Journal of Nation-building & Policy Studies (JoNPS) Special Issue, October 2022 Guest Editor: Prof Victor Ojakorotu
About This Edition
ISSN : 2516-3124 E-ISSN: 2516-3132
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In contemporary Africa, the quest for nation building has largely deviated from the plan and policies of visionary African leaders at the independent. These African visionaries, have advocated and established policies of national value that would largely contribute to patriotism and national pride in Africa. They have, through, a wide range of processes and policies achieve national integration, which in turn, have immensely enhanced political and economic development for the general citizenry. However, this spirit of national integration and nation building that was originally built on Pan-Africanism has been soiled with unprecedented level of socio-politico indifference, poverty, corruption, and insecurity, inequalities, discrimination, and leadership deficit, poor investment in education, infrastructure, and health, among others, in contemporary Africa. Indeed, the quest for nation building is one of the national interests of most African states as majority of them have enunciated policies geared towards national pride and national unity. Despite these well-intended programmes and policies purposively fabricated to enhance nation building, Africa’s unity is still plagued and ravaged by socio-religious, cultural, socio-politico dichotomies. This has bequeathed the continent more problems, such that some African countries have become theatres of war and violence doe to high level of dichotomies that cut across all sectors. Except several moves were made to checkmate tendencies of disunity and division towards national integration, the long expected nation building in many African countries will remain as a dream.
To allay this fear, many African countries have implemented programmes aimed at national unity and integration. However, these efforts have remained largely unrealized partly due to the fact that the history of democratization in Africa, has remained the history of national disintegration. Thus, the nation building crisis facing most African countries is manifested in forms of perceived marginalization of the minority and majority groups, religious ideological difference, insurgency, bandits, bad governance, conflicts, ethnic identity, indigene-settler dialectic, resource control, youth restiveness and militancy and the clamor for secession or the questioning of the terms and conditions of the nation’s continued unification. The current divergences in most African states has quivered the dynamic viable sector, exacerbate social insecurity, deepened the deterioration of social and physical infrastructures, reduced the living standards and quality of life of Africans, retarded the educational and health system and resulted in the exclusion of vast majority of them from the political and economic space, among other bugs. All of these negative attributes have largely made nation building remained as a wishful thinking or dream in Africa.
To transform this dream into reality in Africa, efforts need to be channeled by post-colonial African governments to the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes that are capable of promoting nation building. This is because, unlike African visionary leaders, post-colonial African governments, have been quick at formulating policies aimed at promoting nation-building but seem to be very slow or retard in the implementation of these policies. This raises the concern for the need for research interventions that can promote Africa’s nation building through relevant implementable policies. Journal of National Building and Policy Studies, has continually offered veritable platform, where, scholars within and outside Africa, can disseminate findings of well-researched articles on issues and policies that promote nation-building in most African countries.
This special edition of the Journal of Nation Building and Policy Studies is a collection of multi-disciplinary research articles that discussed in details issues bothering on nation building and policy making and implementation. Findings from well-researched articles that cover range of issues such as impact of violent protest on nation building, Fulani Pastoralism and National Integration Question, Tigray conflict and the crisis of nation building, party politics and political communication, generational cohort, legitimacy and nation building, judicial reform and electoral security, civil society, COVID-19 pandemic and state corruption, local economic development and women's empowerment, Covid-19 and the Future of migration and mobility, among others, would advance knowledge on how African leaders and public policy makers within the continent can design public policies that can adequately address problems facing nation building. It offers policy guide to African leaders, state and non-state actors, policy-makers, and other relevant stakeholders, striving for nation building. Besides, findings from these articles provide adequate information about the connection between policy making and nation building that can adequately contribute to sustainable development in Africa.