Between humanity and the African State

By: Ademola Araoye

The thoughts of Nigeria elicits the acrid observation of Susan Williams that tackling the complex, compelling and often disturbing narratives of the Congo, and indeed of post-colonial Africa, overwhelms with a deep sense of trepidation and paralyzing anxiety. Nigeria and its institutionalized tyranny of deadly authoritative irrationality evokes the same apprehensions. The crisis of post-colonial multinational statehood is pervasive. Yet, the challenge of the multinational state is not peculiar to Africa. What is unique is the penchant for irrational political choices in managing structural and pertinent complexities of the post-colonial-state. The devolution of Scandinavia into optimally functioning organic statehoods suggests there is a more rational human centered approaches to the crisis emanating from the structural incongruences of multinational states. The conclusion is that irrational choices are at the heart of Africa’s internal wars that constantly spell doom for the unfortunate humanity of Africa.

The human dimension of repeated avoidable tragic descent of black humanity into a hellhole leaves an indelible imprint on perspectives on Africa’s political elites. Bad governance, including pawning off national assets to the predator states, it would appear, is a quid pro quo for ruinous services to the elite predator states. That settled, the African leader is forgiven all transgressions. Unfortunately, Nigeria presents stout empirical evidence of this. I guess it is the nature of the post-colonial state.

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The post-colonial state in Africa is a sociological amalgam of diverse nations. This genre of state is inevitably the theater of a permanent struggle by all constituent nations contained in that territory to appropriate the totality of the political, economic, and cultural space for the partisan benefit of the dominant constituent nation. The state is the theater of intense struggle for hegemonic ascendance. Accordingly, conflict is inherent in the post-colonial state’s multiple instrumental character. At its basic level, the post-colonial state is a vehicle for partisan imposition of often clashing interests of contending groups within the mechanically cobbled state. Allied groups of the contesting nations in the immediate external environment may be implicated in the confrontations to dominate the policy process. Conflicts in the post-colonial state may thus result from competition at the first level over domination by internal forces and their transnational allies. It may also emanate from the actions of second-level actors struggling to consolidate their historical control over that state. In either case, the dynamics and trajectories of conflicts generated in the post-colonial state are determined by the interaction between the two-level forces, variously in collaboration or opposition, to achieve a certain strategic outcome in that conflict. The nature of relationships elicited by the structure of the inter-state system and external environment also impacts the internal characteristics of the post-colonial state.

Strategic interaction among groups is characterized by permanent competition for control of the state. Accordingly, the pursuit of particularistic objectives often takes the form of competing visions of just, legitimate, and appropriate political orders. The political process becomes a rivalry among contending groups to control resources and dominate state policy, which becomes the communal agenda of competing entities within and without the post-colonial state. This dynamic generates clear security imperatives that drive the constituent groups’ struggle to appropriate the state. The political process is an unending struggle without safeguards for any of the forces involved.

In the nominal democratic culture of the post-colonial state, which is marked by the absence of commitment to any social or ideological principles, the population structure, especially along group lines, becomes a critical indicator of the potential configuration of power between the constituent forces in the post-colonial state. Demography, each group’s resources, and its capacity to organize effectively determine groups’ political power. The struggle among contending forces to appropriate the state weakens it and undermines its capacity to function and protect everyone’s interests. This breeds insecurity in the political process and leads constituent units to factor it into their strategic calculus as they interact with other contestants for domination of the social, political, and economic space. The national process becomes a zero-sum game, and the state becomes totalitarian. 

The tensions and schisms that emanate from Nigeria’s sociological construction are therefore not unique to it. They reflect a universal experience. However, how societies have resolved the challenges posed by such difficult sociological constructs reflects each society’s fundamental values. These values have propelled and differentiated policies underpinned by rational, lifesaving realism in human-centered systems from societies that operate on irrational, aberrant idealism and fixations. The latter has implied catastrophic consequences for the humanity trapped in the political contraption. Many of these imploded systems are in underdeveloped countries. Irrational political choices founded on emotional and sentimental considerations are thus at the heart of the terrible internecine wars in the Third World. The imperative of saving lives has defined the peaceful separation of troubled states in sophisticated societies, in contrast to the catastrophic humanitarian disasters associated with Africa. 

As Scandinavia’s devolution from one vast state in the early 19th century to many smaller, sovereign, prosperous states in the twenty-first century illustrates, in more sophisticated societies premised on an absolute premium on the sanctity of human life, the solution to structural disequilibrium has been organic devolution into its constituent nations. This may be through peaceful negotiations aimed at ensuring constructive post-separation interaction between former compatriots. Referendum is always the tool to resolve the legitimacy of the call to exit a multinational state. Peacefully overcoming seemingly irresolvable conflicts arising from structural complexities within the state reflects the fundamental rationality that undergirds the system, and the absolute centrality and sacredness of human life and well-being over considerations of the state’s longevity. Every state is a mere convenient contrivance. It is not a sacred institution to be protected at the expense of the humanity it was created to serve.

Nigeria may choose to elicit a few lessons from Scandinavia.

Prof Ademola Araoye is a conflict analyst and author of Sources of Conflict in Post Colonial African States.