The society is often a fragmented space of ideas and ideals only harmonized by the agency of collective knowledge, tested, disseminated, and established as an episteme through its educational system. Ideally, the nature of a society usually informs the system and structure of its educational institution. Hence, Nigeria, like every other modern state, has moved through different trajectories that have altered the frame of the institution. The purpose of this paper is therefore propelled by the need to assess how those trajectories have affected the nature of the educational system of a West African country and its society. With the power and agency of colonially introduced Western education still reverberating in the modern state, the chapter taps myriad existing literature on Western education in Africa, Nigeria in particular, to reiterate the need for the decolonization of the Nigerian educational system. To this extent, it concludes on the unarguable note of rethinking Western education and its essence in the country for national cohesion and culture.

This chapter suggests that social, political, institutional and demographic changes already observable in Africa hold out the possibility of national futures in which the manipulation of ethnic difference could cease to be the main route to political power. In the first of four sections it is argued that, although ethnic allegiances are powerful there are other, situational, identities round which human interests may gather. It is shown, secondly, that there is no single model or measure that can reliably relate ethnic diversity to economic development or the nature of governance. Since the early postcolonial years of “nation-building”, third, many civil society organisations have arisen in Africa, to promote not only ethnic interests but also such heterogeneous group identities as the urban poor in mega cities, women (often peacemakers), youth, and HIV/AIDS sufferers. While, finally, these organisations, including Pentecostal churches, may be led by “big men”, they nonetheless diversify and complicate the “big man” politics of ethnic difference that has rarely met such competition until now.

This chapter suggests that social, political, institutional and demographic changes already observable in Africa hold out the possibility of national futures in which the manipulation of ethnic difference could cease to be the main route to political power. In the first of four sections it is argued that, although ethnic allegiances are powerful there are other, situational, identities round which human interests may gather. It is shown, secondly, that there is no single model or measure that can reliably relate ethnic diversity to economic development or the nature of governance. Since the early postcolonial years of “nation-building”, third, many civil society organisations have arisen in Africa, to promote not only ethnic interests but also such heterogeneous group identities as the urban poor in mega cities, women (often peacemakers), youth, and HIV/AIDS sufferers. While, finally, these organisations, including Pentecostal churches, may be led by “big men”, they nonetheless diversify and complicate the “big man” politics of ethnic difference that has rarely met such competition until now.