Eminent scholars highlight Nigeria¿s contributions to the promotion of peace, democracy, and development, in Africa and beyond, during the five decades since the country achieved independence. The contributors identify both concrete achievements and persistent challenges, as well as offering suggestions for a more effective foreign policy in the quest for a well-defined national interest.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and biggest democracy, celebrates her fiftieth year as an independent nation in October 2010. As the cliché states, ‘As Nigeria goes, so goes Africa’. This book frames the socio-historical and political trajectory of Nigeria while examining the many dimensions of the critical choices that she has made as an independent nation. How does the social composition of interest and power illuminate the actualities and narratives of the Nigerian crisis? How have the choices made by Nigerian leaders structured, and/or have been structured by, the character of the Nigerian state and state-society relations? In what ways is Nigeria’s mono-product, debt-ridden, dependent economy fed by ‘the politics of plunder’? And what are the implications of these questions for the structural relationships of production, reproduction and consumption? This book confronts these questions by making state-centric approaches to understanding African countries speak to relevant social theories that pluralize and complicate our understanding of the specific challenges of a prototypical postcolonial state. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and biggest democracy, celebrates her fiftieth year as an independent nation in October 2010. As the cliché states, ‘As Nigeria goes, so goes Africa’. This book frames the socio-historical and political trajectory of Nigeria while examining the many dimensions of the critical choices that she has made as an independent nation. How does the social composition of interest and power illuminate the actualities and narratives of the Nigerian crisis? How have the choices made by Nigerian leaders structured, and/or have been structured by, the character of the Nigerian state and state-society relations? In what ways is Nigeria’s mono-product, debt-ridden, dependent economy fed by ‘the politics of plunder’? And what are the implications of these questions for the structural relationships of production, reproduction and consumption? This book confronts these questions by making state-centric approaches to understanding African countries speak to relevant social theories that pluralize and complicate our understanding of the specific challenges of a prototypical postcolonial state. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.

On October 1, 2020, Nigeria celebrated its 60th year of political independence. After sixty years of independence, most Nigerians, particularly the youth, hold the view that the country has failed to work for them in a way that is satisfactory and enduring. This book seeks to give voice to young Nigerians, the critical change agents, to help the country understand and sharpen its focus on those issues that hold the key to its collective survival. Clearly, the new decade will be a defining moment for Nigeria. Sixty years after independence, fifty years after a civil war, and at the beginning of a new decade, it is important that a new generation of citizens is challenged to reposition the country. From interaction with young people and discussions on social media, there appears to be a knowledge and information gap among young Nigerians about the history and socio-political evolution of the country. Beyond the lack of understanding of history, there is also a dearth of ideas on what needs to be done and how to get Nigeria out of its current situation. This book addresses these problems. Contributors to the book are young Nigerians with fresh ideas on nationhood, democracy, and development. The book focuses on issues such as federalism, elections and democracy, constitutionalism, environmental justice, data and ICT, the economy and social inclusion, media and press freedom, youth engagement, law and human rights, education and social services, religion and multiculturalism, leadership challenge and good governance, corruption and accountability, foreign policy and regional cooperation.A quarter of a century ago, Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, posed the fundamental question: When is a nation? Based on their background, experience and research, contributors to this book reflected on this question and other important questions with the aim of helping Nigerians understand and appreciate the formula for nation building, and the strategic goals in the construction of a modern nation-state. The essays are analytical, insightful, pragmatic and offer solutions to "the trouble with Nigeria." We hope that they will inspire a new generation of Nigerians on what the country needs to do to fulfil the promise and hope of independence.A new Nigeria is possible. But it must be a Nigeria built around the motto of freedom, equality, and opportunity. It must be a Nigeria created in the image of Nigerians of the 21st century; not one created in the image of the British Empire, the Royal Niger Company, Sir Frederick Lugard, internal colonialists or the new imperialists. For young Nigerians to whom this book is directed, it is time to stop looking back or looking up, and as John F. Kennedy admonished, "...accept our own responsibility for the future.''