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Waning Strength of Government: Essays on Nigerian Governance
In Waning Strength of Government, Obaze draws on twenty-three of his various speeches, policy briefs, lectures and op-eds, to render exploratory essays that dissect some common patterns and trajectories that point anthetically to factors and conducts, which ought to constitute the strength of government, but don’t. In so doing, he unmasks the prevailing weaknesses and waning strength of government – the attendant consequences, and their prevalence and implications for Nigeria.
Such developments, with the attendant reversals, some nondescript and some dramatic, but replete with absence of resilience, leads the author to assert that democracy, “once characterized as probably the greatest expansion of freedom,” has come under assault from within its ranks, as shifts in geopolitics combine with ascendancy of non-state actors to undercut democracy. Cognizant of the suggestion that the democratic system as conceptualized, has not just worked as expected, but is rather dysfunctional, the author asserts that nowhere is this consideration more evident and concrete than in Africa, Nigeria included.
Waning Strength of Government piggybacks on the assertion that Nigeria’s “democracy is in reverse gear” and “the story is that of regrets and missteps.” Obaze employs an inquiry and excursion model using the flipside of McGeorge Bundy’s 1968 seminal book, The Strength of Government, to analyze leadership, political and governance challenges that continue to dog Nigeria’s nascent democracy. The essays in this volume, which are clustered into four groupings; democratic imperatives; domestic development challenges; foreign policy dimensions and leadership and governance, explore some Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT), as well as general challenges and uncertain aspects of Nigeria’s affected democracy.
In this very important work on Nigerian contemporary politics, leadership and dilemmas confronting the nation, the point is made severally, and vehemently too, that the strength of government is not about military capacity or use of force; but about the upholding the rule of law, consolidating democratic institutions and entrenching the social contract between the government and the governed.
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Times, Thoughts and Ideas: Selected papers of Professor Anya O. Anya (Volume 1)
Selected papers of Professor Anya O. Anya.
Compiled and Edited by Ndubuisi Ofondu, Ireke A Kalu Onuma, Ogbonna Oleka.
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Times, Thoughts and Ideas: Selected papers of Professor Anya O. Anya (Volume 2)
Selected papers of Professor Anya O. Anya.
Compiled and Edited by Ndubuisi Ofondu, Ireke A Kalu Onuma, Ogbonna Oleka.
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The Christian Life in a Postmodernist World (Hardcover)
In times of postmodernism and the rise of secular humanism that tend to taint and mask the Christian faith; there is an urgent need to unveil and clarify the faith of Christians. This book exposes the content of the Christian faith in today’s context from Christian traditional heritage and history in a trinitarian manner and as taught by the scriptures. It is a timely resource for Church and the Christian’s empowerment.
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Closing the Books: Governor Edward Carstensen on Danish Guinea (1842-50)
Sitting on the terrace of the royal plantation Frederiksgave, his favourite retreat, Governor Edward Carstensen came to see the inevitable: Denmark had to give up her “possessions” in Africa. As fate would have it, he came to be the instrument by which two centuries of Danish involvement on the Gold Coast was terminated, thereby making way for the emergence of the colonial system that developed there.
After the abolition of the slave trade, Denmark had struggled to find ways and means to legitimate her continued stay at the Coast. At an early stage the Danes initiated a number of attempts to establish experimental plantations to cultivate export crops such as cotton, coffee and sugar. But a transition from slave trade to “legitimate” products required stability and peace, and a need for control, which the rather limited Danish presence was not able to maintain.
Closing the Books comprises a compilation of the official reports that the last Danish Governor sent home during his term of office at the Gold Coast. The reports reflect his personal views regarding the economic and political situations there, as well as his ideas on the “civilization of Africa”.
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The African Predicament: Collected Essays
This collection of Kofi Awoonor’s writings comprises essays written over a period of three decades, and includes several previously unpublished pieces. According to the author himself: ‘[they] reflect a life-time of engagement in literature and politics, my two passions…’
Kofi Awoonor addresses a diverse range of subjects from an African perspective: the slave trade, post-independence history, globalisation, and the fate of the African continent given the twin scourges of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Literary criticism considers the legacy of W.E.B DuBois, and in a contemporary context, Kofi Anyidoho’s poetry. Further essays are reflections composed during the author’s long sojourns in the US: on Negro, Afro-American, black, African-American and African and identities. Further essays cover historical and political topics, such as the overthrow of Nkrumah, and the UN in relation to Africa in the post-Cold War period.
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The Mind of Africa
The Mind of Africa, written while the author was A Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, was a fruit of that enlarged perspective. After several years, he visited Ghana in 1962. There Kwame Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, successfully persuaded him to return to teach at the University of Ghana, Legon and he subsequently resigned from All Souls. In 1968, he went to the United States as a visiting professor. This was followed by invitations to teach at various academic institutions there, including Berkeley and Stanford. He subsequently settled in California, where he continued to teach and research philosophy in the University of California at Santa Cruz until his retirement.
