State Fragility, State Formation, and Human Security in Nigeria

This book explores the linkages between state failure, self-help, and self-organization with regards to Nigerian civil society.

The democratic transition processes in Africa since the 1990s have carried great hopes and expectations about ''civil society'' and ambivalence about the state. This book explores the complex interactions between state fragility, self-help, and self organization in Nigeria. Nigeria''s associational life is highly developed and multifaceted, reaching far beyond ''civil society organizations'' (CSOs) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There is a ''third sector'' within civil society that encompasses a spectrum extending from community-based forms of self-help to ethnic or religious representation, and even militias. Some self organization formations have narrow, pragmatic aims. Others have an explicit socio-cultural or political agenda. Many respond to, and cope with consequences of the Nigerian state''s inability to deliver services and provide functioning regulatory frameworks. Examining and analyzing the emergence of broader forms of civil society, the book considers its roots, dynamics and successes, but also pinpoints its costs, ambivalences, and contradictions. Despite strong traditions of self-organization in Nigeria, many pressure groups, organizations defending rights, independent policy consultants and other structures known as ''civil society organizations'' are also dependent on foreign aid. The book contributes to deliberations on the relationship between state and civil society in Nigeria, Africa, and globally.