Nigeria is a bellwether, in an enormous continent, endowed with natural resources and human capital, whose development and greatness have been marred by political instability since gaining home-rule from Britain in 1960. The contemporary political, economic, and social quandaries that have stultified Nigeria's growth project flows from difficulties in cultivating patriotic leaders with pluck to enact efficacious policies that will catapult the country to greater heights developmentally. Nigeria in the Fourth Republic: Confronting the Contemporary Political, Economic, and Social Dilemmas, edited by E. Ike Udogu, examines some of the vital issues responsible for the current political malaise and recommends strategies for exculpating the country from her current political quagmires. The contributors to this book argue, inter alia, for the avoidance of false starts reminiscent of the military interventions that aborted the democracy project and advocates the enactment of effective policies to supersede decision dictated by politics. This volume proposes national healthcare strategies to address the country's healthcare needs and for dialogue to extinguish combustible inter-religious conflicts. The book recommends ways to assuage police highway malfeasance and explains why human rights observance is critical to further national cohesion while creating space for the subalterns to have their voices heard in discourses on how to advance peaceful coexistence.

Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing an impressive measure of economic revivalism that is driven by both national and international forces at the beginning of the twenty-first century. That political and business leaders in the region are determined that development in this millennium will not mimic the slow pace of growth in the twentieth is a given. Undoubtedly, the rapid spread of information communications technology (ICT) and contemporary investments of China in the region s growth agenda bear this thesis out. This book, among other things, advances the theory that improving human rights practices and the democracy project i.e. democratic consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa will create an enabling environment that is critical for stimulating the current inspiring development objectives."

This book frames the debates around the pressing desire for some form of unification that found expression in the pan-Africanist movement and formation of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963 following the advent of home-rule for many former colonies of the Western powers. Discussions in this volume address the following fundamental issues: nationalism and political integration and how the contradictions between both philosophies can be resolved; the amelioration of corruption in order to attract internal and external investments critical for developing the vast natural resources housed in the continent; the need for Africa's adaptation to the ideology and practice of capitalism and liberal globalization to suit the character of African states in a projected federal United States of Africa; solutions to ethnic conflicts that are bound to happen over clashes of competing group interests; the indispensability and promotion of information communication technologies and urgent need to strengthen a network of regional electric power grids that would provide constant energy to the Union and lead to improvement in communication and economic growth; and recommendation of social democracy as the genre of democracy suitable for a proposed United States of Africa.

It is one thing to craft superb human rights tenets in a constitution and another to enforce such policies off paper. This book explores the contradictions between interpretations of constitutional tenets and the dogmas contained in the penal code of Islamic North Africa-particularly in regard to Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. Provided are brief histories of each country that connect the colonial past to present-day human rights records. The author also suggests ways in which to mitigate human rights infractions to advance peaceful coexistence that could promote political and economic development.

This book brings the quandaries that many minority groups confront in Latin America, Asia and Africa into the limelight. The chapters in this volume-written by experts on this subject-matter-examine and provide invaluable solutions to the human rights infractions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa.

After World War I, the League of Nations assigned management of the German colony of Namibia to Britain, which passed control to South Africa as a "trophy" for the country's support during the war. The League mandated that South Africa prepare the country for independence, but South Africa showed no sign of working toward that goal. The clash over interpretation of the League's mandate led to 70 years of complicated diplomacy to solve the dispute. This incisive volume offers an in-depth analysis of the political and diplomatic efforts undertaken by representatives of the United Nations, Namibia, and South Africa--with the assistance of the international community, the Organization of African Unity, and Western powers--during the struggle for self-rule in Namibia from 1920 to 1990. This classic example of conflict resolution technique in global and African studies provides a useful template for conflict negotiation around the world.

African Renaissance in the Millennium frames a critical debate for the essential and necessary transformation of Africa in this epoch. E. Ike Udogu highlights how the political, social, and economic development enterprises are to be vigorously pursued in order to advance the continent's renewal. Bringing into focus the discourses that are significant to move the continent forward, the author provides possible strategies that might lead to peaceful coexistence, development, and generation of wealth for the area's recovery. After several decades of policy missteps, inadequate government, ethnic and religious conflicts, and civil war, Africa is in need of this resurgence.African Renaissance in the Millennium is a book appropriate to all levels of students and researchers with an interest in Africa's future.

While the specific focus of this work is African American politics in the 'margins' of the South, this timely work examines minority and ethnic politics in rural America and other democratic societies. More importantly, this study explores the politics of everyone with a racial and ethnically diverse rural root_and how the majority versus minority political competition is played out in society. Unlike most books on national, state, and local governments, African American Politics in Rural America is concerned with theory and political actors_particularly their perceptions, frustrations, and, sometimes, satisfaction with the complex processes of governance at the grassroots level in American politics.