The book ends by tracking the legacy of the Minorities Commission. The commission set a precedent for managing minority anxieties as Nigeria entered nation-statehood in 1960. It also failed to resolve the political tension these anxieties caused, leaving the newly independent Nigerian state with a crisis of citizenship that lingers to this day. This crisis of citizenship informed the national breakdown that led to the devastating civil war (also known as the Biafran War, 1967–70) and the ongoing fragmentation of Nigeria into smaller and more numerous states. Because certain Niger Delta peoples have been fixed as minorities in Nigeria, the needs and well-being of Niger Delta communities are not priorities, especially as they are construed as being at odds with national needs and priorities. It is in this context that their status as minorities has had the most devastating implications. The book closes by exploring the various ways these communities have used their minority status to simultaneously challenge and insist upon inclusion within the Nigerian state, asking what might be possible for their future as Nigerian citizens.

The Minorities Commission of 1957-58 demonstrated the degree to which people had aligned their ethnic affiliation with the newly articulated political identities by the late 1950s. Even though each region contained significant heterogeneous populations, each of the major political parties aligned with the numerically major ethnic group, which also conformed to colonially construed majorities (i.e., Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo). This further exacerbated the growing sense of alienation minorities felt amid nationalist fervor during this period. In the end, the Minorities Commission recommended that Nigeria enter independence with the existing tripartite regional structure. However, it did recommend the new Nigerian state set up “special areas” or “minority areas” in the Western and Eastern Regions under the jurisdiction of the federal government; the idea was that these would receive special consideration for further development. Addressing the minority question would have required more time and resources than the British government was willing to give to this colony.