Africa today confronts, and is known for, daunting developmental challenges, despite the abundant human and material resources and significant global development assistance. A number of issues have been identified as causes of the continent’s poor development performance. However, a number of these implicated issues have been insufficiently unaccounted for, and the majority of existing analysis on them is too generic and misinformed. Against this background, this book uses Nigeria as an example to contribute knowledge and informed research to the wider African continent. Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, and is one of the continent’s most resource-endowed countries, but, despite this, it is one of the poorest countries in the entire world. While many studies have examined the country in depth, its continued development complications and its paradoxical status on the world stage suggest that there is still a need to better understand the country. Even though the issues of Nigeria are engaged with directly in this book, the findings have implications and relevance for the rest of the continent and many other developing countries in general. As such, this book will be of particular interest to all development students, scholars, practitioners and policy makers, especially those interested in the sustainable development of Africa, both now and in the future.

This volume reports on the state of crisis in Africa in the early twenty-first century. Africa, on the eve of the ‘independence revolution’, was the continent of hope and high expectations. By the third decade of independence, optimism had been replaced by dismality. African states had been beset by ethno-political squabbles, military rule, civil wars, Islamic and insurgent movements, extreme poverty and disease. With the ascent of redemocratization in the 1990s and of ‘new’ pan-Africanism derived from the formation of the African Union, Africa appeared set to claim its vaunted destiny. This book asks, with hindsight to the first decade of the twenty-first century: how real was the renaissance in African life? If the dismal African condition is a phase in the historical development of Africa, this volume does not see any golden age in the past to which Africa aspires to return. There is clearly a continuation and persistence of crisis, with an absence of good governance, personalisation of state power, widespread disease, and policy failure in education, economy and infrastructural development. Although endowed with abundant human and natural resources, Africa remains the least developed and most indebted continent. Whither then the African Renaissance? The methodologies that underpin the contributions in this book are as diverse as the specialisations of the contributors. The collection questions ideologically protected assumptions and presumptions, presenting Africa as it is, because it is only by knowing where Africa truly stands that a proper direction can be charted for it.

This book examines the various factors that have influenced the growth and development process of contemporary Africa. After discussing and weighing the schools of thought that have attempted to explain the paradox of Africa’s reduced growth and development in the midst of abundant resources, this volume comes up with comprehensive and detailed suggestions and recommendations to address this painful experience. This book consistently states that the average Africans, forming the overwhelming majority of the African population, are the least, if at all, to be blamed for the paradox; but rather the African leadership and its external cronies are to be fully blamed. Contemporary Africa’s Growth and Development seeks a solution to the African growth and development puzzle in proper allocation and oversight of resources, vision, perseverance, courage, corruption-free and good governance, as well as concrete, provable, solid, and genuine unity.

This collection of essays explores the critical and fluid nature of security challenges that have plagued Nigeria since colonial times. Insecurity in diverse forms remains the bane of growth and progressive development in the country, and has the capability to derail a society no matter how sophisticated. What has generated insecurity at the macro- and micro-levels? How has insecurity been tackled? Why have security challenges escalated particularly in the post-independence period? What lessons could be learnt from the way security matters have been (mis)handled in the past? This volume presents chapters on the historical roots and antecedents of security challenges, and considers the nexus between the economy, political leadership and development, and its impacts on security in modern Nigeria. It also explores the effectiveness of the strategies employed to address security challenges, and discusses why some security challenges have lingered.

This novel about Nigeria prophesied the 1983 coup.

Nigeria is a bellwether, in an enormous continent, endowed with natural resources and human capital, whose development and greatness have been marred by political instability since gaining home-rule from Britain in 1960. The contemporary political, economic, and social quandaries that have stultified Nigeria’s growth project flows from difficulties in cultivating patriotic leaders with pluck to enact efficacious policies that will catapult the country to greater heights developmentally. Nigeria in the Fourth Republic: Confronting the Contemporary Political, Economic, and Social Dilemmas, edited by E. Ike Udogu, examines some of the vital issues responsible for the current political malaise and recommends strategies for exculpating the country from her current political quagmires. The contributors to this book argue, inter alia, for the avoidance of false starts reminiscent of the military interventions that aborted the democracy project and advocates the enactment of effective policies to supersede decision dictated by politics. This volume proposes national healthcare strategies to address the country’s healthcare needs and for dialogue to extinguish combustible inter-religious conflicts. The book recommends ways to assuage police highway malfeasance and explains why human rights observance is critical to further national cohesion while creating space for the subalterns to have their voices heard in discourses on how to advance peaceful coexistence.

In this book, Jeremiah I. Dibua challenges prevailing notions of Africa's development crisis by drawing attention to the role of modernization as a way of understanding the nature and dynamics of the crisis, and how to overcome the problem of underdevelopment.

The year 1999 was a watershed in the history of Nigeria as it witnessed the peaceful transfer of power from the military to the political class. Given Nigerias tumultuous history of successive military interventions, this development was the first genuine transition that saw the military elite transferring political power to civilians without itching to stage a comeback. This edited volume, composed of 22 chapters discusses the form, trajectory and substance of democratic governance in post-military Nigeria between 1999 and 2014. It is a compilation of well researched essays and narratives on Nigerian government and politics. The book is a multi-disciplinary assessment of Nigerias democratic strides, including contributions from scholars in a broad range of disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology, political science, economics, international relations, among others. The book examines the factors responsible for the resilience of the current democratic governance structures, in spite of centripetal and centrifugal forces frustrating democratic consolidation in the country. It equally interrogates these factors and makes appropriate recommendations for overcoming them. Key themes covered in the book in the Boko Haram insurgency, governance and corruption, militancy, sharia law, Islamic banking amongst others. It sheds light on contending issues affecting, afflicting and retarding the countrys progress. Issues like ethnicity, electoral corruption, human rights abuses, privatization of national assets, kidnapping and armed robbery, overbearing leadership personality and many more are critically discussed. Local government autonomy and the challenges of grassroots development and civil service administration are also thoroughly analysed. Democratic Governance and Political Participation in Nigeria 1999-2014 is a detailed, exhaustive, deep, stimulating and captivating narrative of the Nigerian situation. It is enthusiastically recommended for those who wish to know more about contemporary Nigerian history. As a collection of contemporary issues on the Nigerian government and politics, the book is recommended for courses in politics and governance in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. It is an invaluable companion for both graduate and undergraduate students as well as scholars of African politics.

The political economy problems of Nigeria, the root cause for ethnic, religious, political and economic strife, can be in part addressed indirectly through focused contributions by the U.S. military, especially if regionally aligned units are more thoroughly employed.