In this groundbreaking work the essayist and critic Adewale Maja-Pearce delivers a mordant
verdict on Nigeria’s crisis of democracy. A mosaic of ethnic and religious groups the most
populous country in Africa was fabricated by British colonizers at the turn of the twentieth
century. In the years since its independence in 1960 Nigeria spent an unbroken quarter century
as a military dictatorship. Yet the blessings of today’s democracy are unclear to many
especially among the more than half of the population living in extreme poverty. Buffeted by
unemployment saddled with debt menaced by bandits and Islamic fundamentalists Nigeria faces
the threat of disintegration. Maja-Pearce shows that recent mobilizations against police
brutality sexism and homophobia reveal a powerful undercurrent of discontent especially
among the country’s youth. If Nigeria has a future he shows here it is in the hands of young
people unwilling to go on as before.
