Some pre-colonial Nigerian societies are described as stateless because ......

Pre-colonial Nigerian societies are described as stateless primarily because they had no formal governmental institutions. This means that there were no centralized systems of authority or bureaucracy that governed the societies. While there were often leaders or rulers, their authority was often limited to their immediate kinship group or community and there was no overarching governmental structure that governed the society as a whole. Additionally, stateless societies often had no definite political boundaries and their independence could vary depending on their interactions with neighboring societies, but these factors are not the primary reasons for describing them as stateless. The size of the population is also not a determining factor in whether a society is considered stateless.