A striking feature of African politics is the variation that exists among countries, as evident notably in their readiness to embrace democratic norms and values. The lack of a democratic role model in the region is an indication that political leaders generally pursue other governance priorities. They are not just at the receiving end of a process of regime formation driven by the international donor community. They are themselves in the middle of shaping it. The fact that the leaders differ in their approach to governance is an acknowledgement that they consider local conditions. In the post-colonial context, their ambition is to anchor the regime in local soil, reflecting values that circulate in society and are part of the ongoing political discourse. This amounts, for example, to reinventing pre-colonial values in modern contexts, as Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa version of communalism illustrates. This chapter recounts the political experience of four countries in East Africa which are neighbours with a similar colonial experience and a common legacy of generous foreign aid from Western governments. Despite these significant commonalities, the countries have developed quite differently since independence. They are building the post-colonial state-nation in ways that reflect the respective political reality that they inherited from the colonial powers. This closer analysis of the four countries confirms the evolution of variable patterns of governance based on how they approach the issues of managing the state-nation. Each country has chosen its own development path and built a political system around the local challenges of transcending the structural limits inherent in their pre-agrarian society. The result is that governments tend to look inwards in their approach to what needs to be done, and in some cases engage in a Marxian critique of Western development ideas.

The state concept is one of the oldest in the study of politics. It features prominently in the analysis of the founders of modern social science, Max Weber and Karl Marx, the former focusing especially on its inner workings (i.e., the state as organization), the latter on its relation to society. Since the early days of social science research on the state, the focus in Comparative Politics has been on both its role in economic development and in nation-building, resulting in the emergence of two research traditions, one centred on statecraft, the other on statehood. Much of the state literature has assumed the presence of an already cohesive political community, the nation-state. State formation in Europe and Asia was the outcome of the dissolution of empires. The emerging states in the early 20th century were all grounded in specific national identities. African states were also born as empires vanished, but they were not formed around nationalities. The colonial powers had assembled multiple pre-agrarian societies into territories with the purpose of conquest and development. Thus, when Africans gained independence, they had to accept a statehood that was not aligned to nationhood. Because the African state-nation is still a project in the making, the exercise of power relies heavily on such means as co-optation and mutual transactions. African leaders must balance the conflicting pressures from tribe and the larger political community, which limits the capacity of the instruments the state to conduct their business. Instead, it encourages modes of governance that are either rivalrous or monopolistic. Lasting political settlements tend to be transactional compromises involving power-sharing, rather than institutional arrangements that facilitate the conduct of state business. Success in the pursuit of such compacts often involves the use of informal institutions that help overcome the rigidity of formal rules.

“In Search of Modernity” delves into the history, issues, and future modalities of Nigeria surviving or emerging within a global discourse of modernity. It presents the ‘modern’ invention of Nigeria as a nation-state as a formation of Eurocentric modernity and the aftermath of industrialization. This argument is supported by pervasive levels of underdevelopment that ravage many African nations, affecting some of the fundamental features associated with modernity, but the European brand of modernity is obsolete. Nigeria, and much of the globalized world along with it, has evolved. Hence, there is a clamoring to either decolonize the present shape of modernity or evolve a more suitable one, as Eurocentric modernity has proven time without number not only to disregard the essentialities (religion, culture, etc.) that may help to define the peculiarities of Nigeria as a sovereign state, but has also perpetually pulled the nation down into further underdevelopment. Therefore, modernization is projected as a process, and modernity as an ongoing state. A nation can continually be in search of modernity while remaining modern, redefining its modern status, and localizing global features. By globalizing its contributions, modernity can self-inflect, be reflexive, and thrive in continuity.

“Colonial Modernity” examines the history and impact of colonialism on the present configuration of Nigeria, especially how it has invoked the deficiencies (ignorance, poverty, and diseases) of modern African states, or rather how those deficiencies have been focalized as the modern understanding of Africa. Nigeria as a forced invention of colonial modernity lacks the necessary factors of homogeneity, with which to achieve a truly adequate state of nationhood in transitioning from colonialism to independence. Rather, the perceived and existing differences among the numerous ethnic groups are exploited by colonialists to achieve an effortless divide and rule system of colonial administration, dominant among which is the challenge of Nigerian unity and the nation-building project complicated by fundamental ideological and political differences between the North and the South. Thereafter, colonial policies ensured that the Nigerian state was birthed on an imbalanced slope, and every member demanded relevance despite those imbalances. One such imbalance was due to the spread of Western education, which was intended to prepare people for modern governance and responsibilities. Its influence began creating problems even before independence. However, this discourse suggests Nigeria can only manifest into a functional and adequate nation-state when people are conscious of the fault-lines along the path of its invention.