Nigeria: A Crumbling State?

In this penetrating narrative, Professor Ihechukwu Madubuike asks some troubling questions: “Can the possibility of a USA military intervention in the internal affairs of Nigeria, however conceived, force Nigerian leaders and their self-serving political elite, to rethink Nigeria by embarking on a strategic reform agenda that incarnates true federalism, devolution of powers to its sub nationals, and good governance as its overriding principle immediately? The book examines the various stress points raised by the USA Think Tank and, through this examination, including governance failures and sovereignty gaps in policies, programs, and their implementation or otherwise, suggests remedial goals. The chapters not only interrogate the stress points; they also outline containment measures that could make state failure or collapse, as predicted by the US Report, impossible. This would lay to rest the ghost of a failed or failing state and its bitter taste of regime change. It is a valent option for a stable and progressive nationhood. 

“It is gratifying that no less a scholar than Professor Ihechukwu Madubuike, a distinguished patriot and an accomplished professional whose intellectual power has been deployed variously to promote democratic ideals, has produced this timely book that addresses some pertinent issues.”—Tunde Adeniran, Emeritus Professor, University of Ibadan. 

“Arguments putting political leadership and the structure of the Nigerian state at the heart of the fragility of its polity abound, but Professor Madubuke's account masterfully presents them with the eloquence and power of a scholar and public intellectual.”—Chima J. Korieh, Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies, Marquette University.

IHECHUKWU CHIEDOZIE MADUBUIKE is a public intellectual and author of many books, including the classic Towards the Decolonization of African Literature, with Chinweizu and Onwuchekwa Jemie as the co-authors. He has served Nigeria as a parliamentarian, a commissioner in Imo State, and as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He has also participated in the Sani Abacha Constitutional Conference in 1994 and the Jonathan Constitutional Conference in 2014, both of which issued far-reaching recommendations for a stable, prosperous polity. He is the proprietor of the Ihechukwu Madubuike Institute of Technology, Isuochi, Abia State, Southeast Nigeria. He is an Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), a Paul Harris Fellow, and a Knight of John Wesley.