TOWARDS RECONSTRUCTING AFRICA’S FAILED STATES: THE IMPERATIVES OF AN
EFFECTIVE AND POWERFUL NIGERIAN STATE by Omoaholo Omoakhalen*
Abstract
The term “failed States” is increasingly used by political commentators to describe States which have lost
the monopoly of violence and are unable to deliver public goods. In legal analysis, States which, though
retaining legal status, have practically lost the capacity to utilize it could be said to be “failed States”. While
the term is somewhat controversial and there exists no established criteria for categorizing countries based
on the degree of failure under such inter-State fora as the United Nations, evaluation by independent
sources indicate that Africa has the worst incidence of State failure in the world. Various factors have been
identified as leading to State failure but this work proposes that the causes can be summed up in the
unwillingness or lack of capacity of States, as represented by governments, to guarantee citizens’ rights
under the social contract that exists between a State and the citizens. The provisions of this contract,
though hypothetical in political theory, have been expressly articulated or, at least, implied, in the corpus of
international law on the protection of human rights. However, these rights must be guaranteed in the
domestic frameworks of the State, including the culture, structure, institutions, constitution (municipal
law) and government for the State to be stable. The eruption of violence and the resultant instability which
is a frequent feature in failed States is both a reaction to the unwillingness, and a manifestation of the lack
of capacity, of States to guarantee these rights. Just as the domain reservez as enunciated in Article 2(7) of
the Charter of the United Nations has been eroded in respect of human rights, international intervention,
the degree of which depends on the degree of State failure, is required, within the frameworks of
international law, to fix failed States. Such intervention can only be spearheaded by powerful States and it
succeeds only when it is based on the international relations principle of identity. The international
community, led by the great powers, has through various mechanisms, including development assistance
and peacekeeping, sought to fix Africa’s failed States. This work argues that reconstruction is most
successful when it is facilitated by regional powers that have a shared identity with the States in question. It
makes a case for the emergence of an African great power with a pedigree of power projection and a
national character that moderates national interest with some degree of altruism expressed in a foreign
policy philosophy of Pan-Africanism and Afro-centrism to spearhead State building and reconstruction on
the Continent. It therefore argues that the Nigerian State is best fit for this role, and that, for that to occur,
the country’s paradoxical failing Statehood must be reversed and her power potential enhanced based on
the five frameworks identified as essential for effective and powerful statehood.
*Omoaholo Omoakhalen has just concluded the Master of International Law and Diplomacy program of the
University of Lagos, Nigeria.