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National integration in multi-cultural states is untenable without an entrenched public culture because this comprises the values shared by all groups and constitutes the common grounds on which the diverse groups conceptualize and appreciate the state. In the United States of America groups tend to struggle to define public culture from a universalistic/impersonal perspective, whereas in Nigeria, groups strive to impose their particularistic definition of public culture on the entire polity. The result is that in the United States the universalise position agrave;-vis-a-vis America' engenders widespread identification of groups with the existing public culture. In Nigeria, the area of society-wide agreement which constitutes public culture is still too narrow. People therefore struggle to overthrow existing public culture rather than identify with it due to its parochiality. National integration and its attached benefits, like democracy and political stability, can be realized only with the development and entrenchment of a supportive public culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]