the practice of nepotism especially in politics and the overall loss of confidence by ordinary people for the idea of fair play.
In Nigeria, the existence of educational imbalance in opportunities for obtaining higher education has been observed among its various ethnic groups. This is one of the reasons for the friction that often occurs between ethnic tribes. While efforts from various sectors have been made to correct the disparity with regards to educational imbalance, this issue will have to be faced head on in order for lasting nation building and social integration to be achieved.
Note that this problem is not unique to Third World countries such as Nigeria. There are also other countries whose population is composed of various groups and races such as Canada and Malaysia which experienced this kind of problem.
