In a lecture, A State of Our Own, Eghosa Osaghae, Professor of Comparative Politics, posits that the state has failed to meet the imperatives of national cohesion and development. Examining Second Independence, federalism and the decolonization of the state in Africa, he presents the therapy for its viability. It was an inaugural lecture he delivered in his capacity as the Visiting Chair in Commonwealth Studies, at the Chancellor Hall, University of London on 9 April 2014.
He contests the notion of the inviolability of the state as prescribed in the 1963 OAU Charter. He argues that “although retention and stability of boundaries is crucial to the existence of a state,” it does not define its “functionality and effectiveness”. That the problems of war, terrorism, corruption and poverty in Africa are functions of the contested ownership of the state. He says the resolution of the legitimacy and ownership of the state, is fundamental to reforming institutions and strengthening of the agency of the state. It is about a state accountable to the people.
He posits:
“The state as it presently exists is the colonial state that was established to serve interests other than those of the people, who were and essentially remain subjects rather than citizens.”
In this case, the legitimacy of the state is called to question and its dissolution is possible. However, he rejects the concept of Failed State, a finality – the end of the state. In preferring the notion of Fragile States, he rejects the pronouncement that many African states are irredeemable due to the absence of a past tradition of statehood.
In this interrogation of the features of the state in Africa, Osaghae argues that the decolonization process in Africa is incomplete, meaning the state, an embodiment of colonization must be liberated to meet the aspirations of indigenous peoples. He acknowledges the ongoing second movement for independence, a decolonization process to appropriate, realign and reorientate the state.
It means the collapse of the “enduring social formations” from the colonial process. He is of the view that the crisis of contemporary African states is the struggle between the forces of colonialism and decolonization. He avers that “Second Independence aims at decolonization, something First Independence failed to do.”
He defines Second Independence as the resolution of the “flawed structural roots” of the state. This is different from the prescription of the hegemons of the international system, a recommendation that neglects the questions of legitimacy and ownership of the state, dwelling instead on economic reforms with “the character of an imposed paradigm”.
The scholar is saying that without the resolution of the legitimacy and ownership of the state, reforming institutions and strengthening of the agency of state becomes unachievable. And he defines federalism as the most suitable political framework for decolonising the state. It is federalism in its varieties to ensure the reinvention of the state for inclusive, equitable and accountable development – the state the people call their own.