The twenty-first century, then, is not the end of ideology but its transfiguration — ideology reborn as identity. And until societies learn to balance belonging with coexistence, this new axis of conflict may prove even more enduring — and more destructive — than the ideological wars that preceded it.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the principal fault lines of political struggle ran along the axis of ideology. Humanity divided itself into camps of belief — liberal and conservative, capitalist and socialist, revolutionary and reactionary. The great question of the age was economic: Who controls production, and for whose benefit? Ideology provided both explanation and aspiration; it was the grammar of political life.
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But as industrial economies matured and material prosperity spread, the grand economic ideologies lost their mobilising force. Marxism dissolved into memory, capitalism became a default rather than a creed, and the end of the Cold War discredited the idea that human destiny could be captured by a single economic system. The vacuum that followed was not a triumph of reason but a reversion to the deeper forces that ideology had only masked. Out of the ashes of class politics rose the politics of identity.
Where ideology once organised people around interests, identity now gathers them around essence. Political allegiance today is less about what one thinks and more about who one is — one’s ethnicity, religion, gender, heritage, or moral worldview. Ideology has not vanished; it has migrated into the terrain of belonging. Economic debates remain, but they are filtered through identity lenses: immigration, representation, cultural values, historical guilt, and recognition. The worker no longer defines himself against the owner but against the outsider, the unbeliever, or the unfaithful to a cultural canon.
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Nigeria: Identity as a Substitute for Governance
Nowhere is this tragic transformation more visible than in Nigeria, where the old struggles for justice, development, and equity have been eclipsed by an unrelenting preoccupation with ethnic and religious arithmetic.
The dysfunction and administrative failures of the Tinubu administration — marked by spiraling inflation, widespread insecurity, and economic despair — have been almost entirely subsumed under ethno-religious debates. What should be a sober conversation about competence, corruption, and policy has instead degenerated into a cacophony of regional defensiveness and sectarian rivalry.
Every policy, appointment, and failure is interpreted through ethnic or religious lenses. Supporters retreat into tribal loyalty; critics are accused of bigotry or sectional bias. Public discourse fractures into mutually hostile camps — Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani, Christian, Muslim — each convinced of its moral superiority and historical grievance. The effect is that national decay is rationalised; bad governance is tolerated if it wears the face of one’s identity.
The result is tragic: as Nigeria sinks deeper into despair, its citizens cling harder to the very divisions that perpetuate their suffering. Identity has replaced ideology, and emotion has replaced evaluation. The nation’s political conversation no longer asks what works, but whose turn it is.
The Global Mirror
This Nigerian story is not isolated. Across the world, identity has become the new currency of politics.
In the United States, polarisation increasingly follows cultural and ethno-religious lines — the “Bible Belt” against the “liberal coasts.” Debates over immigration, race, and gender now define party allegiance more than any coherent economic ideology. Donald Trump’s populism thrives on grievance and nostalgia; his opponents answer with moral absolutism of their own.
In Canada, identity politics surfaces through recurring debates about Quebecois nationalism, indigenous reconciliation, and immigration policy — revealing how even tolerant societies struggle to reconcile diversity with cohesion.
Across Europe, far-right movements from Hungary to France have reawakened ethno-nationalist sentiment, while in India, the ruling BJP has woven Hindu nationalism into governance, recasting citizenship and patriotism along religious lines.
Even in regions that once prided themselves on secular universalism, faith and tribe have returned as the primary markers of belonging. The result is a world in which both the privileged and the marginalised anchor their meaning in identity rather than ideology. Wealth no longer moderates tribal passion; it sometimes amplifies it.
The Intractable Turn
This identity turn makes conflict more dangerous and enduring. Ideological quarrels over material interests could be negotiated — wages could rise, tariffs could fall, power could be shared. But identity disputes strike at the core of being. To challenge them is to threaten the self. Hence, politics hardens into moral struggle; persuasion gives way to accusation; elections become existential battles.
Social media deepens the divide. Algorithms reward outrage and tribal affirmation, not nuance. Leaders exploit divisions for power; followers internalise them for belonging. Nations once bound by shared vision are reduced to echo chambers of suspicion.
Huntington’s Shadow
Samuel Huntington foresaw this turn when he argued that culture, not class, would define the post-Cold War world. What he discerned between civilisations has now unfolded within them. The old unifying ideologies have fractured into competing narratives of who belongs and who does not.
The twenty-first century, then, is not the end of ideology but its transfiguration — ideology reborn as identity. And until societies learn to balance belonging with coexistence, this new axis of conflict may prove even more enduring — and more destructive — than the ideological wars that preceded it.
Beyond Identity Paralysis: A Path Forward
The way out of this morass is neither to suppress identity nor to deny its power, but to discipline it within the framework of civic responsibility. Nations must learn to transform the energy of belonging into the ethics of common purpose.
In countries like Nigeria, the starting point is institutional renewal — an electoral process that rewards competence, not sectional advantage; an independent judiciary that protects citizens, not tribes; and governance that delivers results, not rhetoric. Civic education must reawaken the principle that citizenship is the highest identity in a republic.
In older democracies, the remedy lies in rebuilding civic trust and reducing the moral absolutism of politics. Governments should re-anchor policy on shared human needs — health, education, security, dignity — rather than moral posturing or symbolic representation. Media and digital platforms must also evolve from engines of outrage to forums of deliberation.
Ultimately, the antidote to identity politics is not the erasure of difference but the cultivation of empathy — the moral imagination to see oneself in the other. For only when identity expands to include humanity itself can nations escape the trap of perpetual division.
At this hour of global fragmentation, humanity stands at a crossroads. Ideology once promised liberation through reason; identity now promises salvation through belonging. Both, left unchecked, can enslave. The task of our time is to reclaim the middle ground — where belonging does not blind, and belief does not divide.
Sola Fasure studied Political Science at the University of Ibadan.
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