Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

<em>Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare (Eds.). Encountering the Nigerian State</em>. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

2012; Indiana University Press; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2979/africonfpeacrevi.2.1.167

2156-695X

Kobo,

African history and culture studies

Reviewed by: Encountering the Nigerian State Ousman Murzik Kobo Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare (Eds.). Encountering the Nigerian State. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. ix-253 pp. Index. Hardcover, $85.00. ISBN 978–0–230–62234–0. Most academic discussions of postcolonial African states tend to focus on the state and its institutions and neglect the profound engagements between the state and nonstate actors. Since state actions do not occur in a political vacuum, failure to pay critical attention to the interaction between state actors and various parastatal institutions, organizations, and individuals leaves us with a limited understanding of the complexity and indeed fallibility of the postcolonial African state. Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare’s edited volume, Encountering the Nigerian State, thus fills a conspicuous and crucial lacuna in exploring the state as a “zone of different and differing encounters” (p. 21). Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, and perhaps the most complicated in terms of its colonial and postcolonial histories, provides ample empirical evidence for reconstructing or deconstructing the theory of the postcolonial African state beyond the dominant discourse that project the state as dysfunctional or a failure. Based on the premise that the postcolonial state is real, and thus neither a “fetish” nor a “fantasy” nor a “pathology” (since its enduring impact is evident through its institutions and agents), the various chapters address a range of questions about how different actors and agents encounter and understand the state. How does the state acquire and utilize power? How is it that “this power itself constitutes, or forms its subjects, providing the very conditions of the existence of the subjects and the trajectories of their desires and aspirations” (p. 2)? [End Page 167] And finally, “How do the experiences of the physicalities of the state as manifested, for instance, in its arrogation of consolidated violence, structure other (nonlegitimate?) violence” (p. 3)? In essence, the authors are interested in addressing how the encounters between the state and social actors shape social action and social life. While not losing sight of the centrality of the state as the ultimate arbiter of economic, political, and social power, the authors also highlight the fragility of the state in terms of the ways the state responds to the various strategies pursued by a range of actors seeking to impose their own demands on it or constrain its overwhelming power. The Nigerian state’s monopoly on violence is thus mediated not only by what the state intends to do (although this is also very important), but also by the type of demands and constraints imposed on the state by other state actors. Beyond the dominant idea that state power is absolute is the possibility that a strategic symbiotic relationship or mutual dependency exists between the state and its various units (subjects), where power is constantly been negotiated, challenged, imposed, and resisted. This mutual dependency and contestation is discernible only if we pay close attention to the zone of engagement between the state and the citizens. As the editors rightly point out, “If the state as the ultimate power forms its subjects, then the state is not merely what is opposed by elements, say in civil or political society, but strongly what they also depend on to authorize and actualize their existence” (p. 2). The chapters address issues ranging from less violent acts of defying the state’s conception of space (Sheriff Folarin’s chapter on the creation of Maroko slum in Lagos and its destruction by the Lagos State Government) to more violent encounters, as in Isaac Olawale Albert’s chapter on political assassination (ch. 9). The discussions also include abstract themes illustrated by empirical evidence, such as the contributions of Sarah Lincoln (ch. 3), Ayo Olukotun’s chapter on the state and media (ch. 7), and Bukola Akintola’s discussion of Nigerian students’ engagement with the state. Thus, the volume gives a lucid picture of the interaction between the Nigerian state and non-state actors. Although highly theoretical, the empirical evidence drawn on by the authors to support their arguments clearly illuminates the ways various parastatal institutions and individual/group actors engage with the state through encounters such as demanding equitable distributions of physical...