In The Struggles of Post-Independence Nigeria, Ucheoma Nwagbara argues that despite Nigeria’s oil wealth and arable agricultural land, Nigerians are not any better today than they were before independence. Nwagbara examines Nigeria’s struggles with corruption, reckless government spending, poverty, inequality, crime, and violent insurgency to show how successive Nigerian leadership has failed to utilize the country’s enormous natural and human resources to improve citizens’ lives, eradicate poverty, and deliver broadly shared prosperity, especially to the middle class and the poor. Through his analysis, Nwagbara demonstrates that the nationalist ideals of dedicated and accountable leadership behind the struggle for independence in Nigeria have been betrayed as the emergent post-colonial leadership cared only for personal survival and gain. Despite these failures, Nwagbara reveals that Nigeria may still have a chance to improve and recover if Nigerians unite and demand real change through political and social activism.

International media coverage in the 1960s and early 1970s represented the Biafran War, in which the state of Biafra attempted to secede from the Nigerian Federation, as a grand humanitarian disaster, characterised by sustained conflict, starvation and genocide. Using interviews and newly-released archival material, Michael Gould questions this depiction, examining the role of foreign parties in the conflict and the impact of propaganda upon its international reception both during and after the war. Envisaged initially by both sides as a short conflict, the war confounded all expectations, stretching on for four years. It was a 'brother's war', one which divided families, and was characterised overwhelmingly by both sides' reluctance to enter into hostilities. This book seeks to answer some of the most fundamental questions surrounding the conflict, including how this avoidable conflict came about, why the war became so drawn-out and how the leadership of the opposing Generals Ojukwu, who led the Biafran revolt and Gowon, who was President of the Nigerian Federation, defined the conflict. In the process, Gould offers a radical reappraisal of the many entrenched conceptions which currently surround the conflict. This book will be essential reading for all students of African history and politics, and post-colonial studies.

The variety of land questions facing Africa and the divergent strategies proposed to resolve them continue to evoke debates. Increasingly, in response to the enduring problems of land tenure, there are land movements of all shapes and orientations, some reformist and others quite revolutionary in their agenda. However revolutionary, land movements have tended to ignore the land tenure interests of women, pastoralists, youth and indigenous people. Several of these longstanding and emerging issues in land tenure include the role of the state in land tenure reforms; urban land questions, the nature of land struggles and improvements; and, the impact of land tenure developments on particular social groups and countries. An overarching concern is the extent to which land rights are being commodified, through the conversion of land held under customary tenure systems into marketised systems. The consequences of this include growing land concentration, land tenure insecurities, diminishing access to land by various sections of society, including the poor, women and less dominant ethno-religious groups. This volume brings together different studies on Africa's land questions exploring emerging land issues on the continent in terms of the wider questions of development, citizenship, and democratisation. The chapters discuss the land question through a variety of themes. Some focus on the agrarian aspects of the land questions, while others elucidate the urban dimensions of the land question.

This book is the first to recover and analyse at length the extent, complexity, and character of African American responses to the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Far from having only marginal significance, the Nigerian Civil War collided at full velocity with the conflicting discourses and ideas by which black Americans sought to understand their place in the United States and the world in the late 1960s. Black civil rights leaders offered their service as agents of direct diplomacy during the conflict, seeking to preserve Nigerian unity; grassroots activists organised food-drives, concerts, and awareness campaigns in support of humanitarian aid for victims of famine in the warzone; while other black activists warned of an imminent genocide and called for an united response from black Americans. Drawing on private papers, activist literature, government records, and especially the black press, it charts the way the civil war shaped, as well as challenged, the worldview of African Americans regarding black internationalist solidarities, territorial sovereignty and political viability, humanitarian compassion, and the political trajectory of postcolonial Africa. With a chronological approach, this study is the ideal resource for all those interested in the Nigerian Civil War and the history of black internationalism.

"The Niger delta region of Nigeria which is at the heart of the country's oil industry, has a long history of struggles for self-determination dating back to the early years of the 20[superscript th] century. In the 1980s and 1990s, these struggles, unfolding as they did within the context of military authoritarianism and structural adjustment, took the form of widespread agitation for greater control by local communities of the revenues accruing to the Nigerian state from exploration and extraction of oil." "This study attempts to capture the transformations in ethnic minority identity politics in the oil-producing areas of the Niger delta. In doing this, attention is simultaneously drawn to the factors informing the shift from peaceful agitation to violent protest as well as the dynamic of decay and renewal in the various ethnic minority movements that are active in the delta. It is suggested that part of the solution to the crisis in the delta will involve not only a thorough-going restructuring of the Nigerian state but also the re-orientation of the mode of operation of the giant oil multinationals in order to make them both more sensitive and accountable to the local communities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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.

The Principle of Subsidiarity in Catholic Social Thought: Implications for Social Justice and Civil Society in Nigeria provides a theoretical and practical framework for a just vision of society. It focuses on how support for individuals and social groups in Nigeria can foster the building of their communities through the practice of social justice. Social justice will ensure the building of trust across ethnic lines, challenge corruption, encourage accountability and servant leadership, protect minority tribes from larger ones, and promote grassroots self-help tribal, communal, religious, and non-governmental associations as agents of positive social change and development. These dynamics interact within a healthy federal structure that respects its constituent parts for the common good. This volume is recommended as a graduate text for courses in theology, religious education, and social philosophy, and for all interested in promoting the common good.

The tipping point is here; something has to give. It is no longer tenable to argue that the labour of our heroes past shall not be in vain as a justification for Odi, Zaki Biam or Baga. Those scars on our history are actually a desecration of the collective memory of our heroes past... it is necessary, in our present circumstance, for true patriots to appreciate that keeping Nigeria together does not and will never equate promoting peace among its peoples. for some odd reasons, many Nigerians do not see the difference; hence, the consistent century-long failure in our approach to confronting the issues that contend with true nation-building. for the avoidance of doubt, what Britain achieved on January 1, 1914 was the fusion of Colony of Lagos, Northern and Southern Protectorates into a distinct geographical entity - a country of diverse nations only. the legitimate expectation of the world as Nigeria turns one hundred (1914-2014) is that we would accomplish the task of amalgamating the bodies, souls and spirits of the various peoples of Nigeria into a nation truly so-called.