Data was sourced from primary and secondary sources. Primary data comprises direct speech, interviews and comments or reports that are documented (Biggam, 2008). Primary data for this study were sourced through interviews, public documents, and archival materials. An interview, according to Nieuwenhuis and Smit (2012: 133), ‘is a two-way conversation and
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a purposive interaction in which the interviewer asks the participant (the interviewee) questions to collect data about the ideas, experiences, beliefs, views, opinion and behaviours of the participant’. It allows a researcher the opportunity to get information from the person or people that have the information needed and this assists in realising the aims of research.
The interview enables the researcher to obtain more information from participants because it is a convenient means of mutual interaction than a questionnaire (Bertram and Christiansen, 2014: 83). Unlike the questionnaire survey, the researcher conducting an interview will gain deeper insights from the people. However, the relationship of the researcher with the participant may influence the information supplied by the latter. Even though it generates a large amount of textual data, the response of participants may not be a true reflection of their views. Thus, observation is sometimes used as an additional tool of data gathering (Bertram and Christiansen, 2014: 83-84). Regardless of these weaknesses, an interview is ideal for this study because the subject under study requires detailed views of the participants. An interview gives participants the flexibility of reflecting on events without committing themselves to write information, which may look confidential to them (Gray, 2004: 214). In an interview, the voice response is not only taken into cognisance but also the body language of the interviewee (Gray, 2004: 213). In this study, the gesticulations and facial expressions of participants were also taken into consideration in posing questions to them.
Interviews may be structured, unstructured and semi-structured. A structured interview entails having prepared questions where the same set of questions are directed at participants (Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009: 1). It does not give room for flexibility and the experience of the researcher does not change the manner the interview may go during the process. The unstructured interview does not involve having predetermined questions because questions surface due to interaction between the researcher and the participants (Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009: 1). A semi-structured interview enables the researcher to gain a thorough understanding of a participant’s beliefs, perceptions, and account of a topic (Greeff, 2011: 351). For semi- structured interviews, the researcher makes use of an interview schedule or guide that shapes the line of inquiry (Nieuwenhuis and Smit, 2012: 134). This study does not favour the use of structured and unstructured interviews because the nature of the study warrants having some prepared questions for each category of participants. In a semi-structured interview, the researcher and participants enjoy enough flexibility such that during the interview, if another
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area of interest comes up, the researcher can obtain enough information from the participant especially if such questions are very useful in meeting the research objectives (Gray, 2004:
217; Greeff, 2011: 351-352).
In this study, participants were asked questions that allowed more questions to emerge during the interviews. This flexibility also brought more insights into sourcing for more literature to verify some of their claims. The ‘additional’ questions that emerged were reflections of the experience and response of each participant. There were slight differences in the questions each category of participants was asked because of the nature of the study. For instance, the questions directed to the politicians were not completely the same as those posed to the religious leaders.
In a bid to maintain anonymity, the participant(s) were ascribed abbreviated codes, as indicated below:
PINEP-Personal Interview North East Politician
PINEOL- Personal Interview North East Opinion Leader PINWP 1- Personal Interview North West Politician 1 PINWP 2- Personal Interview North West Politician 2 PINWOL- Personal Interview North West Opinion Leader PINCP- Personal Interview North Central Politician
PINCOL- Personal Interview North Central Opinion Leader PISWP 1- Personal Interview South West Politician 1 PISWP 2- Personal Interview South West Politician 2 PISWOL- Personal Interview South West Opinion Leader PISEP- Personal Interview South East Politician
PISEOL- Personal Interview South East Opinion Leader PISSP- Personal Interview South South Politician
PISSOL- Personal Interview South South Opinion Leader PICL 1- Personal Interview Constitutional Lawyer 1 PICL 2- Personal Interview Constitutional Lawyer 2 PICCL- Personal Interview Christian Cleric
PIICL- Personal Interview Islamic Cleric
93 PIR 1- Personal Interview Researcher 1
PIR 2- Personal Interview Researcher 2 PIR 3- Personal Interview Researcher 3
PIFCCS- Personal Interview Federal Character Commission Staff
Other primary sources of data include official government documents and publications. These comprise reports of the Constitutional Conferences, past and present Constitutions of Nigeria, documents from the Federal Character Commission, National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Nigeria, United Nations Development Programme, among others.
Secondary sources provided the relevant literature to support the primary sources. The secondary sources include extant literature from books, journal articles, magazines, and newspapers. In addition, websites of some organisations were visited, and relevant information was extracted from them. Secondary data is useful in the effort to find out what others have unravelled about a study (Rugg and Petre, 2007). The utilisation of secondary sources assisted in understanding the motivation behind getting the views of participants on why there is still federal instability in Nigeria, despite the national integration measures and rotational presidency. The secondary data was equally useful towards understanding the context and the theories which undergird this study.
The combination of primary and secondary data sources was justified considering the objectives of this study. In essence, the secondary sources are useful for scholarly analysis of the phenomenon under study whilst primary sources form the bedrock upon which answers are provided to salient questions that are answered (Rugg and Petre, 2007). This was the case in this study, and secondary sources aided in answering some of the research questions.