Pre-colonial Africa prides itself on adherence to diverse cultural affinity and traditional belief systems, which defines the place of women in respect to land access, use and ownership. Land resources continue to play important roles in both agrarian and industrial societies; thus the absence of effective land management and gender construction in land allocations has deepened gender inequality, restricted women’s capacity building and agricultural development in Africa. This article explores the impact of traditional African practices and cultural beliefs on women’s land ownership and use, and also reconciles women’s land rights (access and control) with the realities of land reform in post-colonial Africa. It explores how gender inequalities, in terms of land ownership and rights, have jeopardized attempts at agricultural productivity and sustainable development in Africa. However, it is tasking to ‘universalize’ African culture and locate it in a center, due to the diverse cultural values found in Africa. However, there are certain belief systems that run through most African communities, such as the denial of women’s land rights and the patriarchal nature of societies. Thus, the article found that, despite the development of legal frameworks that expand women’s property rights, cases of cultural impediments to the exercise of land rights abound in Africa.
Over the decades, there has been a recurrent and sustained argument that the Nigerian state, like its counterparts in Africa and other countries of the developing world, underperforms due to lack of state capacity to deal with the contemporary complexities of governance. This article examines the state of governance in Nigeria and assesses the factors militating against the promotion of public good and effective service delivery in the country. The article draws data from secondary and primary sources, which include the authors' close observations of events in Nigeria. Governance and political leadership in Nigeria have been driven by self-interest and other primordial considerations, which take priority over that of the public. The state has failed in three major areas: security of lives and properties, promotion of the rule of law, and provision of visionary leadership. In conclusion, the nature and characters of the political leadership explains the Nigerian state incapacity for effective governance.
This book series serves as a scholarly forum on African contributions to and negotiations of diverse modernities over time and space, with a particular emphasis on historical developments. Specifically, it aims to refute the hegemonic conception of a singular modernity, Western in origin, spreading out to encompass the globe over the last several decades. Indeed, rather than reinforcing conceptual boundaries or parameters, the series instead looks to receive and respond to changing perspectives on an important but inherently nebulous idea, deliberately creating a space in which multiple modernities can interact, overlap, and conflict. While privileging works that emphasize historical change over time, the series will also feature scholarship that blurs the lines between the historical and the contemporary, recognizing the ways in which our changing understandings of modernity in the present have the capacity to affect the way we think about African and global histories.
Many postcolonial African states have experienced violent conflicts, prompting the quest for viable approaches to conflict resolution and peace-building. Certain groups' desire to control power and resources at the expense of others lies at the heart of the racism, civil wars, armed insurrections, terrorism, ethnic conflict, genocide, xenophobia, and intracommunity and domestic conflict prevalent in Africa, particularly in countries that experienced prolonged foreign domination. The quest for peace and security led to the resurgence of Ubuntu, an African humanist ideology, as an indigenous approach to conflict resolution and peace-building. This article explores the place of Ubuntu in the continent's peace and security projects. Despite the utility of Ubuntu's principles in a few postconflict societies, the article highlights the difficulties involved in its adoption by state institutions, mainly due to the complex interactions exemplified by the modern state. However, adherence to the principles of Ubuntu by state and nonstate actors would drastically reduce threats to peace and security in Africa.
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