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In South Africa, Michael Neocosmos
Examines Nigeria's challenges with consolidating democracy and the crisis of governance arising from structural errors of the state and the fundamental contradictions of the society in Nigeria's Fourth Republic reflect a wider crisis of democracy globally. 'Today we are taking a decisive step on the path of democracy, ' the newly sworn-in President Olusegun Obasanjo told Nigerians on 27 May 1999. 'We will leave no stone unturned to ensure sustenance of democracy, because it is good for us, it is good for Africa, and it is good for the world.' Nigeria's Fourth Republic has survived longer than any of the previous three Republics, the most durable Republic in Nigeria's more than six decades of...
Ibrahim offers a comparative study of the democratic transitions in the Anglophone countries of West Africa, identifying regional trends and discreet factors. He argues that democracy is creeping up the agenda, owing to a detremined struggle for human rights and because democracy has been denied to the people for so long. He identifies a number of common issues across the region: the rise of a militarised secular state; a significant increase in public corruption; the primitive accumulation of capital; an intense battle to deepen democracy between civil society and the state; the appropriation of gender poltiics by the state through the office of the 'first ladies'; and the growing dissidence between elections and political choice. The study also addresses what may be considered an acceptable regional model in Ghana, and an unacceptable example in Liberia.
Various arguments have been proffered to explain the dynamics of African state failure and collapse. However, the literature on state reconstitution is inchoate and minimal. This edited volume focuses on prescriptions for reconstituting the post-colonial state in Africa. Essays on nine African states (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, and Uganda) are preceded by an introduction to the political economy of the African state.
This book is a study of the issues of democracy and democratization in Africa, with emphasis on the roles of civil society and the state in the democratic transition. After clarifying the meaning of democracy as a universal principle of governance and the applicability of the concept to Africa, the book examines the major problems facing the democratic transition on the continent as a whole.
DOES IT MATTER?: Jimi 0. Adesina
As the "Giant of Africa" Nigeria is home to about twenty percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa, serves as Africa's largest producer of oil and natural gas, comprises Africa's largest economy, and represents the cultural center of African literature, film, and music. Yet the country is plagued by problems that keep it from realizing its potential as a world power. Boko Haram, a radical Islamist insurrection centered in the northeast of the country, is an ongoing security challenge, as is the continuous unrest in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria's petroleum wealth. There is also persistent violence associated with land and water use, ethnicity, and religion. In Nigeria: What...
Politics as Dashed Hopes in Nigeria details the experiences of the author, who ran a gubernatorial campaign for the Congress for Progressive Change in Kano State, in 2011, with the politics within the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), leading to the 2011 elections in Nigeria, particularly in Kano State and Nigeria’s presidency. The book reveals the inner workings of the CPC and the intriguing drama that unfolded within its inner caucus discusses the tactical blunders and errors of judgement which were responsible for the party’s unimpressive performance in the 2011 polls in Kano State in particular and the nation at large. These accounts are also the story of the then leader of the CPC, General Muhammadu Buhari, whose image loomed large in the activities of the party; the idea of the existence of a cult-figure in Nigerian politics, versus the concept of due process in political party administration, is, therefore, an issue of paramount interest to the book.