Nigeria And The Crisis Of The Nation State

Understanding Organizational Leadership through Ubuntu offers a creative, innovative and holistic approach to understanding organizational leadership using the principles embodied in the African philosophy of personhood known as ubuntu - or the essence of being human. Using African proverbs, folktales and indigenous concepts, the book discusses the organizational principles of ubuntu and the leadership lessons that modern organizations can learn from these principles. The principles include sharing and collective ownership of opportunities, responsibilities and challenges, the importance of people and relationships over things, participatory leadership and decision making, loyalty, reconciliation, experiential learning and knowledge management By using humorous ways that touch people's heart to communicate organizational and personal management and improvement strategies, the book demystifies organizational language while at the same time enhancing its power. It also contributes to the much-needed cross-cultural dialogue among organizations and societies.

Nigeria matters. It is Africa’s largest economy, and it is projected to become the third most populous country in the world by 2050, but its democratic aspirations are challenged by rising insecurity. John Campbell traces the fractured colonial history and contemporary ethnic conflicts and political corruption that define Nigeria today. It was not—and never had been—a nation-state like those of Europe. It is still not quite a nation because Nigerians are not yet united by language, religion, culture, or a common national story. It is not quite a state because the government is weak and getting weaker, beset by Islamist terrorism, insurrection, intercommunal violence, and a countrywide crime wave. This deeply knowledgeable book is an antidote to those who would make the mistakes of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq—mistakes based on misunderstanding—in Nigeria. Up to now, such mistakes have largely been avoided, but Nigeria will soon—and Campbell argues already does—require much greater attention by the West.

The challenges facing the nation-state in contemporary Africa are increasingly attracting the attention of scholars interested to understand how the decomposition and recomposition of popular political identities on the continent are affecting the post-colonial unitary project. The studies presented in this volume show that the challenges to the post-colonial nation-state project in Africa have mainly taken ethno-regionalist, religious and separatist forms. These challenges have been shaped by the long drawn-out economic crisis, zero-sum, market-led structural adjustment, and the legacy of decades of political authoritarianism and exclusion that dates from the colonial period. The contributors to this book present different suggestions to promote national unity and a supporting civic identity in Africa.

The challenge of state formation and national integration is evident, and the need for a solution is even more demanding in places like Africa where nation states were formed under very special historical circumstances. In Perspectives on Nation-State Formation in Contemporary Africa, author Godknows Boladei Igali presents a digest that examines the challenges of state formation and national integration in Africa and offers preferred solutions within the context of the symbolic diversities. In this study, Igali outlines the immediate context and challenges of national integration in Africa in its human dimension. He reviews the political formations of ancient Africawhich varied in size, philosophical premise, and organisational structuresand discusses partition, military invasions, conquest, and colonisation. He then addresses colonial rule or administration, African nationalism, and decolonisation and analyses the process of nation-state formation in post-independent Africa from the perspective of the political systems and ideologies Reviewing a wide range of time from ancient times through the colonial period and since independence, this survey discusses the processes of national integration and nation-state formation in Africa, providing perspectives that deepen the understanding of these nation-building processes.

To understand Africa, one must understand Nigeria, and few Americans understand Nigeria better than Karl Maier. This House Has Fallen is a bracing and disturbing report on the state of Africa's most populous, potentially richest, and most dangerously dysfunctional nation. Each year, with depressing consistency, Nigeria is declared the most corrupt state in the entire world. Though Nigeria is a nation into which billions of dollars of oil money flow, its per capita income has fallen dramatically in the past two decades. Military coup follows military coup. A bellwether for Africa, it is a country of rising ethnic tensions and falling standards of living, very possibly on the verge of utter collapse -- a collapse that could dramatically overshadow even the massacres in Rwanda. A brilliant piece of reportage and travel writing, This House Has Fallenlooks into the Nigerian abyss and comes away with insight, profound conclusions, and even some hope. Updated with a new preface by the author.

An introduction to the politics and society of post-colonial Nigeria, highlighting the key themes of ethnicity, democracy, and development.