Nigeria in the Fourth Republic

E. Ike Udogu is faculty fellow and professor of African, comparative, and international politics at Appalachian State University.

• ForewordA. B. Assensoh and Yvette M. Alex-AssensohPrefaceAcknowledgementsList of Abbreviations and Acronyms1.General IntroductionE. Ike Udogu2.False Starts and Missed Opportunities in Nigerian PoliticsGeorge K. Kieh, Jr.3.Public Policy and Economic Development in NigeriaKelechi A. Kalu4.Strategic Reforms to Resuscitate the Nigerian Healthcare SystemPhilip C. Aka and Joseph A. Balogun5.Christian-Muslim Conflict in Post-Civil War Nigeria: Prelude to the Fourth RepublicOlufemi Vaughan6.The Nigerian Police Highway Corrupt Practices: Strategies to Curb the TransgressionBennett A. Odunsi7.Subaltern Voices and Implications for Nigerian Politics in the Fourth Republic: A Theoretical and Conceptual AnalysisSamuel Zalanga8.Human Rights Conundrums in the Fourth Republic: A Search for SolutionE. Ike UdoguBibliography

Nigeria in the Fourth Republic: Confronting the Contemporary Political, Economic, and Social Dilemma,which was initiated and edited by distinguished Professor E. Ike Udogu to honor one of the best activists, engaged social scientists, and a nationally committed politician in Nigeria, a dedicated representative from Edo State, Honorable Professor Julius O. Ihonvbere, is a truly powerful book. This is an encyclopedic, a multidisciplinary, a philosophically profound, a nationally sound policy-framed book with distinguished and seasoned contributing scholars to address critical issues about the national question, the nature of the state formation, policy and permanency of the Nigerian crisis, faulty leadership, corruption, ethnic and religious conflicts and deteriorating health, social and economic conditions. All these combined negative factors have been paralyzing the stability and the progress of Nigeria, despite its oil-based capital and an important demographic portion of its able intellectuals.This enriched analytical volume, which focuses on the Nigerian 4th Republic politics, embodies its claimed paradigmatic positive shifts and nationally examined policy within framework of good governance, pragmatism of liberal democracy, the Nigerian model, is a brilliantly well-articulated, well-thought, and a factually and historically based publication with strongly imagined solutions. It is a highly and urgently recommended reading for those who govern, Nigerian people, and the African and Nigerian intellectuals and entrepreneurs who are interested in deeply understanding what went wrong in the formation of the Nigerian federal state with its authoritarianism, and what is to be done.The possible and potential salvation by creating a transformative leadership in Nigeria is a dialectically and structurally constructed argument, persuasively relevant and ideologically progressive, which every enlightened mind with intellectual curiosity and policymakers should possess, read, and adopt in their works, courses, and policy platforms. There is a lot to learn from the deep side of the Nigerian leadership, intellectuals, politics, history, and its ‘corky’ federalism. Intellectually, researchers will find this immense contribution from critical social scientists a gratifying reading.