The Mind of Africa appeared at a time when a number of African countries were obtaining, or fighting for, their political freedom from their colonial rulers; and becoming independent nations expecting to build new societies in accordance with their own visions and conceptions, though not necessarily jettisoning all the features of their colonial heritage. Building new societies requires appropriate ideologies and philosophies fashioned within the crucible of their cultural and historical experiences. Thus, the relation between ideology and society is taken up at the very outset of the book… The Mind of Africa is important for Africa’s future and identity.
₵70.00The Mind of Africa
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…Power to the People: Reflections on Retrogressive Politics
Published in 1984…Power to the People is a doctor’s medicine for Ghana’s ills. The pill is occasionally bitter, but is coated with a generous layer of therapeutic laughter, to help its message slide gently into the appropriate organs of the national digestive system.
Presented in the form of prose, poetry and cartoons, the first part of the book, subtitled The Past, covers the Nkrumah, Kotoka, Afrifa & Ankrah, Busia, Acheampong & Akuffo, Rawlings 1979 and Limann eras. The second part, subtitled The Present, covers the first three years of the second coming of Rawlings.
In a satirical treatment of our history over almost 30 years, this book sheds a great light onto the paths that Ghana traversed in those heady years, in a form that is easy to read, reflect on and learn.
In the author’s own words, “in recording these…my hope is that others would be induced to ponder over and question loudly some of those short-comings, lapses and omissions in our national character and situation which are stifling our growth and retarding the country’s progress. If our questions get loud and irritating enough to cause discomfiture in our policy makers, then the reader wouldn’t have been bored for nothing.”
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Speaking of Africa: Did You Know That…?
The book is a simple introduction to Africa. The writer takes the reader on an imaginary journey to all the countries that make up the continent of Africa. On the make- believe trip, the reader familiarised with each country by learning through bullet points and questions, each country’s location, it’s neighbours, it’s capital, it’s currency, short history and any other interesting feature about the country. The book has been recommended by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, (NaCCA), for use as supplementary material for Junior and Senior high schools.
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Speaking of Ghana: Did You Know That…?
The book is a simple story about Ghana, intended to be a companion to students, and all people who would like to know more about Ghana. It is written in a simple style, and through bullet points and questions, teaches some basic facts about Ghana’s recent political history as well as essential information about each of the sixteen regions. The book is a peek into Ghana, but gives the reader a broad view of the country.
The book has been recommended by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, (NaCCA) for use as supplementary material for Junior and Senior high schools.₵65.00 -
An Ethnographic Study of Northern Ghanaian Conflicts: Towards a Sustainable Peace
Conflict in Northern Ghana appears to be increasing in amplitude and frequency and its effects are getting more devastating. It is the view of this book that The Government of Ghana and civil society organisations involved in aspects of conflict management have approached peace issues in the region with an inadequate understanding of the local issues that divide and unite the people, or using sufficient resources to preempt conflict.
In 2003 The Mole V summit was held in Damongo to discuss strategic directions for comprehensive development and poverty reduction in Northern Ghana as a mechanism for supporting conflict management.
It is the aim of this publication to contribute to the proposed plan by suggesting past and current conflict management resources and mechanisms which could be employed. The suggestions are informed by surveys, which are outlined in the book, of particular conflicts in the three northern Regions of Ghana between 2006 and 2008 – their histories, causes and efforts and their resolution.
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Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol I: A Brief and Truthful Description of a Journey to and from Guinea
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.
One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
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Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol II: A Description of the Guinea Coast and its Inhabitants
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.
One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
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A Danish Jew in West Africa: Wulff Joseph Wulff Biography And Letters (1836-1842)
Wulff’s life history is of considerable interest in itself. In her biographical essay (Part I) Selena Axelrod Winsnes portrays him as a ‘marginal man’: being a Jew in Denmark at the beginning of the 19th century was to some extent an uphill struggle for those who sought public recognition, and Wulff did not escape discrimination in his administrative career at Christiansborg either, although special circumstances allowed him to hold important positions, and yet, only for the short term.
Paradoxically, on his arrival to the Gold Coast Wulff — as a Jew — was placed in a middle position in the racial hierarchy dominating the mind-set of his superiors in Copenhagen — between Africans and Europeans. In many respects he shared the fate of Euro-Africans, straddling two worlds and being ‘sealed off’ from the top echelons of the European establishments on the Coast.
This book comprises two parts. The first is a biographical presentation of Wulff Joseph Wulff , a Danish Jew. It is an essay concerning the last six years of his life, spent on the Gold Coast of West Africa, based on letters he wrote to his family in Denmark. Those letters were published in 1917 as Da Guinea var Dansk [When Guinea was Danish], by Carl Behrens, a member of his family in Denmark. The second part of the book is an edited translation of the letters from Danish into English.
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BBC World Service: Women Making a Difference – The Book of the English Language Teaching Radio Series for Africa
Women Making a Difference, a radio series and a book which explores the issues confronting women in Africa. It is a collaboration between the BBC World
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