State, Space and Power in Postcolonial Africa: Capital Relocation as a State Building Project in Nigeria

• Authors: Onyanta Adama
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article situates capital relocation in the broad context of state building processes in Nigeria. It examines how relocation provided the federal government with an opportunity to centralize power. Since independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria has faced acute nation and state building challenges. Over the years, several strategies have been adopted by successive governments to restructure the state. On February 3, 1976, the federal military government announced the decision to relocate the national capital from Lagos on the Atlantic coast, to Abuja in the center of the country. The rationale for relocation centered on the unsuitability of Lagos due to its dual role as national and state capitals, the peripheral location, and identification with a major ethnic group. However, the article reports that relocation not only meant the transfer of the locus of state power from the periphery to the center, but also provided an avenue for the federal government to reshape state norms and undermine lower tiers. The article presents Abuja as a space of power in both local and national contexts. The usurpation of the local space was achieved through the creation of new institutions and a highly centralized administration. In the case of the national space, the proximity of state capitals to the seat of national government has facilitated the deployment of the federal governments coercive apparatus over state or regional governors. In spite of these outcomes, the power of the federal government continues to be challenged. In the end, relocation has failed to achieve the main goals of state building including the creation of viable state institutions, political legitimacy and the provision of security. At the broadest level, the article implies that the structure or internal organization of the state and how it functions are crucial to successful state building.

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Hemispheres. Studies on Cultures and Societies
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 27
• Pages: 20-41

Contributors

author

Onyanta Adama