My Beauty Best Teacher

Edward Miguel discusses Nation Building in his Boston Review article about Africa's Prospects:

It should not be surprising that it is taking a full generation or more for real nationhood to take root in these infant countries. Everything started from scratch after independence. Politicians had to figure out how to forge political compromises across class, regional, gender, linguistic, tribal, and religious lines. History and civics textbooks needed to be written. Citizens had to come up with their own national narratives and heroes. Creating new identities and institutions is not something that foreign colonizers, aid donors, or the IMF and World Bank are willing or able to do. That kind of transformation demands visionary leaders, who have too often been lacking in Africa, or have themselves been victims of political violence. Further complicating matters, leaders and citizens trying to assemble structures of civic life must contend with the immediate economic imperatives of boosting agricultural productivity, educating the workforce, and building a modern transportation infrastructure.

Joshua J. Omojuwa writing in African Liberty:

As Nigerians celebrate 50 years of nationhood today, the promise of independence- a nation of free people living at peace with itself and neighbours, undergirded by individual and economic well being is still a distant dream. The President and his Governors may cut mammoth cakes and pop champagne and toast to success, perhaps personal success. Yet, this artificial success is derived from plunder and supervised penury foisted on the poverty industry and fueled by years of bad governance.
Little wonder remnants of the disaggregated development plague us; dysfunctional educational system, bad energy policies, bad roads, offensive electricity supply, armed rebellions in resource-rich regions, religious and tribal wars, kidnappings and a habitation for corrupt political grand masters and scammers. Clearly we are a nation of perpetual anomalies. Yet, we are one of the richest oil-producing nations on earth able to dish out billions of Naira for the wasteful jamboree in the name of Independence...[continue reading]

Richard Dowden writes "...Africa’s winner-takes-all politics lie at the heart of everything that has gone wrong with the continent. It is the reason why it has fallen behind the rest of the world economically, the reason for its wars and poverty...Its roots go back to the creation of African states themselves, the lines drawn on maps by the European colonial powers at the end of the 19th century. The process eventually produced fifty-three states overlaying some 10,000 pre-existing societies and political entities...African states, with a few exceptions, have no common understanding or experience of nationhood. Their flags, national anthems, and identities were created by outsiders. Patriotism, in the good sense of positive loyalty to one’s country and fellow citizens, is in short supply. If you want power, you play the ethnic card or smear your religious rivals. When you achieve power, you bring your own people into government – and even more important, into the army...",OpenDemocracy.