International records / OpenAlex research

State, Class and Underdevelopment in Nigeria

In one of his most celebrated speeches, Amilcar Cabral said that 'the problem of the nature of the state created after independence is perhaps the secret of the failure of African independence'.1 While the statement informs us of the state's centrality, it is hardly a correct interpretation of the post-colonial state in Africa. In all of independent sub-Saharan Africa no such new state has been created; rather the colonial state has been reinstated, and in most cases strengthened. As I analysed in Chapter 1, the colonial state was exploitative, not developmental. At independence, only the pers…