The th!nc Foundation

Published in the June Edition of The Thinker. African post-colonial democracies and states are functioned by a perpetual need to undo the vestiges of colonialism. The passionate zeal with which this assignment is pursued creates in the state formation paradigm of the post-liberation rulers a government deconstruction firmament that always gets presented as a reconstruction and development programme. The anti-colonial rhetoric becomes the most visible constant in the nation-building endeavours of post-liberation governments. The manner in which the political settlement was reached has thus far been found to be what separates the state formation models of post-colonial governments in Africa. Given the development path of limiting ‘the reach of the African state’ and funding the extension of coherent governance beyond the colonial-urban centres, the necessity of building strong governance systems got inextricably linked to the amassing of political power by the ascendant political elite...