Nigeria, Echoes of a Century: 1914-1999


Book Description

Echoes of a Century discusses fundamental issues in Nigeria's loose federation as well as unresolved national challenges in the past 100 years. It also examines the issue of leadership and its ceaseless manipulation through zoning, federal character, demography, ethnicity and religion that revolve around individuals against national interest; the politics and illusion of oil wealth that has become the nation's albatross; endemic corruption and societal decadence that negate her growth and development, and the clamour for a national conference to renegotiate the country's future.




NIGERIA: ECHOES OF A CENTURY


Book Description

ONE HUNDRED years past and gone, just like yesterday, and Nigeria is still in transition. Created on the vagaries of British imperialism, Lord Frederick Lugard, on January 1, 1914, unilaterally stitched together, two diametrically opposed Northern and Southern parts of the Niger bend to form an entity he called NIGERIA. Since then, Nigeria has remained changeless but with severe internal contradictions that threaten the shaky foundation on which it was formed. By the amalgamation of 1914, Nigeria marks her centenary in 2014 – a century that reverberates 46 years of colonial domination, which set the agenda for political instability and internal conflicts; 29 wasted years of incessant bloody military coups and dictatorship, and 25 years of incoherent democratic governance. Echoes of a Century discusses fundamental issues in Nigeria’s loose federation as well as unresolved national challenges in the past 100 years. It also examines the issue of leadership and its ceaseless manipulation through zoning, federal character, demography, ethnicity and religion that revolve around individuals against national interests; the politics and illusion of oil wealth that has become the nation’s albatross; endemic corruption and societal decadence that negate her growth and development, and the clamour for a national conference to renegotiate the country’s future. Could Nigeria have done better as two separate entities as it were, before the amalgamation of 1914, or better still, as three separate nations as envisaged in 1957, against the encumbrances of its present structure, where trust is lacking, and confidence progressively eroding among federating units? With visible cracks on its bonds of unity, rising cases of religious bigotry and fundamentalism, ethnic chauvinism and exclusion, it is argued that should Nigeria eventually survive as one united nation, it may not develop beyond the status of a third world country.




Socio-Cultural and Religious Conflicts and the Future of Nigeria


Book Description

With the prevailing violent conflict situation of our world, perpetuated sometimes even in the name of religion, humanity today faces extinction. To reverse this ugly trend, humanity has no choice than to build a society where every tribe and tongue can coexist in peace. This work analyzed the violent conflicts from anthropological, behavioral, politico-philosophical, and theological perspectives, and makes a demand on humanity to save herself through proper education and dialogue with all men and religions.




Theology and Social Issues in Africa


Book Description

The Volume speaks to us from the heart and engages the socio-political concerns in the Nigerian context through the lens of a theological approach. The author reflects historically the numerous consequences of the amalgamation of the ethnic groups of different orientations in Nigeria into one socio-political structure of the colonizers interests. This sociopolitical structure raises several questions than answers it pretends to offer the indigenous people. From a Nigerian point of view, the articles in this volume critically challenge the unjust formation of any nationhood in the Africa context. It points out how the sustenance of an unjust nation formation betrays the creed on which such a nation is established. “Truth conquers all” is the spirit with which this Volume is written. It is the truth that will set a nation like Nigeria free from the spirit of confusion and unperceived religio-socio-political syncretism. The awareness emanating from this volume suggests liberating steps from the unsuspicious colonial interests and the sustained feigned relationship with the colonizers which militate against the socio-political and economic growth, and theological orthodoxy of such a growing nation.




Human Rights in Nigeria's External Relations


Book Description

This book is a broad-ranging argument for thorough reforms at home and abroad in Nigeria as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Because of its enormous material and human endowments, Nigeria is dubbed the “Giant of Africa.” It is a moniker many of its leaders take seriously. Yet, Nigeria is a state rife with instability, some of it periodically erupting into violence. Given still-ongoing national security challenges in the land that notoriously includes a bloody religion-oriented terrorism, the Fourth Republic since 1999, the longest period of continuous democratic rule since independence—key to the timeline of this book—has not been insulated from the spell of instability. The main argument of this work is that internationally agreed-upon ethical standards embedded in human rights can save Nigeria. This book is a methodologically and theoretically-grounded, seminal discourse on Nigerian foreign relations that spells out the human rights or lack thereof in those relations, including underlying and impinging domestic forces. This work is set around six issues of application embedded in a temple of Nigeria’s human rights foreign policy, comprising two steps and four pillars: reconstructed national interest, increased human rights at home, redesigned peacekeeping, reshaped foreign policy machinery, increased bilateralism in foreign relations, and the use of ECOWAS as human rights tool. Although focused on the period since independence, for proper understanding of events from the past that shape the current patterns of politics in the land, this book also embodies a historical background chapter that overviews the pre-colonial and colonial eras.







