Nigeria: After the Nightmare

by Iyorwuese Hagher

Overview

Nigeria: After the Nightmare is an in-depth look into the Nigerian experience, explaining what went wrong during the country’s thirty years of dictatorship. The book describes Nigeria's problems including oil, corruption, and dictatorship, but also provides a way for Nigeria to recover and become a leading democratic state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761855392
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/18/2011
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Iyorwuese Hagher, Ph.D., is Nigeria's high commissioner to Canada and has served in the past as Nigeria's ambassador to Mexico (2004-2007), minister of state for health (1995-1998), and a member of Nigerian Senate. He has also taught drama and conducted research in African indigenous theaters at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the University of Jos, and he has been an activist for change in Nigeria, using theater as an advocacy tool advocacy for youth, reproductive health issues, including HIV/AIDS, and development and for exposing and fighting corruption.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Part I The Brink Scenario

Prologue: Snapshots 3

Introduction 7

1 The State of the Nation 11

2 Under Western Eyes: Images of Nigeria 31

Part II Nightmare Scenario

3 Afflictions 57

4 Nigeria's Troublesome Path to Underdevelopment 75

5 The Clash of Ignorance 91

Part III Revival Scenario

6 The Role of Intellectual Leadership in National Revival 105

7 The Role of the Nigerian Diaspora in National Revival 119

8 The Role of the Youth 137

9 The Next Nigerian President 147

Epilogue 157

Bibliography 163

About the Author 167

Editorial Reviews

Professor Hagher has had several distinguished careers, from the theatre, to scholarship and teaching, to politics and diplomacy. In all these endeavors his aim has been the betterment of his people and his country. This book is filled with stimulating and often controversial observation and analysis, bringing together information and insights Hagher has gained in the course of his wide-ranging path through life. It will surely stimulate much useful discussion and debate. It is an essential read for anyone who cares about Nigeria's future, as Hagher obviously deeply does.

Philip Ostien

A lyrical and robust analysis of the state of the Nigerian nation, Nigeria: After the Nightmare renders the idea of Nigeria in a simple, readable and exquisite prose. In his analysis of the Nigerian State at the turn of the 21st century, Hagher provides many scenarios but instead of making absolute his preferred position, he tacitly solicits the engagement of the reader with the text, inviting him into the very soul of the Nigerian nation. This is an excellent text from a narrator who loves the subject, his country. It is passionate, exuberant, forthright. Indeed, it is the counter-narrative of all the dooms-day accounts predicting the end of Nigeria. For those interested in understanding Nigeria as a postcolonial entity, Hagher's book provides the answer-in absolute terms.

Stephen A. Faleti

The subtitle of his highly informative and insightful volume - Dancing on the Brink - could not be more apt....Ambassador Campbell's main message is that we cannot continue to take for granted that Nigeria will always manage to pull back from the precipice. There are all sorts of grim signs of increasing political decay, corrupt governance, and no future for the millions of young Nigerians coming on to the labor market. Campbell is telling us that if nothing is done to turn Nigeria around, we may witness a slow descent into tragedy.

American Foreign Policy Interests

Professor Hagher has had several distinguished careers, from the theatre, to scholarship and teaching, to politics and diplomacy. In all these endeavors his aim has been the betterment of his people and his country. This book is filled with stimulating and often controversial observation and analysis, bringing together information and insights Hagher has gained in the course of his wide-ranging path through life. It will surely stimulate much useful discussion and debate. It is an essential read for anyone who cares about Nigeria's future, as Hagher obviously deeply does.

Philip 'stien

Amazing read! Professor Iyorwuese Hagher's signature brio seethes through every page of this wonderful book, bearing tales of the dilemmas, challenges, and fault lines that have beggared every hope of an auspicious arrival in Nigeria's march to postcolonial nationhood. History, sociology, and cultural analysis are beautifully and forcefully woven to map Nigeria out of her current challenges into her future possibilities. Hagher is brutally honest in terms of his own intellectual and political imbrication in Nigeria's national question. But he is no pessimist. It is precisely this attribute-intellectual honesty-that has accorded him the Archimedean position for this truly awesome analysis. This book will be read and talked about by future generations.

Pius Adesanmi

This is finally the book the world has been waiting for about Nigeria. It captures the contours of Nigeria's rise and fall, and the road map towards its final rise to greatness. Professor Hagher's book is a rare combination and perfect blend of theory and praxis drawing from the author's unique and distinguished careers as legislator, political activist, diplomat, scholar and public intellectual. This book can seriously change all your previous perceptions about Nigeria. It is a must-read for diplomats, development workers, aid organisations and all Nigerians.

Abdullahi Mustapha PhD

This is finally the book the world has been waiting for about Nigeria. It captures the contours of Nigeria's rise and fall, and the road map towards its final rise to greatness. Professor Hagher's book is a rare combination and perfect blend of theory and praxis drawing from the author's unique and distinguished careers as legislator, political activist, diplomat, scholar and public intellectual. This book can seriously change all your previous perceptions about Nigeria. It is a must-read for diplomats, development workers, aid organisations and all Nigerians.

Abdullahi Mustapha