Routes to Reform


Book Description

This book examines the conditions under which new democracies succeed or fail in establishing firm and lasting civilian control of the military. David Kuehn and Aurel Croissant introduce a multi-dimensional conceptual framework to evaluate the degree of civilian control in new democracies and to trace developments over time. The theory of civilian control in new democracies that they propose integrates rationalist, structuralist, and institutionalist arguments into a coherent model to explain when, how, and through which causal mechanism new democracies succeed or fail in establishing and sustaining civilian control over the military. This theory is tested on an original dataset on civilian control over the military in 66 countries that have made the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule at least once in the period from 1974 to 2010. The study traces the effects of different degrees of civilian control on the survival and democratic quality of third wave democracies, combining large-N statistical analyses with detailed case study narratives of several countries. The book establishes a comprehensive understanding of the conditions and processes under which third wave democracies succeeded or failed in establishing firm and lasting civilian control of the military-and its consequences for the survival and quality of the new democratic structures, processes, and practices.




Protection, Patronage, or Plunder? British Machinations and (B)uganda’s Struggle for Independence


Book Description

In the scramble for Africa, Britain took a lion’s share of the continent. It occupied and controlled vast territories, including the Uganda Protectorate – which it ruled for 68 years. Early administrators in the region encountered the progressive kingdom of Buganda, which they incorporated into the British Empire. Under the guise of protection, indirect rule and patronage, Britain overran, plundered and disempowered the kingdom’s traditional institutions. On liquidation of the Empire, Buganda was coaxed into a problematic political order largely dictated from London. Today, 56 years after independence, the kingdom struggles to rediscover itself within Uganda’s fragile politics. Based on newly de-classified records, this book reconstructs a history of the machinations underpinning British imperial interests in (B)Uganda and the personalities who embodied colonial rule. It addresses Anglo-Uganda relations, demonstrating how Uganda’s politics reflects its colonial past, and the forces shaping its future. It is a far-reaching examination of British rule in (B)uganda, questioning whether it was designed for protection, for patronage or for plunder.




Promoting Foreign Judgments


Book Description

In many African countries, litigants experience significant uncertainty in their attempts to enforce foreign judgments. Drawing on the experiences of the United Kingdom and the United States (vis-à-vis efforts to attain an effective global legal framework on foreign judgments), this book undertakes a comparative analysis of how South African and Nigerian courts can promote the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in a fair manner. This comparative analysis is made considering both African countries as paradigms of their respective legal traditions. The author, a legal consultant and academic in private international law analyses, stage by stage, the challenging process that litigants face when they seek to enforce foreign judgments in South Africa and Nigeria. This analysis includes insightful consideration of broader issues such as the following: how challenges faced by judgment creditors may be circumvented; practical issues impeding the free movement of foreign judgments; impact of globalisation, increase in international commercial transactions, and regionalism on private international law; application of ‘fairness’; how territorial sovereignty and State interests in international commerce impede the free movement of foreign judgments; and ‘qualified obligation’, under which courts would presumptively enforce foreign judgments subject to certain exceptions and to the balancing of competing interests between private litigants and the State. The comparative analysis is undergirded by relevant case law – spanning decades in Africa and centuries in Europe and the United States. In summary, the author projects a clear case for predictability and certainty in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, as well as how to go about it, thus offering lawyers a strategic position to weigh their options in contemplating enforcement of foreign judgments in any jurisdiction even beyond the African region. This innovative approach will also be of particular value to policymakers at national levels, international and regional economic organisations, as well as scholars in private international law and international commercial law generally. This is regardless of their specific legal area or niche, especially considering the dearth of literature in African private international law.




The Bleeding Continent


Book Description

This book tells the story of the sorry state of Africa. Although it acknowledges how Europe especially initiated and has surreptitiously maintained the ongoing predation on and the impoverishment of Africa, its major attention is on Africas self-betrayal, how Africas political leaders and elites have contributed in the present predicament of Africa. Beginning from the dishonourably sadistic roles some of the kings, chiefs, and elites of Africa played during the slave trade era to the predatory systems of governance many of their political leaders adopted after decolonisation and have maintained to date, this book x-rays the internal factors that are also responsible for the poverty of Africa. The author argues passionately, consequently, that only Africa can help Africa, not foreign aid or any external intervention. He stresses that unless the cannibalistic system of governance in many African states are reformed and systems that can stimulate and sustain economic growth adopted, the disappearance of Africa is imminent.




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